Burn’n’Crash

On By AlexIn Other stuff, Photography2 Comments

Right, for the uninitiated – and noticeably unwashed from those of you who I’ve met – in all things silly modelling, this is the business end of a glider than thinks it’s a proper aeroplane. With the sort of low cunning we’ve come to expect from marketing types, they offer up a flighty solution to days when you’re short of time/wind/appropriate hillage.

Fire it up, chuck it, make it a speck up in the sky somewhere, shut the engine off and glide for a bit. Run out of height, lean on the noisy stick and start again. Great idea, and absolutely necessary for me to add such a niche to the ever expanding mass of winged foam in my workshop.

But this one is special because it has been on fire. A late night chuck should have brought twenty minutes relaxing stick twirling, followed by a cushioned landing in the field of wheat a nice farmer has provided as my makeshift runway.

What actually happened was a perfect launch, a fast climb and then… well… nothing. The motor turned off, the transmitter was no longer talking to the receiver, and my frantic twiddling had all the effect of asking a ten year old to finish their homework. Unlike recalcitrant children, the glider was blissfully serene at this point – merely heading off downwind from a height of 100+ feet, and destined to crash into some poor innocent minding their own business in a spot of cow tipping. About four miles away.

A gust of wind changed that and gravity rapidly brought on terminal velocity, which thumped the model hard into the crop and cartwheeled previously attached parts to all corners of the field. This crashing been happening rather a lot lately, but in this case it wasn’t my fault.

Not that I was much cheered by such thoughts, as I trudged through waist height wheat heading for the scene of the accident. After some searching I found that the model mostly undamaged due entirely to the springy, vigorous crop cushioning the impact. Honestly we’re taking a vertical dive at high speed followed by significant deceleration trauma, and most of the bits were still the same shape.

They should make airbags out of this stuff. Anyway things were not so good up the front with the small, yet eye wateringly expensive, motor controller on fire and – until I took swift action – in danger of setting alight thirty acres of uncut crop. The smell was terrible, and that was just from my shorts after they’d be on the arse end of a thought process that ran something like “How the fuck am I going to explain setting fire to a field?”

Anyway it’s easily fixed. When I get time. Which I have none of, and even should some magically be presented, it’ll be eaten up by pond dredging*, removing broken forks, hammering the transmission straight on the cross bike, peeking inside the budget spreadsheet and fixing myself. With a large G&T.

It’s nice to know my “skills crossover ” from MTB to models is so seamless. Crap building? Check. Excuses? Lots. Rubbish ability? Oh yes. Crashing? Big sodding tick.

That’s a comfort of sorts.

* This weekend I’ve been up to my armpits in smelly, rank and sticky mud. I’ve had terrible flashbacks to riding in the Chilterns.

Hedgehog Service Broadcasting

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike RidingLeave a comment

We don’t do requests on the ‘hog. Mainly because we don’t get any. But, if we did, we wouldn’t because we put the Hedgey into Edgy. Clear? Good.

However, a shout out needs to go to all round good eggs, riding pals and confirmed 24 hour nutters Jezz and Ian who are competing in this years Mountain Mayhem. It’s just round the corner at Eastnor Castle and I shall be playing to me strengths, by pitching up with a pitcher of beer tomorrow night, and applying some liquid therapy to those riding in ever decreasing circles.

I popped up there pre-race start and it’s a) a bloody huge event and b) bone dry with a good forecast. Which is a bit of a relief after last year*, when the best way to complete a lap was by helicopter.

Ian is riding a very light race bike he has RUINED by removing all but one gear and any vestiges of suspension. Jezz has foolishly packed mud tyres, and therefore inadvertently invoked “Hailstorm’s Law”. Honestly I don’t know why he didn’t just travel to Chile with a butterfly and let it flap it’s wings. Next thing, tornados in Swindon**

Anyway, best of British to the pair of them. Nutters they may be, but they are hedgehog reading nutters. And – as we’ve said before – that’s a SPECIAL type of nutter.

* and almost every one before that. The term “European Monsoon” seems lost on race organisers.

** Inspired piece of Meterological urban planning that.

That’s just wrong.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding1 Comment

Pretty much sums up my thinking, as I solved the mystery of why the British Army can’t source sufficient body armour for the front line troops. Because we’ve nicked it all, and were variously unpacking it, dusting it down and strapping it on at a trail centre car park.

When I say we, I am referring to weekend biking warriors in general and not me specifically. Because after giving my knee a repeated percussive workout at CLIC 2008, it became clear that my body was pretty well healed, and any perceived protection was addressing the wrong organ. The mountain biking part of my brain needed armouring up and a bit of a cuddle, while acting Mr. Plastic Fantastic was merely other limb placebo.

There’s a good argument for body armour, but it’s not the lame one trotted by those who confuse adrenalin with danger. And we’ll be back to that, but first this – the right time to strap yourself in a shock proof cocoon is when you think you’re going to hurt yourself. Back at Chicksands when multiple feet of whistling air separated squidy organs from hard ground is a good example. As was giving it some humpy on the downhill course at CwmCarn.

Here the body untalented – into which I absolutely place myself – quite rightly try and balance the risk/reward gig by piling plastic on the “staying alive” side of the seesaw. I crashed so many times back at Chicky which that was fine because I left my comfort zone in the car, and forced myself to try stuff that was beyond my meagre ability. That armour has the scars of those rough campaigns – full face helmet dented, leg pads in natty lion-savaged motif, pressure suit compressed where otherwise my spine would have been.

But trail centres are purpose built to roll out thrills without any spills. There are no walkers to cross your path with danger, no unseen obstacles to pitch you eyeball first onto a pointy rock, no trails apparently hewn by spiteful Gods trying to kill you. In short, much fun, bugger all risk. And the facile argument which runs “I can’t afford to hurt myself, I have to go to work on Monday, I have a family” misses the point completely.

Points really. Here’s the first; Mountain Biking is dangerous, Christ I should know having been hospitalised twice, and bruised a million times*. But if it wasn’t a bit spicy, we just wouldn’t do it. Sorry but we just wouldn’t – we’d ride the Sustrans, head out onto broad leafy cycle paths, squeeze into roadie tops and pound out the miles, but we would not risk possible and permanent injury whizzing between trees and banging over rocks.

So if you don’t want to get hurt, the solution seems to be body armour. But it’s not a solution, well it is but it is looking for a problem that doesn’t exist. I found the best way to avoid crashing was to slow down a bit. Radical I know, but riding at 90{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} of whatever ability you have has many benefits, some subtle, some less so.

You don’t crash for a start – that’s a big one. You’ll still take risks but they’re calculated and the important part is you don’t think you’re going to crash. And when you back off, interesting stuff starts to happen as panic braking and desperate pedalling give way to looking further ahead and using the trail. And with that comes smoothness, and with smoothness comes speed.

It’s a beautiful thing, man. Seriously this became clear I was chasing a super smooth friend of mine at CwmCarn a few months ago. There’s a section before the last climb which has little gradient but more than compensates with a river of flowing left-right-left bends. I’ve always enjoyed it, but following someone who can clearly ride a bit, you begin to realise that to be fast, the most important skill is to think fast.

And when you’re thinking of better lines with faster choices, there is no time left to think of crashing. You don’t need body armour because it’s going to slow you down, both in thoughts and in deeds. Don’t get me wrong, it absolutely has its place, but trail centres aren’t any of those.

And last night, riding with the same friend, we were ragging down some local cheeky trails into the deepening gloom. These are MY trails, and I know them well enough to take a few risks, but not too many. Only twice did I open the taps and go beyond 90{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2}, and both of those shot me full of adrenalin and full on fear.

The rest of the time, we were having a bloody fantastic time, by not crashing. And by not thinking about crashing. That’s my problem with body armour – it’s not an ego thing, or a macho thing, or an image thing, It’s an attitude thing.

I could be wrong. But – let’s face it – that’s pretty unlikely 🙂

* This could be because I’m rubbish. I concede that point. Before you make it!

Hitting the wall

On By AlexIn Other stuff, PhotographyLeave a comment

This is not, as it may first seem, the beginnings of my burial chamber. However, the way things have been going lately, the prospect of a long lie down in a cool, shaded spot is rather becoming. As opposed to what I am becoming which is bloody irritable.

My fully synchronised electronic diary failed to interface with its’ analogue sibling on hosted the kitchen wall, so curtailing my long looked forward to weekend of riding in the Peaks. A duplicitous plan, built on the need to fix my Mum’s home PC, was revealed for the web of receipt everyone knew it was, after said parent arrived at our house late last week.

Diaries you see, I have several but Carol has “the one that counts“. And I have not time to bore you with rambling whinges on house progress (not enough), budget situation (not enough), fantastic days of riding (not enough) and work (far too much).

In fact, I am being dispatched today to actually go and talk to some real clients. It’s been over three years since I had to go and earn a proper living. I’m quite looking forward to it, which is probably more than both those who have asked and those who are to receive my wise words and flailing hand motions.

I have just enough time to notice that Mountain Mayhem this year appears to be set fair. This I find slightly troubling as the entire world weather systems seems finely balanced on the predication that MM is ALWAYS piss wet through. Maybe the CLIC this year has drained the clouds of all their water.

Anyway I shall return in the manner of Arnie, although with more words and less shooting people. Unless London gets the better of me again.

Margins

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding4 Comments

Of all the senses, smell short circuits synapses with such breathtaking speed it sometimes does just that – rewinding the minds eye to a vision of something so joltingly real it pushes the physical world away. For some fresh cut grass triggers a memory of long – and long ago – carefree summers, others will walk into their kids’ classroom, and be instantly transported back thirty years into a world of short trousers and tall teachers.

For me it’s the smell of warm gravel. Rubbish you say, gravel doesn’t have a smell – ah but it does if you’ve ever given it a proper nasal examination from close quarters. My approach was a high velocity, low level pass- ramming gravel up a nostril until it was piled sufficiently high to create a never-to-be-forgotten mental bookmark.

It didn’t really register at the time, because all my organic processing was being diverted to having a large accident. And while the memory of flint slicing my knee directed my riding bravery for far too long, that was much more about a sense of fear rather than the smell of it.

Until now. The weekly night ride split my brain neatly between then and now with a sensory throwback of scrabbling tyres hunting for grip on smooth granite marbles. The malevolent sound these mini Grim Reapers hissed sat somewhere between an analytical explanation of fat tyres on loose rock, and an imagined disaster movie with me being nothing more than a painful passenger.

You see the thing that pissed me off more than anything back in 2006 was my stupidity in ignoring a stand-out warning of what was to come. I’d had some proper wiggly feedback through the bars on the corner before, but I pushed it just as hard anyway into the subsequent gravelly arc.

And paid for such bravery with first a month off the bike, and then two years when riding became so much of a chore I so nearly packed it up for good. So last night put the Vu back in Deja after I’d spent most of the ride letting air of the tyres so carefully inflated some time earlier hunting for some grip. I was riding the big bike for a change, and that change made for so much silly fun, so much more downhill speed, and so little purchase on big fat 2.5inch tyres better suited for proper sized rocks in the Peak District.

The start of an accident inevitably comes near the end of the ride when reflexes are not quite as sharp as confidence is high. We ride a fantastic ridge which funnels into a steep, loose gulley, guarded by a natural berm that shoots you wide of the tyre sucking danger of the eroded centre. Instead you stay high, stay off the brakes, push out over a tree root before committing to a properly shaley left hander.

Fail to make it and you’re in the quarry, get it wrong and rapid, full body exfoliation awaits. Get it right though and you’re pumped out at high speed, grab a chunk of usefully located bank and ping off into something a little flatter and safer. It’s ace, but loose and looser than ever with weeks of nothing falling in there other than the occasional mountain biker.

I entered that berm at a speed entirely inappropriate for a man of my limited skill, which unsurprisingly compressed the next few seconds into a mental riot of terror, acceptance, amazement and relief. I avoided the root by simple dint of ploughing into the gulley. My tyres felt it was important to bring the absolute abscence of any grip whatsoever to my attention by starting to slide in a manner worrying reminisant of a long stay in hospital.

I caught the first slide with stiffly frightened muscle memory, but by now the only manner by which I could be classed as “in control” was still being on the bike. While this was going on, that left hander loomed tight and fast and my options narrowed to nothing. Had to stuff it in, had to push the bar, had to find time to pray it wasn’t going down.

The slide was properly mental. In so many ways of that word, as I could hear the echo of a bike crashing groundwards, the shhhhhsssshing noise of fast gravel at ear level and the sound of body bounce. Yet it didn’t happen, and I still don’t know why. In the same way I still cannot understand how I lost a different bike in a similar corner, but with a younger God of Fate looking on.

Margins. That’s what this is about. Two situations, starting the same, finishing entirely differently. It’s made me think about the accident again but in a good way. Because for every crash that smashes you up and leaves you wondering if it’s bloody well worth it, there are a hundred mirrors that you don’t hold up for proper examination.

So I know this time I got lucky. But what I’ve worked out is that I’ve been sodding lucky so many times before. Only when you understand the margins do you finally comprehend the massive deficit of risk to reward than mountain biking serves up every time you go out and ride.

I’m feeling pretty damn good about that.

Electoral Stroll

On By AlexIn Other stuff2 Comments

That’s what Carol did today; she walked into the voting booth in our local village and asked who we’d failed to bribe in order to receive a voting ballet. I’d assumed our lack of political capital was because there was some ritual with a tea tray, frisky chicken, window ledge and amusing handshake we’d forgotten to undertake. Either that or our ineligibility was sealed with having only the four fingers and one thumb on each hand.

Now you all know Winston Churchill was wrong and I am right. Because his view was that Democracy is a terrible thing, but what’s the alternative? Mine’s right here Winny, and we’re talking benevolent dictatorship – an extremely small pointy topped ruling party with me both at the top and brandishing the pointy thing. I’ve already allocated the key government posts of “Keeper of the Scorpion Pits” and “Head of Cheese” although I’ve been considering upgrading “Expenses Adjudicator/Baseball bat tester” to full cabinet status.

I wasn’t going to vote anyway because – as I’ve said before – it just encourages them. And my own political ambitions – constrained by our dumb democracy – were thwarted by apathy and sobriety, hence the “five door hatchback party” was stillborn as a single issue party. Leaving those who believe a protest vote has some validity voting for the fascist bastard’s or Major Loony and the Hang’em high silly sods.

And before someone – and there is always one -starts giving it the “my grandad fought and died for democracy, the least you could do is show it some respect“, just stop because you’re wrong. Badly, as it turns out because many, many brave people went into battle because a) they were told to and b) the Germans bombed their dads’ chip shop. There’s a great quote attributed to Bill Vaughan (but I don’t think it’s him) that goes “People will cross an ocean to fight for democracy, but won’t cross the street to vote for it”

I always though Universal Suffrage was missing an important ‘e‘. Sure allowing the “ordinary man” (rather lamentably followed by the ordinary woman) to vote on whose in charge was a big improvement that that vote being taken by those who already were. But it’s not like it’s going to make much of a difference is it? They’re all power seeking crooks with the morals of a heroin spiked alley cat.

It’s like the BBC TV license, I’m forced to pay it, but that doesn’t give me the editorial control to set fire to “The X-Factor” studio. But, at least I can throw things at the TV, or – as I am increasingly doing – turn it off. But I can’t do that with politicians, they grease up to your door, bombard you from billboards, score pointless inter-party points and so separated from our reality they should consider marriage counselling.

And there’s a beautiful – if twisted – irony that the electorate have only re-engaged with politics now the slimy twats in apparent power have been caught with their finger in the till. I honestly wouldn’t worry about that too much – it has merely proven what we already knew and, given the chance, we’d all do the same – but it’s a bloody concern that such incompetence can somehow collectively run a country.

So anyway, we found our house isn’t on the electoral roll, and we’ll probably get round to fixing it, but it did amuse me that the Inland Revenue, NHS, and a myriad of assorted public bodies can find where we live. But if I wanted to vote for them, I was told “you can’t vote today, sorry that’s the system”

I’m struggling to care.

Mad Cows if you please.

On By AlexIn Other stuffLeave a comment

Stupid things, yes? Useful for milk, steak, looking English in Landscape pictures, but essentially the magnolia wallpaper of the countryside.

Yes, and indeed no. The Hound Of Smell’s evening walk perambulates through a field full of long grass, many sniffable trees and the badgers’ back passage*. From about now until September, this rather idyllic footpath also includes a herd of cows or, and you will see why this is important shortly, more accurately bulls.

Murf doesn’t quite know what to make of them, so I generally attach the sledding lead and ski behind while he investigates interesting animal turds, served up with a side order of buzzy flies. The cows aren’t sure what to make of us either, which became obvious as they began to track us at a similar pace.

This apparent stalking made for one nervous dog and one slightly apprehensive Al. But – I told myself – they’re way more scared of us than we of them, at least one of us has higher brain functions**, and that fence looks jump-able.

I refused to panic because – well – they were cows, not elephants or lions and land-going sharks, and I was a man who’d faced down puffed-up commuters, people who have referred themselves in the third person, and small children pleading for ice scream.

And then they started running. Well one did at which point the horror of “herd mentality” became visually apparent. And this was not some unfocussed stampeding either – no these horny buggers were heading for us with the kind of intent that screams restraining order.

I loosed the dog believing he would play to the masters loyal hound stereotype, only for him to give it the full “see ya, wouldn’t want to be ya” before running off into the long grass, where a huge, scary black dog then went with the cowering in fear option.

Fortified by a couple of pre-walk sharpeners, I chose to stand my ground, arms folded, knees shaking and in receipt of about eighty mad eyes shaking about in tossing heads. Have you ever looked into the eyes of a cow? I have, and – having come out the other side – can authoritatively declare there is nothing going on at all back there.

Clearly juggling the chemical imbalance of four stomachs is more than enough for their knuckle head brains, leaving just enough to be stoke up the properly intimidating gland. I will say at this point I was mildly perturbed and not overburdened with good ideas. But as grisly visions of being butted to death began to play in my minds eye, the long grass – currently rustling with apparently unconcerned Man’s SortofBest Friend – offered a way out.

Hay fever, l pollen and my bent snozzle can have only one outcome, and that’s a sneeze so violent I’m always happy not to have popped both my eyes out. A path to freedom opened up as the cows unclustered in the blast radius, leaving both me and my dignity to exit in a brisk trot.

The remainder of the walk passed in a blissful non event and it wasn’t until I was encouraging the chickens to bed***, it occurred to me this may be a conspiracy. That last chicken was giving me the mad eye, and a bit of beak attitude to go with it. I used to think I’m in charge of this menagerie of beasts but I’ve read Animal Farm, and now I’m not so sure.

I am sure of one thing though – those chickens have been talking to the cows.

* An animal trail that the dumb mutt never fails to nasily mine every evening. And one I never tire of pointing the name out to the kids, much to Carol’s irritation.

** That’ll be me in case you were in any doubt.

*** “WIll you PLEASE stop fucking about and get into the hutch? Otherwise tomorrow there shall be one less of you, and chicken salad for everyone else“

“It’s not glandular”

On By AlexIn Other stuff6 Comments

Right there, that’s the title of my new healthy lifestyle book. I am somewhat conflicted here because I cannot comprehend how the almost infinite heft of diet books seems to make no bloody difference to the weight of the people reading them. And yet, I still feel there is room for one more written in the style of blunt northerner and focussing on some simple truths.

Here are my draft chapter headings, feel free to help me out with suggestive edits. I’ll feel free to ignore them of course.

1. Eat less, exercise more. Inspired by looking out of the office window this lunchtime. The leafy square was divided about 90/10 in favour of those who looked as if the last meal they missed was when their mum ran out of milk. The exercise regime of these individuals seemed to revolve around warm up cigarettes, reps of mobile phone texting, and finishing up on a big session of sugary cakes.

2. It really isn’t glandular. No it isn’t. You can pretend you have big bones, over-active glands or a sloth like metabolism. But honestly, it’s more the fact that you spend 20 minutes checking calorific values on nasty gas packed sandwiches, and then taking the lift to the second floor.

3. Being round isn’t a cool look. Which seems to be a bloke thing – the other day I saw two fellas comparing beer bellies, reaching forward to give them an affectionate pat “All paid for mate...” was the smug refrain. You can tell it’s nearly summer because the world is full of FPIO*, and most of them are men.

4. Dieting is dumb. It Just is. I do love all those adverts for slimming products modelled by lovely looking women** who have absolutely no body image issues or whatever marketing euphemism hides “looking like a sack of spuds” behind some soothing words. Creeping obesity is simply saying that adding 9000 calories a month is a shit load easier than shedding them.

But crash dieting just eats muscle fat and when the weight loss plateaus – as it absolutely will once that’s gone – everyone just gets depressed and eats again. And the body thinks “bloody hell, food, I tell you what I’ll store that in my fat reserves.” Or arse as the less medically inclined may think of it.

5. Stop kidding yourselves. If you’re fat and happy, then I’m happy for you too. If you’re whinging that your diet isn’t working/the food is shit/exercise is boring/etc/etc, then accept you’re going to be a human beach ball, or do something about it. And no, whining doesn’t count.

It’s going to be a best seller. Retirement beckons I think.

I know this is probably fatist, and I’ve done it before. But I don’t care, because I still find it bloody odd that we have a chunk of health system built to prolong a bloody miserable life, rather than fix the problem before wheelchairs are involved.

And I’m writing this post BBQ, drinking beer but I nearly bloody killed myself commuting, and spent a day eating stuff that was nutritionally outstanding, but digestively dull. So let me leave you with this; the local rag was showcasing a slightly less fat bastard than a year before, who’d been the only bloke in his WeightWatchers group.

When asked what the greatest benefit of losing four stone and becoming both more active and less of a hospital statistic, he declared “getting in and out of the car is easier”. Than what? Walking a mile? Getting on a bike? It’s like escalators in Gyms’ – when did we lose the link between feeling better and actually being better?

I know I’m a grumpy bugger with a myopic view of stuff no one else cares about, but I do wonder sometimes if the world went mad one day, and nobody bothered to tell me.

* Fat People In Oakleys.

** And it generally is, so testing point 3).

Life’s a beach

On By AlexIn Other stuff, PhotographyLeave a comment

H;mm beachy

I have spent much of the last two days in a state best described as “Moderately Damp”. This level of external moistness normally fires up the hedgy bilge pump to spray out exactly how wet/unhappy/in receipt of ‘trench willy’ my latest bike ride was. And followingsome random punctuation and naughty words, comes invariably a whinge that the bad weather has got personal, and there’s no one left to complain to.

Not today. An opportunisic very long weekend saw us heading out to the Welsh Riveria where golden beaches and stunning backdrops await. Not that we ever got that far, because a late start and early finish bracketed our sandy day. Which had started with a well known “low cost” tyre emporium cheerfully explaining that a) two tyres for the mighty Love Bus would be£330, b) They didn’t have any and c) tracking was extra.

How can it be extra? I am a major shareholder, surely, after that purchase and deserve some owner perks? And no wonder they didn’t have any, because at that price, I assume some Cuban virgin is hand rolling fresh rubber on her supple thighs. Hang on a minute, I just need to… er one more minute.. no I’m good…. right, as you were. Anyway I spurned their request for a large bucket of cash in return for some vague promise of future service, and instead deposited Baldy The Mini-Truck at the local garage.

Who, without any reference to far-flung, rubber rolling maidens, did the job in quarter of the time for about half the cost. This says to me that certain chains – okay KwikFit – are a bunch of racketeering, scaremongering rapscallions, and I shall not be darkening their telephone lines again. This is the first, and probably, last time the hedgehog does Public Service Broadcasting, and so I’d appreciate it if you could shout “THEIVING BASTARDS” ever time you pass one of their dens of financial inequity.

Anyway the beach was lovely, unspoiled and vast. The dog was mad, mentally disturbed and much chastised. The kids were briefly cold, often wet and full of the kind of smiles that only sand and ice cream can bring. I was merely sunburned on my extensive thin bit, and mildly exercised removing Murf from other peoples sandwiches.

The huge caravan park however is something else. It’s evenly split between people waiting to die, and those who are drinking such industrial quantities of cheap cider, they may soon be joining them. It was properly tacky with a betting shop on site, adjacent to a nasty looking greasy cafe and a gaudy bingo hall. It is also pretty close to my idea of hell, but – on walking through it – it seems I was in a minority of one. Although since I was the only bloke sober or not on life support in a twenty acre radius, this may have been contributory.

It’s not me being some kind of intellectual snob here. Mainly because I have neither the intellect or upbringing to be either, but I just don’t understand why you’d cage yourself in camp of 300 identical caravans, while there are delights aplenty all around. I am worryingly starting to view canvas bell tents in a non ironic manner, but the only good thing I can say about these caravans is at least they weren’t blocking a major arterial highway.

Having just about dried off, today we took 10 of Verbal’s friend’s swimming, ratcheting up the excitement with a huge floaty activity thingymebob*, before shovelling a zillion sugared calories and a similar number of e-numbers into their hungry stomachs. Parents love these swim parties as they get 2 hours of child-free weekend bliss. Having seen those kids at the end of the party, I’m not sure they’ve fully got the risk/reward gig here.

Anyway I must off to go battle with the eye high weeds with the Al modified strimmer**, because tomorrow the weather is again set fair. I think it would be wholly inappropriate not to enjoy that on some kind of bicycle.

* I fell off it three times. And then stopped, because I’d swallowed most of the pool. I told the kids I was merely prat-falling to amuse their little minds. They’re 10 and too lifeworn for that “Yeah, whatever“.

** Oh yes. Only a proper engineer can see something electrically certified and clearly dangerous, before thinking “right, to give it a bit of a kick, let’s simply convert it to NITRO“,