The TOOL WALL is BACK!

On May 17, 2009May 15, 2009 By AlexIn Bikes, PhotographyLeave a comment

Oh yes. It’s back. Having installed this and the vice, I am now ready to break things in a far more controlled and well ordered environment. It really cramps your style when you have to climb over fourteen boxes, two cabinets and the dog to get to your biggest hammer. Now it’s merely a stretch and a swear away.

You may notice how clean and tidy my tools are. I’ve been polishing them. Nothing wrong with that in the privacy of your own shed. Sadly I now have more tools that wall so only “A List” stuff gets put up there, the rest is relegated to the bottom of the toolbox.

I’ve yet to add two more storage containers, lots and lots of shelves, the rest of the bike hooks and – of course, how could we forget – the beer fridge. The design of this bespoke building works perfectly for bikes and associated stuff. Shame I’ve added six gliders and two proper engine-y planes. Might have to throw the kids bikes out.

But it seems churlish to complain about a lack of space, as most people manage with a shed/spare room/kitchen table/annoyed spouse. And I’d better not even offer up a whiff of discontent, because this building has made a sizable dent in the budget. So we may not have new bathrooms, but at least I can now furtively fettle my many unfinished projects.

By the time you read this, I may – however – have burned all my bikes and be found rocking under the table murmuring “the mud, you can’t imagine it, God I can’t get it out of my head (or eyes, fingers, toes, etc), you can’t know what it was like, YOU WEREN’T THERE“.

I think my next purchase may be an angle grinder in case any of them survive the funeral pyre 😉

Happy Murfday

On May 15, 2009 By AlexIn Clic-24, Other stuff, Photography2 Comments

I remembered the dog’s birthday, but somehow managed to book a weekend of misery – where the Holy Trinity of riding horror: wind, rain and mud shall converge on a sodden field full of hollow eyed idiots – when Verbal hits double figures. A masterly oversight that would normally offer a perfect excuse to stay warm and dry inside, but your sponsorship means that is not allowed to happen.

I hope you’re happy 😉

Anyway the dog is now a year old and in the eight months he’s been a member of the Leigh-pack, he’s grown into a much loved, if slightly destructive family pet. The wear and tear on shoes and bins has come as a bit of a surprise, as has the worrying prospect that he still has some way to grow. Unfortuantly this is unlikely to be in the much shrunken areas of his stubby ears amd stumpy legs. As all the growth genes have been seemingly directed to his head, nose and stomach.

And yes he smells a bit, his attention span can be measured in nanoseconds, he’s not terribly obedient and his drool can be a bit embarrassing. We’re still talking about the dog here, ok? Last night he demonstrated all these qualities on being asked to “come” from some major sniffage action he’d undertaken a hundred yards or so away.

His response was unusually immediate and, as ever, enthusiastic. I watched in dog training pleasure as he arced round a clump of trees and turned onto an intersect trajectory. What should happen now is the well trained dog will slow, sit in front of you and be rewarded with a treat.

I have to mitigate what follows with the rider that he tried. He really did, engaging full reverse 4 paw thrust about twenty yards out in the expectation of stopping some two seconds later. What actually happened was those big, fat paws merely aqua-planed on the wet grass, and – if anything – 35 kilograms of rock hard dog began to accelerate.

The last thing I remember was seeing a look of some shock on Murf’s fizog before the world flipped ninety degrees and I found myself lying winded, face down in the long, damp grass. I thought I’d stay there for a while to mentally prepare myself for the CLIC this weekend*. Lord Smelly of Dog had other ideas and I received the “slobber of life” which is a medical triumph in terms of immediacy of response.

Within a second I was back up with a “Geroff, yuk, ugh, horrible animal“. I was wet everywhere, especially where slob-o-dog had gone straight for tongues, my good knee now hurts like the bad one and my elbow is making a strange clicking sound. It’s probably some kind of water diviner which could be useful for tomorrow. In case I cannot work out where the h20 is by following the stair-rods of horizontal rain.

Anyway, wish me luck. Or just point and laugh. I don’t care, I couldn’t be more miserable. The only thing that has cheered me up is the reinstatement of the “TOOL WALL” after a year abandoned in various lofts. Tune in over the weekend – not for some twatter/mobile phone picture update – but for some OCD type images of the half finished workshop.

I am going outside. I may be some wet.

* I made this observations last year. And it was fantastically sunny over the whole weekend. I’m thinking of it as my lucky joke. Let’s hope it works eh? One the one side “my lucky joke“, on the other a million weather computers predicting conditions ideal for submarine exercises. H’mm.

Herefordshire’s finest WW1 Trench Experience

On May 5, 2009May 5, 2009 By AlexIn Other stuff, Photography5 Comments

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.

Confusion

On May 3, 2009 By AlexIn Other stuff, PhotographyLeave a comment

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.

Who said the Germans don’t have a sense of fun?

On April 30, 2009 By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography3 Comments

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.

Some pictures, less words

On April 26, 2009April 26, 2009 By AlexIn Photography2 Comments

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.

What goes up…

On April 11, 2009April 11, 2009 By AlexIn Other stuff, Photography4 Comments

… 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.

Jumps’n’Bumps

On April 7, 2009 By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Other stuff, Photography3 Comments

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.

I’ve got WOOD!

On March 30, 2009March 30, 2009 By AlexIn Other stuff, Photography5 Comments

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.

Does my arse look..

On March 25, 2009March 25, 2009 By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography5 Comments

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.