Author: Alex

Staycation…

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff5 Comments

… is usurping “stiction” as my favourite bridged bit of alliteration. This mix of “Stay” and “Vacation” is a timely reminder of what it means to be a Yorkshireman. “Ah well, tha knows, could’ve got to foreign parts, but they’ll speak funny and there’s nowt to be found of basic staples such as burnt-whippet-surprise*. Anyroad up, God’s country is right tha, so why would you want to risk bloody frenchies y’soft lad?”

So this week, surrounded as we are by sparkies, plumbers and the like – serious men sporting eared pencils under beetling brows – we’re holidaying right here at ground zero of the previously cherished budget. So far this has involved much the same activity as one would undertake somewhere rather more expensive, although I’ll concede with more floors, foreign parts

Swimming, cakes, exploring muddy forests, cake, swapping depressing rain for amusing films**, eating out, eating more cake, wine, sofa and TV following tired kids heading bedwards, and much more of the same tomorrow.

Which in a further cost cutting move, I’ve decided that£50+ for four of us to drown in the fast running Wye is money for nothing. I’ll merely re-cast one of the old baths into a makeshift kayak, and head off downstream onto what used to be the road outside. Stunning idea I thought, typically British man with own shed thinking outside the tub, and providing decent, low cost family entertainment.

Three pairs of rolling eyes tells me I am alone in my love of the idea – even the dog looked sceptical and he’ll try anything once. Honestly it’s not until you’ve seen a Labrador eat a spider – with apparent relish – that you realise quite how hungry they must be ALL THE TIME. He’s even had a nibble of one of my biking socks of doom which are essentially lethal to any land going mammal from ten feet or less.

Talking of bikes, of course there has to be some of that later in the week. Parental care morphs to parental abandonment as I attempt to impress a man I’ve never met with my riding skills. That’ll not take long then – probably all the time a crash-bang-wallop plunge down the vertical trails recently discovered on the scary side of the forest.

Assuming any sort of multi limbed survival, the next day is all mine to lead a glorious day long ride over the Long Mynd bathed in summer sunshine. Let’s examine that last sentence shall we for possible inaccuracies; basically it’s all of it – more likely I’ll be getting a few old friends lost in the rain for hours on end before a random trail source shall lead us to a pub. Where we shall stay.

Sounds good to me. The way things are going, we might rent out the garden to tourists 🙂

* in times of hardship, rat or ferret was substituted. The surprise wasn’t that it tasted like chicken, more it tasted like shit.

** Ice Age 3. Fully expected it to be a tired re-run of an exhausted franchise, but found myself giggling along with the kids. But the nut gag has really been done to death now.

Rush Hour

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography4 Comments

I have one hour. Exactly sixty minutes to switch life modes, exchange drudgery and bug eyed stress for stolen pleasure. It doesn’t matter why or when – only that the clock is ticking, and I need to feel fast air in my lungs, dirt under my tyres, joy in my heart. I have to go and ride my bike.

First of too many problems is the dearth of any proper good muddy stuff from our door. Sure with the Malverns on one side, and the Forest of Dean on the other, I am only a short drive from stonking trails, and not much further to the wilds of Wales. But there isn’t time for trailers, parking and faffing when you’re a mere hour from needing to be back here.

The very local woods offer nothing other than an excuse to lose the dog in the overgrown footpaths. Head a little further out and a huge expanse of forestry should roll out a million trails, but it doesn’t because of too many horses, to few bikes, too little traffic and my apathy based exploring routine. I’ve driven out there a few times, and come back disappointed vowing to carry on next time to stuff I know is good.

Much of this is because I’m a rubbish explorer, no sense of direction, and yet blessed with a gift to divine rubbish tracks. If you’re in the market for a six foot wide ruined trail full of horses hooves, red Herefordshire mud, viscous shrubbery and a dark heart from which there is no obvious escape, I’m your womble.*

So it’s a bit crap for mountain bikes, and I’m completely unable to find any of this mythical singletrack I’ve heard talked about. But it’s close, 3.3 miles and that’s less than 15 minutes to a man who has 3 week unridden legs, and the need to unwind a million wrongs visited upon him.

Big Ring. Stand up. Ignore wheezing lungs and unexercised muscles. Forget that road riding is dull, blot out the threatening clouds and incessant headwind – there are many things worse that this and most of them are inside.

I’m still attacking everything when I first hit the dirt, diving under the trees on a trail I’ve jealously eyed up on numerous dog walks. Which already goes against the plan of riding just 4 known tracks to the valley bottom and then sprinting home on the fireroad.

But every mountain biker has a Pavlovian attraction for snaky singletrack, and it’s not long before I’m clearing deadwood from a little used trail and thinking happy thoughts on improvements if only I’d remembered my spade. But time doesn’t stop, and neither can I – sweating a bit now – switching to a favourite rooty trail that’s way drier than expected and twice as much fun.

God I’d forgotten how great this is. And it has nothing to do with the bike. Oh sure, the Cove is perfectly balanced, razor sharp without being twitchy, taut without being painfully stiff, fast without being fragile but that’s not what matters right now. Because right now I’m not inside with a pile of work, or outside trying to make sense of ongoing house devastation.

No time to gloat, time to ride, pick another trail and spend minutes I don’t have trying to jump a rooty set. Twice I cock it up, so go for a dumb brakes off approach that ends as well as you can probably imagine. Still, since I was lying down, this seemed a perfect time to break out a lunchtime energy bar and surreptitiously check e-mail. No Signal? That’s fate. Time to go.

Not enough of that to ride a cheeky trail around the lake. Walked loads of time with dog and family, it’s root strewn, off camber, damp today and sure to be rubbish. But I ride it anyway, and it’s bloody brilliant of course – not as it offers some kind of singletrack nirvana, or great speed but because I shouldn’t be here, and nobody else is.

Flick of the wrist shows bad numbers so I quit while I’m just a little behind my rush hour schedule. But not so fast that I cannot mentally mark a myriad of possible trails which peep enticingly from behind summer growth.

My hour is nearly up and some cad has laid an extra mile of tarmac between my fading legs and the demands of being a grown up. The headwind has even strengthened** but a main road short cut deemed to be less risky than the hilly back roads*** bought me enough time to make a sub sixty possible.

Being two minutes late didn’t matter unless you’re the type of person who stokes his competitive gland every time bikes are involved. So that’s me on a final charge which brought the house into view, and a moto style entry over the frictionless pea shingle impressed exactly one person. And that person read 59:48 on their stopwatch.

Don’t get me wrong – the trails aren’t fantastic, at no point did I carve successive corners or jump some monstrous double. The bike and I are splattered with smelly mud, every exposed limb has been brutally slashed by vegetation with attitude, nothing has changed here other than an Inbox close to explosion, and it’s just started to piss it down again.

But I don’t care. Because for a while there I forgot just how bloody great mountain bikes are. That’ll not happen again.

* Remember Womble’s picked their names by blinding pinning a map. If I were really a womble my name would be “For Fuck’s sake, the map is over there, that’s my HAND”

** Out and Back on the same road. Both into a headwind. Ask any cyclist, they’ll tell you this is always the case. We don’t know why but when we find out someone is in for a bloody hard time.

*** Risk assessment went something like “may get run over by a mad trucker heading to Ross, but almost certain heart attack if I have to go up there“

Help me out here.

On By AlexIn Other stuff8 Comments

I am starting a petition for the season of “Summer” to start on May 20th and finish June 13th. The remainder of the crap months between then and September 21st shall be re-categorised as “Wet and bloody miserable“. I assume I can count on your support?

In previous years where Summer is really October with more time for the rain to fall in the daylight, I’ve whinged on incessently about how cold, moist and essentially horrid riding in the rain in. In a departue that owes much to apathy and age, this time around I’ve just given up riding completely. Only once in the last two weeks have I managed to force myself out, with work getting in the way of two night rides and basic bloody laziness gluing me to the sofa the last time out.

I was keen to go last weekend but when it was sunny, I was indisposed with a shovel and a pained expression, and when it was time to ride, it was also time to rain.

I know I have all the kit to ride in the shit weather. I appreciate once you are out there, it’s nowhere near as bad. I fully understand thatn an under-ridden Al becomes an extremely grumpy one, but i look outside and all I see are umbrellas, coats and general misery.

So rahter than man up and get on with it, I’ve gone with a complaint. I think that’s a pretty accurate window on my world right now 🙁 The hedgehog is bloody annoyed, and needs someone to shout at. Luckily I have children for that kind of thing.

Radio Ga Ga.

On By AlexIn Other stuffLeave a comment

I’ve said before whoever smugly proclaimed that “”Honesty is the best policy” had clearly never tried it. However I am now forced to grudgingly acknowledge that the righteous tidy-mind may not be entirely wrong. Let me qualify that, he (and it wil be a he, with clipped hair, nails and accent, polished shoes, knitted jumper, humour bypass – you know the type) is wrong most of the time, because telling fibs greases those difficult parts when the truth will trigger a set of emotional explosions and a hard stare.

Sure you may have to fabricate exactly which band you were in at Live Aid, and play up a little your part in designing the Space Shuttle, but this is merely lexical liquid smoothing otherwise bumpy conversations. But occasionally telling the truth can save you from the kind of embarrassment that leaves you pleading for the world to catch fire, or some other significant event to stop everyone pointing and laughing.*

I nearly managed to lie my way out of an unfolding grubby spectacle when a large, earnest lady dressed in a sack, and carrying a microphone politely enquired if “these” were my children. Since “These” were essentially de-constructing some very expensive looking exhibits at the time during our visit to Techniquest, my first instinct was to go with the big whopper.

True to form, the kids dobbed me in it. Random declared she was indeed a much loved offspring, while verbal insisted it was her sister that had done it** before legging it. Sack-Woman was in fact reporter from Radio Wales on a mission to understand the difference between my generation (i.e. old and hard bitten) and our kids (i.e. young and pampered) when it came to entertainment.

Centre of attention? People clinging onto my every word? Chance to be on the radio? Would I do an interview? What d’you think? Anyway hardly was the question out, before I was describing – with great arcs of hand motion which must really work for radio – how my childhood was essentially hardship, graft and the odd lighter moment when we got to set fire to the Conservative Candidate for Sheffield South.

She gamely tried to get another question in, but I was not to be deterred “Played outside all the time in street, essentially feral coming in only for meals and birthdays. Our kids? Just the same, moved to the countryside, lots to do, riding bikes, long dog walks, playing in the tree house. Computers? No, hardly go near them, strictly rationed like the TV and the Internet”

She looked impressed at my vision of model parenting. But as I was readying myself for a Churchillian finale, she switched Leigh’s and bent to talk to little Random “So, what’s your favourite toy then?” Bit of a pause into which I inserted a desperate burst of telepathic suggestion offering generic outdoor activities and, specifically, not dropping your dad in the poo.

Larger Pause. I’m bricking it now because Random doesn’t really answer questions. She merely mainlines whatever oblique stream of consciousness is currently zapping across her wired-up-wrong brain. Don’t forget this is the child who wants to be a big house we can all live in when she grows up. Experience has taught me her interactions with strangers leaves them – at best – bewildered or just mentally unbalanced.

Sack Person leans forward and asks again “so what’s your favourite toy then?” Random leans my way and gives me THAT look. The one that I’ve come to dread because what follows is going to be no better than “A dead giraffe”, “the road” or “my alien friends“.

She finally proudly pipes up into the Microphone “My DS Lite”. I then receive what I can only describe as “an old fashioned look” from purple portly person, but I’m not really interested as I try to shunt Random into a mental siding labelled “mostly human”, but she’s off explaining – with great enthusiasm – all the different games she has been bought. By those parents that proudly dismiss the need for electronic stimuli to entertain their children.

I’m telling you this now, because the broadcast has already gone out, and – with it being Radio Wales – only 11 people will have been listening, four of which think it’s just another voice in their head. I dunno – maybe she’s getting her own back for the Sports Day thing.

Better go practice my dance moves then.

* Although having ridden with some quite “honest” people during my cycling career, I’ve become accustomed to such verbal cruelty.

** Doesn’t matter what. Toy left out. Sister. Dog abandoned somewhere. Sister. Suspicious crumbs in bottom of cake tin previously the site of large cake. Sister. Word Financial Crisis. Sister, with help from dog.

Soiled

On By AlexIn Other stuff, PhotographyLeave a comment

Finally. Only three months later than promised due to a pace of life issue. In fact, at twelve weeks past deadline, this monstrous delivery is – in Herefordshire terms – marked as “on time“. I was wrong about the 10 tons though. But only by a factor of 25, as endless trailers deposited huge elephant turds on the wasteland of our garden.

To many people, this looks like merely a start; to us it’s feels more like the home straight. Unless any of the 400 metres of buried pipes springs a leak. In which case, we’ll have no heating but a rather fetching water feature.

Progress is remarkably brisk inside as well. Most of the ground floor now has a floor, a scud missile has landed in our utility room accompanied by electronic cleverness that somehow eeks free energy from the ground. It just needs connecting together through a complex fusion of plumber and sparky, which – assuming we’re on Herefordshire Mean Time – should happen just in time for Autumn. 2010.

Summer digging That's nearly finished

We’re so sick of the whole house rebuild thing*, my extended weekend was only partially scuppered by being unable to leave the premises when the first load of elephant dung had been carefully placed behind the cars. Still we fashioned an escape of sorts, and it was absolutely the right thing to do.

Heading west was an inspired move as a family full of the holiday spirit decamped to Techniquest in the surprisingly lovely Cardiff. I broke the mould of your standard male by both showing much interest in the kids attempting to re-configure the exhibits in a way that was way outside of their operating parameters, and surreptitiously refreshing the tiny phone browser until a final confirmation of the crushing of the Australians at Lords.

Good day that. Tomorrow isn’t. London calls as the Clash once said, but I wager they didn’t have to find a 5 O’clock in the day to get there. My train is broken for six weeks, leaving me little option but to drive most of the way there. I expect it to be dreadful. Don’t worry, you’ll be the second to know.

* Dangerous use of the word “We” here. I’ve done two thirds of sod all on the grounds that a) I’m working and b) I’m a lazy bugger with time consuming hobbies. The important thing about being a selfish bastard is being honest about it.

“Dad… you embaressed me”

On By AlexIn Other stuff4 Comments

You know it’s coming. When you’ve nurtured human shaped DNA clones from resembling a half eaten Mars Bar to a height close to their mums’, it’s only a matter of time before they cast you off for cooler things. And as a father there’s conflicted emotions polarised between a sense of sadness that they’ve escaped your parental orbit, and a naughty little voice shouting “C’MON, THAT’S WHAT WE WANT”

So it wasn’t unexpected, although the source was – it being the Random child who has only recently been rotated through eight planetary rotations*, and the jury is still out if she’s actually ever been made a member of this one. The venue for this perceived slight was the school Sports Day where – true to form – the cross country race saw our kids bringing up last, and second last place.

This is not only because they’ve inherited their father’s legendary athleticism, but almost as contributory is the phenomenal fitness of the other children. These genetically modified little humans clearly sprint twenty acres each day before a strength session juggling tractors. And that’s before breakfast.

Since our school refuses to saction the Dad’s race on the grounds it always ends up as mortal combat driven by fading testosterone and probable heart attacks, I channelled my competitive gland into encouraging my own offspring by running with them. On reflection, it seems that such fatherly concern for their welfare was deeply uncool, and downright embarrassing.

Although when I quizzed the Randomster on exactly what she meant, it became clear that her understanding of the word “embarrassed” was a little vague. I believe her third explanation somehow linked the emotion as being similar to a poorly lettuce. However, knowing her as I do, there’s probably some truth in there somewhere, hidden behind a view of the world which is as wonderful as it is exasperating.

Anyway, here it starts I guess. Skulking in shadows when their friends are in attendance, hiding behind lamposts on the taxi run, and being banished to a different room when a critical mass of not-so-smallness meets in the house.

I think NOT. There is much pleasure to be had embarrassing your kids. My only mistake was to put them in that situation accidentally. Now I’ve thought about it a little more, I see my opportunity as legion. So where’s that invite to the School Disco?

The time for the Dancing Trousers is upon us.

* I find Random’s eighth birthday was, in fact, some six months ago. I should worry less about my kids growing up, and spend significantly more time hunting down the time thief whose stolen half my year.

DAV 478Y

On By AlexIn Other stuff6 Comments

Show me a personal plate, and I’ll show you a humourless prick driving a blacked-out people carrier with the road sense of a blind hedgehog. That was certainly my recent experience while attempting to pierce the jam packed multi-lane defences of the A3, and escape from the South-East.

Before I rant, first assumptions; 1) the deep window tint is to protect precious Crispin and Jacasta from any possible view of poor people. Unless the BMW X6 has become the transport of choice for crime syndicates – whisking the big boss from deal to deal. Winchester Mafia? No, that doesn’t sound right at all.

2) Anywhere South of Reading and East of Heathrow, traffic ground rules specify that once you have had a SINGLE flick of an indicator, this delivers a God-Smiting right to stuff your child-killing nose into any lane of your choosing. Regardless of whether there is something in it already. And because you are terribly important, the Highways Agency have laid on an extra lane for you, normally reserved for Police, accidents and fly tipping.

3) Tail-Gating is a mandatory right of citizenship of Shitsville, Berkshire. If the bloke in front can see ANY of your car south of the windscreen, there is damn well room for another fuck-you-I’m-in-a-hurry fatbloke cage in there.

Okay with that? I’m not really nor the kind of terrifyingly insane mindset that would spend forty grand on a bastard hybrid of the Batmobile and a Military hummer. Especially once it’s stuffed it’s vulgar snout in a space which I’d carelessly been minding my own business a second or so before. The A3 wasn’t moving but this cheeky fucker was, barging his way to choir practice, or Pink Gins at the Snotnose-fuckworthys or – and I’m really not buying this – racing to dump a body in the never ending roadworks.

And because I’m a year up the line from driving like a total twat, I resisted for almost seconds before cracking in the familiar way. Before I could say “leave ‘im ‘es not worf it“, I’m gunning the engine, tailgating like a local and flashing everything I had in my motorised armoury*. We jousted up the slip road with his audacious 4 lane sweep from right to left leaving me somewhat positionally embarrassed.

Except that’s where I was going for real whereas he’d merely broken a few hundred traffic rules to save four seconds. A nifty double bluff saw me pin him to the left hand lane, and a refusal to acknowledge the mighty right of his clicking indicator saw windows drawn at dusk.

I had a perfectly articulate argument locked and loaded; to whit “Why behave like that? If you’ve got kids in there, what kind of example is that setting? Where does it get you? I mean, just chill out? If you’d asked nicely I’d have let you out, but you were so damn arrogant and rude.”

One look at his apoplectic, chubby face informed this was an arse masquerading as the other end who never listened because that’s time when he could be talking. Instead a quick internal edit summarised my position thus “Oi SmallDick, stupid car, stupid driving, go fuck yourself. Oh and what kind of sodding name is DA478W? What a wanker!” His face/arse was a picture, I so wish some presence of mind would have had my camera in my non gesticulating hand.

But it felt way better than it should. I swiftly declutched and sped off (verging on the dishonest there, the love truck manages nothing quicker than a swiftish trundle) programming the SatNav with the little known “Rejavik Alternative” designed to remove a county – as swiftly as possible- from your personal geography . Even it it means driving over the Armco.

That’s okay, I had my indicator on. Honestly, lesson here kids – stay away from anything within the satanic orbit of our capital city. They’re not right in the head down there.

* You’ll be relieved to know I kept my trousers on. But only because of the bloody seat belt.

I need another weekend. Starting about now :(

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff, PhotographyLeave a comment

Between six hours of fantastic – if endlessly moist – riding on Saturday, and some extreme chucking of gliders on Sunday, it’s been and gone in all the time needed to say “Weren’t you supposed to be painting?”.

Well I did some of that as well, and about a million other thing. What I’ve failed to do is sit down for more than five minutes, or prepare myself for a week full of difficult stuff. Ah well, never mind.

Should time allow, I have things to share – the first of which will be a rant about a bloke with a blacked out people carrier, a personal number plate and a “South Eastern” attitude that very nearly got him punched. Honestly, it’s like the badlands down there, everyone is completely MAD.

More soon… that’s a threat, not a promise 🙂

Cows Stop Play

On By AlexIn Other stuff, Photography5 Comments

That’s the kind of nonsense you would expect at Cardiff for the first Ashes test. In fact, I might send this lot down to put the wind up the Aussies. They’ve certainly had that effect on me. It is quite difficult to navigate your way to the car when about 8 cows are giving you ten tons of moo-attitude at 7:30am in the morning.

We know now where they came from. We don’t know when they’re going. As of right now, they appear to be enjoying an early breakfast of my wing mirrors. The dog – brave, stout fellow that he is – has gone into hiding under a chair, and every time Carol or I move they stampede in the direction of something expensive.

I fear for the fence.

And the windows. Short of borrowing a shotgun and setting up an impromptu burger bar, I’m short of ideas. They’ve sorrounded my workshop here and every time I look up from the keyboard, mad cow eyes look back at me.

I can feel a difficult sitution developing here.

UPDATE: We tried the local farmers who denied they’d lost any cows, and anyway it’d be quicker to claim them back from the EEC farm subsidy. We even called the police which was amusing “Are any of the cows comitting an offence Sir?” / “Breach of the Peace? They’re pissing all over the place and I’d like aggrevated looming to be taken into account”. Sadly it seems these are not sufficient grounds for ungulate arrest.

Kids Play

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography2 Comments

Let’s be honest here – there is a bit of Competitive Dad inside all of us. And for some that’s because they had Competitive Dad outside for all their formative years, and never really worked out how to stop. Not for me, my old fella wasn’t so much hands off as completely disinterested. Which is something of a reason why I vacillate between total commitment and tired apathy with my own offspring.

But the parent I’ve never wanted to be is that one screaming from the sidelines, desperately striving to put the Victory into Vicarious. There’s always a positive stop between my frankly pervy love of mountain biking and forcing my kids to try and share something of that. Good reasons abound – they’re girls, they’re (still) not that big, MTB’ing is a tough sport, and they have variously preferred scooters, ex-board, walking and – well – anything else really when I’ve punted a spot of weekend dirt riding.

Today one of them mined the giggle-lode I so cherish, while the rest of the family had a damn fine go, before retiring slightly scared. Random (8, bonkers, untouched by reality) demonstrated a level of focus that made me wonder about alien abduction. She piloted her little 20inch Spesh Hardrock down trails the big boys ride, and showed a level of bravery making me wonder again – this time about adoption.

That’s not her in the photo. Verbal shares her Mum’s terror of hills and my oft repeated maxim that “your brakes control the speed, not the hill” failed to unlock tight muscle or deflate the scary gland. But she had a proper try even though it was apparent the only thing more scared in the entire forest was probably Carol.

Who – having narrowly avoided plunging into a dangerous ditch – rode bridges she hated, survived downhill trails that offered nothing but fear, and a truly, scary off camber bend that gives me the heebies before retiring with eldest daughter to the safety of the fireroads. I was properly proud of them for giving it a go without the hint of a whinge, and riding stuff that was clearly shitting-the-bed scary.

My kids don’t ride much and I don’t push them to do so. I’m always amazed how quickly they pick it up again, and while I was picking up my lovely old Kona having helped Random over a nasty log bridge, it became apparent she wasn’t going to stop. A cocktail of roots, dips and little drops were mastered with nothing more than youthful bravado and a happy chuckle.

I watched her ride it – having stopped talking since she clearly needed no coaching – with a lump in my throat. Where do they learn that shit? Even when she was properly gorse bushed at the trail end, she just picked herself up and got on with it. Well sort of, I had to push her home but she’s desperate to get out again. I may have found myself a sleeper 🙂

On returning home, the hound was walked by bicycle and suddenly these two wheeled transportation devices are the best thing since… the last great thing, but I’m happy with that. We then jumped our fence and went exploring in the stream at the bottom of the garden. Which was way more fun that it probably sounds.

There are times when kids are bloody difficult. Anyone who tells you different is on strong medication or telling lies. This was not one of those days.