That’s what the Isle Of Wight reminds me of. Take the nice non Basingstoke part of Hants, pump in the hills in a Pammy style, remove most of the roads and nearly all of the cars and drop ship a hundred tea shops in their place. Being far to lazy to actually understand the history of the island, instead I sought a cock snooping alternative of everything you can find with an Internet connection and a copy of Google.

There are some very serious and well laid out sites taking you through the founding of the population (bloody Romans), the expansion in the middle ages (bloody French), the sacking of the major towns during the almost ceaseless European wars of the 17th and 18th centuries (bloody French again – specially a short one armed megalomaniac) finishing up with peace, harmonisation, Tennyson and tourism (smug Brits).

For those with diagnosed attention deficit, it goes Crops, Smuggling, Smuggling, Surrender, Smuggling, Poets, Tourism, Tacky Piers and some smuggling to finish. Or if you’re striving for historical context, you cannot beat the remendous if slightly over-named “The Isle Of Wight Timeline of History”. A clearly short of things to do Roger Hewitt has cleverly juxtaposed the major events in British History with interesting happening on the island. National events in bold, Island stuff in plain text, my pithy comments in italics

1215e__King John seals Magna Carta at Runnymede
1220c—Rabbits introduced
Is there some link? I must re-read the Magna Carta to check out the constitutional position on rabbits.

1349e__Black Death widespread
1350x__Artillery cannon coming into general use
1350x—Hall House of Chale Abbey farm built by John de Langford
Right. A little known fact in the fight against plague.

1642e__Civil War begins
1642e—Island falls to Parliamentarians with only one shot fired
“You’ll not shoot us!” BANG “Ok, we surrender”

1649e__Charles I executed
1650e—Watchingwell Park still contains “nine score deer”
Charles missed a few then.

1666e__Great Fire of London
1673e—Earliest record of an Island postmaster
“Dear Mum, London Burnt down, we’re fine”

1789c__French Revolution puts the wind up the English ruling classes
1790c—Island breed of pig developed
There’s got to be a decent metaphor here. I just can’t think what it might be…

1832e__Reform Bill widens election suffrage and changes political influence
1832e—Population “nearly all more or less concerned with smuggling”
Right about the most important constitutional event is not really of interest to those whose living takes the form of dark nights, lanterns and avoiding the excise men.

1860e—Prince Albert oversees rebuilding of Whippingham Church
1861e__Prince Albert dies
Clearly killed the poor bugger.

1919e__British Empire at its height
1920e__Marconi opens first public broadcasting station
1920e—First council houses built
You can keep your imperialist nonsense, check out our social agenda.

The history stops abruptly at 1945, so I can only assume nothing of interest has happened since.

Our visit saw the Island almost sink under the accumulation of a years rainfall lashing in thirty six hours. This was my nailed up excuse not to ride the bike I’d transported over road and sea, only to clutter up the caravan with it and mount it just the once to fetch a paper. An epic of almost two miles. This didn’t stop me in any way from attending the awards ceremony for those proper mountain bikers who’d risked hypothermia on the Wight Diamond Challenge. I remember little of that night other than significant beer and the real risk of drowning every time one popped out to make space for the next pint.

Regardless of the wet, we left under sunny skies and with some regret having seen not enough and barely scratched the surface of artery hardening confectionery at the aforementioned tea stops. We’ll definitely be back but this time I’m booking some proper weather.

I’m starting to resent the time and the faff of preparing to ride. It must be all this commuting where – dull as it is – at no point do bike trailers, cars and driving form a environmentally disturbing juxtaposition to cycling. And it’s not all 80s “if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem” hand wringing either. Getting ready, getting changed, getting pissed off at the twentieth trip back to the house for some trivial riding accessory like shoes seems eats into precious riding time. My pre-ride mind state is somewhere between jumpily frazzled and downright irritated with life.

So now try this with the kids and multiply that irritation to the power of about a thousand. It took me ONE HOUR to dust off unused bikes, fix brakes, pump up tyres, dismantle one for the boot, have three attempts to load the trailer and then waste most of the remainder of the morning finding and filling lost camelbaks.

The idea was simple. As part of my “no drive to ride” plan, I’ve been investigating a route along the Great Union Canal (starting in Aylesbury) to a popular ride start. It looked like it’d be a fun place for the kids to up their game a bit with it’s relative narrowness compared to the Sustrans.

Unfortunately my reece failed to factor in a month’s rain on the trail and the spring explosion of waterside vegetation. A combination of mud, people traffic and the proximity of the canal soon caused Random to plunge headlong into a nettle patch of extreme stinginess. This after we’d had about four close shaves, parental shouting and sibling sulking as the kids tried to remember how to ride properly after a couple of month of scooter action. I’d clearly misjudged – well – almost everything really so time for plan B.

We quit the bumpy path only to find a delightful, easy to navigate trail round the local nature reserve and flood plain (interesting combination that). The prospect of heading back through nettle alley traumatised little random to the extent that her lip was in full wibble mode. Instead we struck off over the council fields, veering dangerously every time a play area came into view until a safe route was found back into town.

Aylesbury has been targeted (oh I so wish by an air strike) with some Government (sorry our) money to build a safe transit through the town for cyclists. And it’s good as far as it goes which isn’t far enough. I had that terrifying parental issue of two kids stranded in the road with cars hooning in from opposite directions (my fault all round and properly scary) because a set of pedestrian lights were “out of order”. And have been for three weeks.

Just when I thought there was a good chance I’d be returning home with both children – neither of which required any treatment that couldn’t be found in the Ice Cream bucket, Random decided the simplest way to avoid a pedestrian on the shared cycleway would be to drop off the curb and ride into the busy road.

My bike has more scars from being hastily chucked at the concrete while I dove incautiously into a head of traffic that it ever receives on the trails. Random explained “I couldn’t see anything coming and I didn’t want to stop“. Fair enough and she dropped the curb with some aplomb I couldn’t help proudly noticing between heartbeats of parental terror. But we’re not doing this again for a while, it’s just too bloody dangerous.

Next time, we’re going to make use of the new cycle paths they’ve built in the village and ride into town without attempting any difficult road crossings or aggressive shrubbery. And we’ll stop in the pub on the way back – it’ll almost be like a proper mountain bike ride 🙂

Is that how you spell it? I always wondered if there was a little trammeled branch of the hive where a happily Darwinian selected bee converts pollen to beer. And if so, the queen must have spent most of her life pissed. Still with that much procreation going on, she was entitled to a few sharpeners before the next thousand eggs were due.

Or is it a cross between a Bee and a Moth? Hell of a mating ritual that must have been – “fuck off out of it, I’m shagging this light“. Ok, just to prove that occasionally I embark in a crusade of research trawling at least one venerable institute of known facts before giving up and typing it into Wiki, here’s the official version “the word is most likely a plural form of בהמה (bÉ’hÄ“māh (“animal”)). It may be an example of pluralis excellentiae, a Hebrew method of expressing greatness by pluralising a noun; it thus indicates that Behemoth is the largest and most powerful animal.”

There will be a scorpion of behemoth proportion waiting to be dropped into the trousers of whoever decided plural was a verb. However, aside from this, it’s a pretty accurate description of the monster which held me hostage this evening.

That picture doesn’t even begin to do it justice. If I’d be brave enough to place a compact family car next to the angrily buzzing killer, it would barely have cast it into shadow. Trapped in the barn, it flipped the internal psycho lever and proceeded to headbutt every flat service including frightened bits of me. At one terrifying juncture, it had me trapped in a corner so I cravenly called for Carol to come and deal with it. Using extreme violence if necessary.

Her attempts to pacify the winged phantom of death were based on a no nonsense approach of prodding it from the safety of a long brush. Strangely enough, this had the opposite effect, and soon the crazed beast crossed the boundary from “bloody angry” to suicidally insane” – a change identified by an increase in buzzing volume accompanied by a lowering of the frequency. Essentially, at this point it had turned into the animal equivalent of a Stuka dive bomber.

After failing to actually mortally wound anyone, it retired to a light fitting to regain its’ strength. I wasn’t sure if it was dead or merely having a breather while calling in the artillery. I desperately attempted to out stare it until it became apparent that Genetically Modified Bees don’t blink- it wastes good killing time.

Eventually through an act of selfless bravery that I am far too modest to recount, the flying reaper was dispatched from whence it came. Which I assume is one of Dante’s nine levels of hell. Probably near the bottom.

Anyway I’m fine thanks for asking. A little preoccupied though as eBay isn’t offering up any previously enjoyed motion sensitive machine guns last seen being looted off the Berlin Wall. Next time, I’ll be ready.

And I’m not talking about the sandwich munching, clock watching lazy feckers who closed most of the main arterial road into Chesterfied, while they took a well earned four hour lunch break. Leaving me, just the hour and a half sat in an almost stationary queue mainlining other peoples exhaust fumes, and teaching the kids the art of rhythmic swearing.*

No, it’s these Canada Geese which challenge everything I like about the Candadians. These duck bullying, food stealing rotters make a noise like a startled cat being roundly abused and biff any other water based mouths before making a beeline for their moldy bread. Such single mindedness and arrogance in the face of their peers made me wonder if they weren’t Americans, Germans, Austrians People Of A Certain Imperialist Bent. Sorry for the crossing out, I’m trying to cut down on the hate mail.

They are just a bit fighty. If the ducks have been intimidated to the opposite side of the lake, they just start on each other. Maybe they’re imported from Manchester on a Friday night after one two many WKDs.

North was good tho. Not just in terms of it being a proper direction of travel either. However I have discovered why ADSL routers/wireless access points/microwaves/whatever are so cheap. It’s because they are indescribably shit. After five hours of nothing working, four calls to an Indian helpdesk who were lovely but clueless and all the rigorous troubleshooting that 20+ years IT industry can bring, I scooped the hateful electronics up and went in search of a goose.

That’s a Canada Goose in case you were wondering.

And just to prove, it was proper up north, here are some wooly sheep

So if it’s goosing you’re after, make sure you leave the pub early. You don’t want to get an ugly one.

* It’s important to get the inflection right. Buggery, bugger, FUCKITY, fuck, useless SODDING BASTARDS. Kids seem to learn pretty quick 😉

The weather forecast was horribly accurate. The weather report explaining The IOW has had the highest rainfall in the UK this weekend was not required. As survivors of planetary terrors are oft know to declare You can’t imagine what it was like. I was there

The rain was blown in on steepling Atlantic winds, initially thrashing against a restrictive coastline of high cliffs before spiralling uncontained from a biblical sky over the remainder of the island.

It was still great though. Friendly, loads to do even in single digit temperatures and after the gales, we had a couple of days of pretty decent weather. Here’s a pictorial story until I can be arsed to write something.

Leaving Southampton in balmy weather.

Ventnor glass works. Amazing place. Make sure kids are left locked in the car. Expensive otherwise.

Seven degrees and blowing a gale. Tell you what, let’s go to the beach.

Not doing much business today.

Sun! Random takes full advantage.

Needles chairlift. Not my favourite.

Old Battery at Needles. Some of which had fallen into the sea.

Carnage at Needles park. Random rams her way through.

Needles or at least two of them.

Random runs out of cake. Not happy.

Going home in the nice weather. Still the bar was open.

Not shown, many ice creams, cream tea and more beer.

… almost gone tomorrow.

After a recent haircut (cost one cup of tea and an instruction to sweep the kitchen floor of gray hair), I couldn’t help but notice the increasingly thin strip of occasional folicles bridging the span between forehead and crown. Things don’t really improve downwind of that either, with the classic “monks cut” marking itself out between what’s left and that’s heading south.

There’s a race between the hair receeding upwards and the crown expanding outwards. When they meet in the middle, I’ll be left with little option but a combover, a hat or – and I’m giving this some ironic thought – a ponytail. On the upside, I’m properly hirsute in the short, back and sides department and my ear hair is going ballistic.

I did consider re-growing the beard which was a folically irresistible pheromone of gray and ginger. This stubbly fusion of light and dark was once memorably described as “a squirrel attempting to escape through a badger“. Now that’s a look any man in sight of his fortieth birthday should be actively considering.

It is odd tho, along with the aforementioned hairy lobes, whatever I’m losing on the top is taking refuge in my ears and on my back. Maybe I could back comb that and create some kind of sixties quiff. No? You’re probably right.

Still helmet air shall soon be a thing of the past as will shampoo, bad hair days and ever paying for a haircut again. I shall invest instead in factor 30 suncream and a selection of headgear. I always quite fancied a trilby.

Sometimes though, I feel it is only I who understands how to look fashionable. Ponytail, dodgy beard, backcombed body hair and trilby. You may be laughing now but you just wait. It’s the next big trend.

The hedgehog is going off line for a welcome rest while – with my normal meterologically intuitive timing – I shall be getting rained on in the Isle Of Wight. An opportunist punt at a cheap weekend seems to have morphed into four fractious days in a damp caravan marooned with bored children.

The weather forecast is for sun, light winds and visibility of a 100 miles. Sadly that forecast is for Casablanca, whereas our low lying Atlantic island shall be lashed with rain, swept by fierce winds and – if one particularly gloomy report is to be believed – sprinkled with light sleet. In June. Global warming? Bring the melting ice caps to the UK – we’ll freeze ’em up nicely for you.

As you would expect, there was the chance of a spot of bike riding but the prospect of paying twenty quid to follow a few hundred people round the island has paled somewhat. Especially when considered against a backdrop of boring headwinds and squally storms leading to misery, suffering and the inevitable moist unmentionables. Still my ruthless strategy of throwing out the kids clothes so I can add more beer to the luggage should at least dull some of the pain.

And pain is not far away after riding with a ridiculously fit mate of mine last night who was “a bit tired from racing the previous day“. That’s as maybe but only when I stopped talking and started making desperate non verbal “I can’t breathe” chopping motions accompanied by a bluing face and partially collapsed form did he stop. For about 10 seconds. Still great trails though and I can pretend it’s all part of my cunning training plan. Assuming I don’t die first.

For those of you not enjoying the mobile home/happy camper experience, may I recommend the 25th Annual Testicle Festival. You can’t make this stuff up.

So come Tuesday, expect many blurred pictures of rain soaked landscapes and sullen children striking bored poses in the short, but much cherished, silent sulks which follow their inevitable sibling explosions. And there’s “free entertainment on the camp site to cheer Children and Adults” to look forward to. Oh Lordy, I wonder if TestyFest has streaming video.

So bottoms up, wellies on and caps set at a jaunty angle. IoW, here we come – ready or not.

My hobbies are bikes, beer and being annoying. Beer is more a lifestyle choice but since it takes so much of my time and money, I’d rather think of it as a hobby. Being annoying is essentially baked in from birth., it is in the genes “ I know this from my the way my kids behave.

Already spiked on the hedgehog are hobbies that think they are sports and jobs that you feel you deserve but are completely unqualified for. Most of your prejudiced and stereotyped angles covered there you would have thought, yet the other day I wandered past a shop proudly announcing Everything for the Hobbyist Fish-Keeper sold here

Fish-Keeper – now that’s a rubbish hobby. How hard is it? Get a tank, decant fish into it, spray occasionally with fish food. My friend tells me that at the extreme/deranged end of the hobby, there are those who proclaim themselves fish tamers. Oh come on: sorry bob can’t come to the phone right now, he’s out the back tackling a difficult trout. And while I accept that there are those in the watery kingdom that do look up for a bit of a bundle, once you’ve removed the ability to oxygenate, even the ugliest guppy, grumpiest carp or psychotic tench hardly represents a lethal threat.

So what we’re talking about is grown up tadpole collecting. All the fun you can have with a pool of stagnant water, a net and a million midges. Sounds great – put me down for Fish Fanciers Monthly (first edition half price with free Pike Wrestling Techniques illustrated booklet).

Another friend is telling people he is moonlighting as a Dolphin Polisher. I first assumed this was a urbane sexual reference to which I was rurally stupid. But no, he’s trying to convince otherwise intelligent people that the big tunas are covered in barnacles and other detritus of the sea, and his job is to give them a damn good polishing before they go out to entertain the crowds. From the nods of amazement he received, it’s good to see the age of innocence is not completely over.

Other pointless hobbies include Gardening (outdoor DIY), Bird Watching (ooh a bird, oooh another one, repeat until death) and Mountain Biking (ride round in ever decreasing circles, searching for a muddy enema). From the crammed lifestyle magazine section in the local newsagents, it’s clear that there is almost no pointless pastime we’re not prepared to spend significant time and money on. When the Train Spotter (Sorry Railway Enthusiast) periodical count passed five, it was clear to me that the world has finally gone completely mad.

I think I’ll stick with beer. Proper northern hobby in lieu of a family veto over whippet and ferret ownership.

But as someone kindly pointed out there is a U in c*nt 😉

The firm organised a group hug last Friday at some massive old Victorian pile (that’s a house and grounds not some kind of turn of the century medical complaint). The majority turned up on Thursday night and although I had high expectations of extreme hangovers, they both met and exceeded those expectations when I pitched up on Friday morning. It appeared I had strolled into a “rough as a badgers’ arse” convention and there my much self pitying rubbing of heads and gagging at fried food.

The conference centre was a huge house converted into a smallish hotel with sufficient grounds to hunt bear in. It’d been built by some industrialist who’d bought half of Guildford on the back of oppressing the working class. This is the kind of place where the top hatted ruling class would bristle their mustaches and declare – in all seriousness – “Sir, I am de-masted” and other such nonsense.

It did, however, provide a perfect opportunity to be roughly handled round the tender regions by seven middle aged men. This is not a situation a straight bloke with a northerners aggressive protection of personal space generally finds himself in. Unless you were a public schoolboy in which case it probably happened most days. With buggery to follow. During a ‘team building’ (I know, I know) session, we had to imagine inert bark as raging volcantic torrents and find a way across using nothing more than our ‘teamed’ skills, a couple of tree limbs and a willing victim.

So at the crux of the challenge, I found myself stretched across a lava chasm (or dead tree if your imagination was still stunned by hangover) desperately groping for a slippery stone while the rest of my all-male team desperately groped parts of my body where no man should be allowed. Unless it’s the doctor and you have an embarrassing disease.

I couldn’t help feeling a frission of excitement which I hastily put down to the joy of completing the challenge through the little known motivational art of cheating. Still we were let out early and while “the manhandling 7” and around fifty others milled about in the hope of finding transportation home, I drove ten miles in the opposite direction of the M25 and went to ride my bike.

This I did with a couple of my friends who despite the dark forest and muddy trail, did not feel the urge to indulge in any team bonding action other than buying me a pint. Which was most welcome as I’ve been getting shuddering flashbacks every time I’d passed a tree.