Finally

We finally have a little fish in the family. It's official. My little girl LOVES swimming. She wants to go swimming every day now. Today she swam in the big pool and even jumped off the diving board in the very deep end. She didn't want to get out of the pool. I know for most parents this will be no big deal as a lot of kids can swim from a very early age but for some reason it has been a bit of a battle with Olivia and she has made very slow progress.
At the start of the year she had to be almost bribed to put her head under the water and never wanted to go to her swimming lessons so we decided to stop them as we didn't want it to become a big issue and turn her away from swimming entirely. Today I actually cried when I saw her swimming entirely on her own, enjoying it and swimming with her face in the water, as I just felt immense relief. She was awarded her first ever swimming certificate which is now proudly displayed in her bedroom.
She is also becoming very good (and patient with Mummy) at posing for the camera and waiting while I change the settings. Today's effort is completely in manual (although I did use auto white balance) and I barely edited it - just a little bit of cropping. It's going to take a while but I'm quite enjoying the challenge.

I had my first assessment with the physio today which wasn't great but not as bad as we feared. I have a series of exercises etc to do for my achilles and am still banned from running. The physio is starting to know me quite well as he worked on my legs before my spring marathon and knows how impatient I am to get back running. I have had to make the decision to withdraw from the Great North Run in September which I am gutted about it as I have been trying to get a place in it for years and by a stroke of luck was successful in the ballot this year. However I can defer my entry to 2014 which is good I suppose. The main good news is that I found out last week that my run in the Antwerp Marathon was good enough to secure me a place in the London Marathon in April 2014 which is my long term target. My physio knows and has said he will do all he can to help me get to the start line in one piece!
I have also been asked to be a pace maker in a couple of half marathons and marathons in the UK, and although flattered, I have turned them down as I'm not done with my own racing yet and as I don't really race very often when I do I need to go for it!