keith@dot.uk.com




WEDDING

Keith & Sam's Wedding Day 29th July 2017

by Lina & Tom

July 29th 2017. A date I'll never forget. probably the happiest day of my life (and I hope my Wife's too). We always had a plan, well that's not quite true. I never had a plan, just went through life witghout one really. I have my wife to thank for actually coming up with a plan. I'd just realised a dream by going to Antarctica. I came back and Sam asked what the plan was now. I said I didn't have one and she said she's like to buy a house, have kids and get married (in that order). Well, I had some decisions to make. I went upstairs, did some maths, realised we could afford a house so tht was the road started. Then, on Christmas day morning 2012 I asked Sam to marry me. I bought a "sweetheart" neclace with "Marry Me" on one side. I told Sam I wanted to give her a gift before we travelled to my parents, I think she thought it was going to be saucy and so was comletely taken aback when she saw what it was and just said "really?". I sadi yes and that was that. We finished our tenancy in Surrey and then bought our own little house back in Stevenage.

Having children isn't always as simple as you might think and whilst we've had no luck so far we decided to get married in the meantime. Finding a venue was surprisingly easy. Sam came home and said "we have to go and look at this venue". We did, we loved it, we chose it. It's an amzing place called South Farm close to Royston in Cambridgeshire. The venue, the gardens, the staff, everything is just perfect. Choosing a photographer was really iportant to me. I don't think I'm particularly attractive and hate having my photo taken. I can't pose to save my life so it was important to get a natural photographer. We eventiually chose a couple called Lina and Tom and it proved to be an amazing decision, they were great! My suit was easy. Sam called me up one day when she was in LOndon and said "I'm stood outside a tweed tailor in COvent Gerden called Walker Slater". Again, I went, I chose, I bought! Sam's wedding dress was a little more invoved but that's a story Sam will have to tell you! I learned a lot about photoshop and made pretty much everything printed. Save the dats, the invites, table names, seating plan, huge blackboard with order of the day. Sam made and designed the decorations, table decorations and then on the day I had my 2 best men, Mark and Jo, together with my honoroury best man Carolyn helping to set eveything up.

DATE: July 06 ,2019
CATEGORY: Wedding
TAGS: Photography, Wedding, Wife, Happiness



RUNNING

Crossing Tower Bridge London Marathon 2019.

by Keith Slater

I go through fazes with my fitness. There was a period where I did nothing. This was probably at Uni and then just after when my mind wasn't really on fitness. I then went to Germany and started snowboarding. The first time I went I woke up in the middle of the night in so much pain. I had used muscles that hadn't been used for years!

Then I came back to the UK and was pretty sedentary for a while. We all kind of woke up and decided to do a 10k. I wasn't happy with that so I started Triathlon, running 10ks etc. It culminated in Edinburgh Marathon and the Vitryvian, a half Ironman Triathlon. I was then diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes so my fitness took a break for a while. I would dip in and out with the odd 10k, lon (50 mile) bike ride, duathlon but nothing that kept me mega fit. Exercise on Insulin is not fun and can lead to distaster.

I've applied for the London Marathon every year for God knows how long. Every year the magazine with "Sorry!" comes through the door. It has a transparent cover as well so the postie can see how disappointed you're going to be. In 2018 it had a cover on it, a gold cover! And, yes, you guess it, this time the magazine said "You're In". Chuffed and a little scared I started training right then. All through Winter, a sort of break whilst we went round New Zealand and Oz and then back on the training again after that. Then, about 3 weeks before race day I did my last long run of 34k. I got home and within an hour couldn’t move my knee. I was convinced that was it, no marathon. I went to the physio the next day and she said I had ITBS but with rest and exercises should be ok. I rested for a week and tried running again. I had pain after about 5k. I figured the best way to make it to race day would be to rest it.

Race day arrived. The first task, get into London. Myself and a friend had planned to get the 06.40 train into London. There were engineering works and lots of trains cancelled and this one only went into Finsbury Park but that would be fine. At 06.10 we looked and sure enough, it was cancelled too. Luckily that friend’s Father was feeling generous and so drove us to Cockfosters where we got the tube to London Bridge. It was chaos! But, we found our respective trains and got to our respective starts. I was in the blue start from Blackheath. The start area was packed but very efficient. They even had female urinals (work that one out)! Bags on to a lorry and we were ready, just trying to keep warm until the start.

Start time for my wave was 10.35. Strava tells me I got over the start line at 10:45 so not far off. The first 5k were fine. The pace was ok. I was going faster than I wanted but it was hard to slow down. A lot of it was downhill so I didn’t worry too much. At about 5k my knee started hurting. Manageable pain. I was feeling ok otherwise. As we went past the Cutty Sark the crowds were amazing. I literally drew a breath. It was 5 people deep and a crescendo of noise. I then managed to spot both my family and Craig - Work colleague (who I wouldn’t have spotted were it not for him booming “Keith, Keith, KEEEEEEIIIIITH!!!!” somewhere around Canada Water. On to Tower Bridge. This was where Diabetes UK were based and in my opinion the highlight of the race. I thought Cutty Sark was good, Tower Bridge was off the scale. High fiving all of the Diabetes UK crew was a highlight of the day for sure!

Onwards to Canary Wharf and another hotspot for support. Again the huge crowds shouting your name and cheering you on. As I left the Isle of Dogs my knee started really hurting. Up to this point I was on target for a sub 5 hour race – which was my aim. I slowed right down and realised I wasn’t going to make this time. As the kilometres ticked down my knee started getting worse and the last 5k were agony. I was barely running, started feeling nauseous, didn’t really know what was going on.

My wife caught up with me with 1k to go and urged me to keep running. She was running next to me but to be honest I’m not sure what was going on at this point. Down the Mall and across the finish line. I don’t mind saying that it all got a bit emotional after getting my medal. Within 10 minutes my knee completely seized up.If my wife weren’t there to help Me the journey home would have been even worse than the 4 hours it took to get back to Stevenage (20 minutes from London). I then spent a week on the couch with a very swollen and bruised knee. Luckily my wife bought some crutches a couple of years ago and we decided to keep those for such an eventuality!

I’ve learnt a lot through this.

Training for a marathon is all consuming.
My wife has been incredibly patient. .
At my age (49) things break and take a while to fix..
The human body is capable of a lot more than we give it benefit for!.
Type 1 Diabetes won’t stop me doing anything. I managed to keep on top of this for the whole race..
The London Marathon is as amazing as people say. The organisation, the volunteers, the support..
I said immediately afterwards I’d never do it again. Since then I’ve entered the ballot for next year (it took 8 attempts for this one).Update: I also applied for a charity place and I've been sucessful, so it looks like I'm going through all this again!

DATE: July 02 ,2019
CATEGORY: Running
TAGS: Photography, Fitness, Running, Marathon



LIFE

One Man and his Dog.

by Keith Slater

For years I've kept pets. Mostly in the shape of small furry ones, hamsters, rabbits, chinchillas. I always said I didn't need a dog as I had other pets. I mean, I've always loved dogs but it wasn't practical so perhaps I was just kidding myself. Perhaps these other animals were a substitute. My wife always said she couldn't treat these animals in the same way as a dog as they were different, she didn't get anything back from them. I never really understood that at the time.

When we planned to move to Stevenage I only had one rabbit and a chinchilla left alive. Same said that if we moved we could get a dog, practically, her Mum would look after him when we were at work. After about 6 months my last rabbit died and once I'd got over that we went to look at some dogs. In fact, we went to look at only one litter of dogs. It was a litter of chocolate labrador puppies locally (Hitchin). I think we already knew that if they were well looked after there was no way we'd be able to say no.

Indeed, when we walked in and held those 4 week old furry sasusages we knew. When we went to choose we also knew straight away. As we walked up to the 8 weeks old pups they were hectic ones, the breeder told us who the alpha male was, which was the greedy one. There was one sat back from pack, looking at what was going on, he looked very chilled out. We knew it was this one!

So, Alfie came home. We had a name months, perhaps even years in advance. We took Alfie to training as soon as we could and it became clear he was a clever dog. Slighly lazy, a little bit goofy, but clever. We both fell in love. Alfie was like the little boy we never had.

Alfie (at time of writing, June 2019) is just over 4 and he's our World. We try to take him wherever we go, get offended when people don't accept him, he's one of the family. We love him to the moon and back. He's ace. he's fun, he has bags of personality, he's a big softie. He plays with all the children and I know would never harm any of them. He's everything I ever wanted in a dog!

DATE: June 26 ,2019
CATEGORY: Animals
TAGS: Photography, GoPro, Dogs, Alfie


PHOTOGRAPHY

GT4 at Brands Hatch.

by Keith Slater

I've been to motorport events before. Namely a whole load of Moto-X events n the 90s and a couple of Formula 1s at Silverstone.

I've never been to one that really mattered. I mean REALLY mattered. Until Today. We went to Brands Hatch to watch the GT4. This was a race that was different. The reason? One of our friend's sons was racing. They've put everything into this. They are not rich but have spent a lot of money and time and schmoozing sponsors on this.

The goal I guess is for Ben to get noticed by BMW (who he currently drives for) and be offered a works place. i.e. not have to pay to race! It really is all your eggs in one basket!

There's actually 2 races going on at one time - GT3 wich have bigger engines and GT4. There's also a mix of Pro/Am racers and silver racers, typically younger semi-pros. Ben and his team mate (also Ben) are silver. It's a 2 hour race, changing after the first hour with a long pit stop and penalties applied if you are silver, won the last race etc.

Ben's team mate was building up a good lead in the first half but 2 yellow flags cut that short. When Ben came out he was in a distant 5th place. He fought hard and it wasn't until the last few laps that he got on to the podium and literally over the line he took 2nd place. Being so far back and fighting for second was gutsy and tiring. Basically, if they win at Donington in September they are champions. Despite (or maybe because of) it being my birtday weekend We'll be there!

DATE: July 06 ,2018
CATEGORY: Motorsports
TAGS: Photography, Motorsport, Helmets