About two months later than planned, I am signing off the coverage at www.parishwalk.com of the 2015 Manx Telecom Parish Walk.
The totally avoidable requirement to republish many of my statistics this year caused the initial delay and of course the time taken to do that took away the time I would normally spend refining the coverage before my life moved onto lots of the other events and activities that I am involved with throughout the summer.
I have given the site a full facelift this evening across two pages and hope that information is sufficiently easy to find for anyone planning to enter for the first time next year before I re-design the site in three months.
I admire the organising committee and the walkers in equal measure as there would be no purpose for one without the other. And so many people help on the day. Too many to mention here so I will restrict my thanks to the people who help my side of things.
Thanks to David Mapp, Sharon Sloan-O'keeffe and Gianni Epifani for writing the blogs.
Thanks to my brother, Mike Lambden, who travelled to the Isle of Man yet again especially to take photos despite being in hospital 24 hours before he travelled.
To Stan Hall who joined the photography team at short notice when we thought Mike wasn't going to make it.
To Vincent Campbell who has helped me with so many photography projects and Neil Wilson who nearly froze on the Sloc with his camera.
To Karen Kneale who smiles even more the people in her photos and to son Ben Lambden who, as well as more limited photography duties this year because of work pressures, including treating some of the walkers in A & E the next morning, helps with the social media.
Thanks to Sean Hands who helps keep me awake through the night whilst answering questions on the help desk.
Also playing an important role this year was Paul Jackson who uploaded the first race photos to the new Pic2Go photo facility and to Alex Barlow at Manx Telecom who ensured that this all went smoothly. Manx Telecom's Marg Magee has always ensured that I have all my technology requirements and MT's 4G Network made all the race day coverage possible while Phil Colebourn at T H Colebourn provided the displays at the finish.
Finally thanks to Marie who only sees me for the first half hour or so whilst she takes a spot of video but in a few hours time will have put up with me for 31 years as her husband.
I spend most of my 30 hour shift in the back of the van so to prove I really was there this year I include one of Mike's photos with video camera in hand at Santon as race winner Richard Gerrard arrives.
Good-bye.
