Now under development. Exclusive photos below:
Ready to add the “firing step”
Stop before you hit the big shed! Yes it really is that orange. No, we don’t know why, it’s not the colour on the tin.
I’m hoping that’s not “finished”.
Back to work, thankfully I am 60 miles from the digger carnage. Unfortunately I’ll be back there later. Probably testing the trenches by falling in.
I’d like to start with a complaint. Not from me, although while you’re asking my left hamstring is giving me serious grief, my knee continutes to move in odd directions and the old shoulder war-wound is not short of random gyp-age.
You appear to have nodded off, sorry am I being boring?* Anyway we traditionally revere complaints down here in the bowls of the hedgehog. It shows people are at least paying attention, and there is nothing worse than desperate attempts to be annoying being met with nothing more than an apathetic shrug.
But this is different, someone complained there wasn’t enough drivel on the site, rather than too much. This wasn’t some back handed compliment that the quality of output has improved, rather the frequency has decreased. There’s a reason for that, I am bloody busy trying to spin plates marked “work”, “family”, “house” and “hobbies”.
Currently I’m metaphorically sat on the floor surrounded by shattered crockery. So rather than face up to the reality that something has to go**, I bought a few more gliders and parked them in trees. That one up there is branded as a “fusion” because, apparently, they couldn’t get away with calling it “the pig ugly bastard”. From every angle it’s a munter, wing too thick, fin to big, fuselage too small.
Reminds me a bit of an aeronautical representation of my own oddly shaped form. Chucking off a slope just to protect your eyes doesn’t help much, except it becomes slightly less ugly – but only because it is further away. Anyway there are all sorts of rituals and nonsense around “maidening”*** a new glider.
Some shit about how it flies, fiddling with complex knobs (which may be where the word “maiden” comes in) and declaring how it will very much improve your flying/sex life/general cool hunting prowess.
Not for me. I cannot really consider a model “maiden’d” until it’s been in at least one tree. This one I hit twice with the ugly stick, one tree to my left, one to my right. And I can say – without fear of contradiction – that this 60inch foam monster is signifcantly harder to remove from a Hawthorn than its smaller, and marginally less gopping, brethern.
I spent time I had none of lassoing trees with hosepipes, and risking a life of which I only have one edging nervously toward the edge of branches. All the time being punctured by vibrant thorns and significantly distressed by vertigo.
So not really the relaxing interlude I was looking for. Neither is this, so I’ll leave you with airy promises of further missives discussing a milestone for the mad dog, a hole in the ground that needs much filling, and some lies around my awesome preparation for the CLIC-24.
For which I need another£170 sponsorship if I am to get the firm to match it. So any further donations would be much appreciated.
* In Al’s list of the most boring conversations, other peoples’ minor ailments slots in just behind some vicarous arswipe telling you how clever their children are. Top of the list is – currently – anything involving paintbrushes.
** Generally me. To the off license.
*** There are some obsessives out there that I believe take this verb a little too literally. Still they can’t arrest you for it. As long as you’re not outside.
From Big-Col’s blogspot. Worth a look for some fantastic MTB images.
I do like the way he’s decided to ratchet up the danger by performing this nose wheelie right on the outside of the trail. A trail that clearly has breached the risk/reward barrier in the direction of certain death.
I wouldn’t even want to walk that trail. Never mind ride it. And the prospect of grabbing a whole handful of front brake with the likely result of pitching you headlong into space just makes me go “arrrrrghhhhhh”
Germans you see. Not the full pound. Or possibly Euro.
That’s before Ken really got started. After he’d finished, it looked more like this:
What is scary is how we’ll be down another metre for the trenches. So far we’ve been through two water pipes and narrowly avoided browning out Hereford. I’m not worried. Much.
I am now the same colour as “Dale Winton” Orange hue you can see on the big shed. I am trying not to think about the sad fact I have to do another coat. And paint all the inside. Oh, joy. Looks good though and soon I’ll be able a proper man again with his own shed.
The other pic is our solution to a lack of floor height when installing underfloor heating and new wooden floors. It’s cheap-ish and reasonably safe. Not that I’d want to sleep under one of them.
And to finish, a picture of the shoe-eating hound who is wondering where the garden has gone.
He is now rather large and nearly a year old. Top dog though and the least stressed of anyone in our house right now.
Right I’m off the read the building regulations so I’m perfectly well informed enough to ignore them completely.
… must hit a tree and then explode into a thousand sad little fragments. But, before we get to that, I need to explain the level of detailed planning that precedes creating a window of time into which you can smash what used to be money.
Kids Easter Egg hunt starts at 12:30sharp. Flying starts at 10. So roll out of bed at 8 and:
08:01: Release mad dog and receive traditional greeting of big slobber and 30kg of misplanted paw on my foot.
08:05: Engage in daily re-enactment of “attack of the killer chickens” as you release the hungry, fat peckers , and then run away as they hunt you down assuming there is a hidden lettuce about your person.
08:08: Complete removal of chicken poo from beju poultry residence. Count chickens and sum only three. Recount does not magically produce another chicken. Notice dog has helpfully nosed gate open through which “free range Willy” has motored through.
08:09 Corner chicken and attempt to catch through use of approved “double arm grab”
08:14 Decide whoever approved that technique has clearly never dealt with Killer Chickens before. Examine bloodied peck marks while Mexican standoff breaks out. Dog attempts to break back in by herding escaped bird using an approach best described as “Bottom Sniffing”
08:16 Dog joins human on the bloodied side of Mexican standoff having been chastised by the beak of doom
8:17 With a “fuck this, it a sodding chicken not a bloody grizzly bear“, successfully apprehend squawking pray using “big wing” arm movements followed by swift Rugby tackle.
8:18 Flushed with success, don’t notice chicken flushing herself as she squeezes out a line of shit, perfectly aimed at my recently (as of 30 second ago) pristine new fleece.
8:19 Look into mad eye of the Chicken and know it’s laughing at me.
8:20 Return chicken to POW side of fence, attempt to clean up fleece poo but merely marinate remainder of clothing with liquid shit. All chickens now pissing themselves laughing.
8:25 Stalk out, return to house, stick both model batteries on charge, decant entire truck full of spares, wings, God knows what else from one room into the 4×4. Congratulate self on remembering to actually pack same number of wings as fuselages*
8:40 Wolf down breakfast. Embark on walk with domesticated Wolf.
8:41 Notice key component of Dog Walking missing, namely Dog.
8:45 After some frantic searching, discover Murf in the pond with his “oh it’s me you wanted was it? Sorry I thought it was the other Murphy you’ve been shouting at desperately for the last five minutes” look.
09:20 Return with Dog. Wave in general direction of family and promise imminent return from amazing flying session in which the repaired Boomerang will once again aspire to aviation.
10:30. 20 hours repair, 20 minutes flying. Let’s just leave it there should we. Okay let’s not, it was another TREE, ANOTHER ONE. One day I’ll have a proper accident where I crash into the ground or myself. But no, I just clipped a tree on the final approach. Final being the right word. Plane is wrecked, completely. I’m setting fire to it later.
11:50: Completed my first ever landing with a proper engine-y plane. Well second if you want to count 25 foot in a tree as a “landing”. Second training aircraft is nowhere near as nice to fly, but at least it still looks like an aeroplane. Amusingly everyone was commenting on what a great repair/recover/rebuild job we’d done on the boomer. Makes smashing it into a million pieces so much more easy to bare.
12:30: Return home. Sweep out sorry remains from the truck.
It’s still there. I can’t bring myself to sort it out. What you probably won’t believe – and I know I’m struggling – is apparently, my flying is actually pretty damn good and not many people make their first landing after 8 training flights. Loads of people have been in that tree. Think of it as a rite of passage they say.
I’m thinking of a beer 😉
* Ask me why. Go on, ask.
The feeling of mental limbo never really left me this weekend. There was this great big HONC sized hole into which I kept throwing stuff; yet while my body was amusing itself with adequate distractions, my mind was still wheeling away in the Cotswolds.
And while I did consider a 48 hour full on sulk and grump, it seemed a shame to waste two days of fine weather, and a family that’s not seen me as much as it probably should lately. Although on Saturday I abandoned them again to wind out mental tension in big hills while crashing small gliders.
I even manged to fly the new, fast one which, being German designed, had a perfectly logical build process as long as one remembered to adopt the correct “installation position“. Being English, I’d wandered off the precise instructions to practice the art of wingtip painting. Practice being what I needed, as everyone within a five mile blast radius of the spray tin is now calling me “Mr Overspray“.
The tail – especially bad – looks as if I’ve spatchcocked a gerbil, such was the red splatter effect of the over enthusiastic paint dribbler. It still flew very well – even if I didn’t – although the last landing crash ripped the nose off. An arrival I am now thinking of as “The Michael Jackson”
The obstacle course I built for the kids on Sunday lasted all the time it took for them to become bored with it. So ten minutes later, I harvested some wood for my now insulated timbered erection*, and built an eight inch lip for the pair of them to roll over.
Which they both did rather well although Verbal decided – as she is nearly 10 and therefore knows everything – that she’d ignore my patient instruction to stand up, pedals level as she dropped off. Still at the end of an hour, it was her with the sore bottom and me with the knowing smile. Random just nicked her sisters’ bike and mosied on over with a look of not oft seen concentration.
I had to have a go. Obviously. Normally any photo of me riding clashes terribly with my own internal image of trail God. This one bucks the trend in no way whatsoever, but at least I’m looking quite thin. And that’s not just on top.
Whether that will continue after the scary Physio tells me off this evening, I’ll let you know. I’m so desperate to ride right now, I’m even considering commuting in the pissing rain tomorrow. One year, I’ll get injured in the Winter and not feel as if another summer will be lost to encroaching fat and decreasing fitness. I am very much hoping it will be this year.
* I am unlikely to get bored of this joke. Sorry.
Oh yes – feast your eyes on our huge erection. I accept it currently has all the aesthetic beauty of a WWII pill box and is lacking some weatherproofing and – well – a roof, but fuck me, am I glad to finally get something started. We seen to have been planning for ever, and my impatience gland was close to an uncontrolled explosion when delay followed problem which inevitably threw up some other insurmountable issue.
And always the budget spreadsheet went one way and my wine consumption the other. So yesterday I was mightily cheered when our Farmer neighbour unexpectedly turned up with his digger*, and removed most of the hated pea shingle in an afternoon that history shall record as “shovel-fest”
I’ve no idea where it’s all gone – like all things here redistribution is the bedrock of the Herefordshire barter system, so some bloke will have a new drive while we receive half a ton of topsoil from a nutter mining for badgers.
Anyway back to the building. It’s going to be great although it seems too big on the outside, and too small once inside. This reverse Tardis phenomenon is probably nothing more than a three dimensional mental shift caused by the staggering amount of shit I know we’ve got to fit in there. It was designed for eight bikes** and now has to house those, a proliferation of models, assorted associated crap and – of course – the restitution of the tool wall.
And is this resurrection of the blessed shrine to percussive engineering timed with the Christian festival of Easter a coincidence? I think probably not. Much work to be done before then including solving the brow furrowing complexity of electrickery. Apparently if my power requirements ever meet the physical world, we’ll be needing to add a sub station to our ever lengthening list of projects.
* Which sat around doing nothing while important decisions were debated over a cup of tea of three. I became bored pretty quickly and cut to the only question that really mattered “Hey Ken, can I have a go on the dumper truck?”
** You haven’t missed anything. Obviously Carol and the Kids have a rather disappointing one each.
Okay it does. Right moving on, a couple more pictures taken by Tim “the lucky bugger with a new camera” Beresford. And for those of you pointing at the screen and beckoning over complete strangers for a laugh at ‘dwarf-leg-man“, I think you will find that I am riding in the new-school style of “crouching badger, hidden terror”
Indeed, this is a style that is well displayed here.
The smell of fear was wafting up from my ample behind I can tell you*, and I was very happy to have the big unit all the way back there. An over the bars exit would have been rewarded by a spiky meeting with some pointy ground and some optional groaning.
I did have a number of attempts at not riding that, and only managed to roll over the drop when bottling out became the more dangerous alternative. Quite pleased that I’ve not become a complete wuss, although those 2.1 tyres are perilously close to lycra in the wardrobe.
They’ll be off after HONC, as will I probably. My post HONC warm down regime is currently based around setting fire to every bicycle I own and buying a motorbike.
Anyway, in a break from Hedgehog tradition, here’s a picture of a proper rider. I quite like the way Tim appears to have gone all Praying Mantis over his handlebars.
* even if you probably didn’t want to know.
Asking whether the Malvern Hills can be a bit congested on a sunny Spring day, is a little like wondering if Tesco can get a little crowded the day before Christmas. It’s a small set of hills with a big catchment area – all policed by a bunch of people who seem to enjoy getting up on a Sunday and putting a tie on.
The hills are shared not only by walkers and mountain bikers, but paragliders, model gliders, sheep, protected woodland and more SSSI’s that you can shake a rural White Paper at. The result is 90{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} tolerance and 10{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} confusion.
Take this mad example; the Malverns are split in half by the county boundary between Worcestershire and Herefordshire. Apparently the Worcestershire council designated all their paths as Bridleways, but Herefordshire chose footpaths. This is even more bonkers when a scan of the OS map shows virtually none of either. The paths are just that, and I’m much more interested in good trail manners than I am with someone telling me where I can ride my bike.
Despite a bit of car park centric congestion, Tim and I had a fantastic morning in the further reaches of the hills. Tim finally cleaned this nasty rocky outcrop near the Wyche, and I managed the same on a decent down from the Worcester Beacon. We knocked off two thousands plus feet of vertical, and finished up in the pub, catching those early spring rays.
The trails are bone dry, the bikes are dusty and the speeds are starting to come up a bit. Obviously this is all too good to be true, which seems a good time to point you to next weeks’ weather forecast.
Ah well, I’m “tapering” for HONC anyway and if that isn’t a good enough excuse, my poorly knee certainly is.
Would now like the world to know, they are now to be referred to as “Dog Flap“
When Murphy was little*, a favourite trick was to follow you outside by somehow squirming through the cat flap. This was particularly traumatic for the cat, especially if it was trying to come back in at the same time.
Yesterday, the dog was clearly feeling some “separation anxiety” as Carol had a few other things on here mind, and four mad chickens in her hand. Ironically one of the other ‘things’ was a spotty Random who is the last member of the family to get Chicken Pox.
Murphy decided that since he can no longer fit through the cat flap, he shall merely extend it by shoving his every increasing girth hard against it, until the door broke. Apparently, on escaping, he was delighted with himself and couldn’t wait to run over to Carol wagging his tail and giving it the full “You see I’m not totally stupid” expression.
Dog was marched back to doghouse, and locked in his cage. When I finally got home he exchanged his expression for “I was just sticking my snozzle out, and it broke. Honestly“.
Any more of that and he’ll be getting a kennel outside 😉
* It’s all relative. He was never exactly small, but now he is a Labrafantasorous.
