Matthew Munson: Summer fun and preparing for a Munson half-marathon

There we have it. As I write this (on Friday), we’re half-way through the summer holidays, Broadstairs Folk Week is in its final few hours, and there’s two weeks left before school starts up again.

It’s been a busy old time at Casa de Munson during the holidays. The first week is always taken up for us with a big dance show Bryan takes part in; he does about a million dance lessons at Masque in Ramsgate every week, and they put on a big show at the start of the summer holidays.

It’s not some small-scale little show; it’s a proper show, with three acts and a fantastic showcase of talents. Bryan has made some wonderful friends at the dance school, and the show is a huge highlight of his year.

After that four-day extravaganza, we went to the cinema twice in a week (Spider Man and Toy Story 5 – high up my list of recommendations), got together with a group of Bryan’s dance friends so they could put together a dance, went to visit his siblings, signed up to a gym, and went down to Broadstairs Folk Week almost every day to enjoy the music.

The next two weeks – the final two of the holidays – are going to be a lot quieter. We both need it, and a simple routine is actually going to be lovely – some long walks, going to the gym, and perhaps a sojourn to London to make good on a promise I made to Bryan.

The reason for our long walks is because we’re doing a half-marathon in September. Long-term readers might recall that I’ve been a regular marathon-goer over the years, mostly with a pal of mine who has long since retired from the scene.

I stopped doing marathons shortly after I became a dad, but Bryan seemed interested in trying them for himself. Last year, we did the Shine half-marathon together – 13.1 miles around central London at night, raising money for cancer. We’ve both agreed to do it again this year, as we enjoyed the experience in 2025 – and it’s a nice thing to do together.

I feel compelled to leave the link for our sponsorship page here – https://www.justgiving.com/page/themunsons – if you can spare anything. Ta very much.

When I first started doing the marathons years ago, I’d wanted to start with a half-marathon to build up to the full marathon – but the friends I did it with convinced me to dive straight into the full marathon from year one.

This time around, as I introduce Bryan into this world, we’re carrying on with half-marathons, and I’m glad we are – it’s a calmer pace in a way, as it doesn’t take as long. That first marathon I did took us about ten hours, if I remember, and I was dead on my feet for a couple of days afterwards.

The route we take on the half-marathon will go past Buckingham Palace, Parliament, Trafalgar Square, Harrods, and a lot more. It’s lovely to see somewhere so lit up at night, and to share one of my passions with Bryan is a lot of fun.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the holidays so far. I’m fortunate enough to have the break as well, although I’ve kept working on my book saga as much as I can in between all the other things we’ve had going on.

It’s been a real privilege to spend so much time with my lad; what he thinks of so much time with his dad is his own business! I need to go now, as we’re off to watch a friend perform in his band down at the Chapel in Broadstairs – what a nice way to spend a couple of hours.

Thanet resident Matthew Munson is a single dad to son Bryan through adoption, and a writer, sharing his family and day to day life column