Firsts

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike RidingLeave a comment

Thursday’s ride was had more firsts than a swotty set of University finalists holding incriminating pictures of their examiner pleasuring frisky llamas* Most of them were good, taking this long to find time to write something less so. When I get a spare moment, I’ll be off to the shed with this scribbled drawing and an illicit feed from the substation, so getting started on the time machine.

First of firsts was a ride that started and finished without lights. That’s not to say it was actually still daylight as we peered through technical dark around 9pm. One of the lesser known side effects of testosterone is “Carrot Vision” enabling those of the dangly genitalia to dismiss artificial trail illumination as “something that a girl might need” until the first victim fails to distinguish between dark space and dark tree.

It’s worth stating here that Carrot Vision works only at top speed, and the gift of organic night vision shall be dispelled with the briefest grab of the “scared-now” bar mounted levers. Second first was a dab-less climb of “THE BASTARD“. A hill that is thought by some to be the stiffest lung buster in all the Malverns. I don’t know about that, but for me it’s the first time I’ve managed the fifteen minute nose-stem gurn without finding an excuse to lie on the trailside until I can remember my name.

I shall be returning to the subject of the Bastard in a post all of it’s own. Fully deserved and guaranteed to get a sympathetic nod from any rider whose looked at the distance between their current location and an apparently unscalable peak and cried “Oh Fuck, you are joking aren’t you?”

First amongst equals was a brakeless descent of the old** defensive ditch which has both vertiginous drops and a flat out gully. It’s always a tad moist, ready to wash away your front wheel and leave you wondering what to do with quite a lot of speed mostly being scrubbed off by your face.

But flat out is so much fun, we had to go and try it again, passing the local unsmiling cycling club who seemed to have forgotten how bloody lucky we are to have this kind of riding on our doorstep. Apparently they don’t “do” this descent because it loses too much height. What? Isn’t that why you climb in the first place?

Anyway we left these aliens, and I was staggered that I was able to do so, since I’ve done not to much riding in the last month what with every decreasing slices of spare time, and the dodgy knee to boot. I’m giving up healthy eating – instead just going for the rubbish vacuum packed “Big Breakfast” sandwich which sustained me the whole way round.

Last of the firsts was the realisation that it’s barely a month to the longest day. How can this be? The police should stop investigating whether the Daily Torygraph can categorise all MP’s as “self important twats fiddling their expenses“*** and go after the big crimes. I’ll be onto the local station first thing tomorrow asking them to find out EXACTLY who has stolen the first half of 2009.

CLIC next weekend. I’m not scared. Much.

* Worked for me 🙂

** Proper old. Iron age. Men wearing furry dresses, women sporting latest “Bone Hair” quiff and decent chance of being killed in all manner of interesting ways on a daily basis.

*** I’m summarising here, but that seems pretty much the conclusion you have to come to.

Chickens foxed.

On By AlexIn Other stuff5 Comments

We’ve had our four chickens for less than two months. Past tense entirely appropriate here, after a fox killed two, took one and left the other for dead. The casual brutality is shocking – especially looking to shove them into the safety of the chicken house for the night, and finding three pathetically still chickens, broken, flat on their backs.

The fourth was nowhere to be seen but the trail of feathers suggest a violent end that wasn’t in the story I fabricated for my youngest. This was “her” chicken, and while you could argue that shielding kids from the grizzlier side of the food chain is cowardly, it wasn’t you faced with a tearful eight year old needing reassurance.

And while unhappily bagging up the dead birds, we noticed the fat one that lays ostrich size eggs was still breathing. Upside down, clearly traumatised but just as clearly not dead. It must have been knocked over and gone into shock so fooling the fox it didn’t need finishing off. We gratefully moved inside clutching the catatonic chicken, and watched it stagger about a bit, before it went to hide in a corner.

It’s still there or thereabouts two days later method acting a cross between Howard Hughes and Greta Garbo. Apparently chickens tend to just give up, stop eating and fall off the mortal perch. But we’ve high hopes for this feisty little bugger, it’s now eating a few hand fed grapes and has even managed a bit of outside pecking without mentally crumbling. Cast a shadow anywhere close though, and it freezes assuming it is about to be eaten.

This – fortuitously – is Verbal’s chicken, and she’s very keen to see it pull through. Personally I think it’s milking it now, but obviously I’m keeping that to myself. And while I know that chickens are nothing more than noisy, mobile egg laying units, and foxes kill everything and take hardly anything, and you shouldn’t get attached to domestic poultry, and the fox has cubs to feed so who are we to choose, and, and… it was still bloody upsetting.

Some things have changed. We’ll not be putting them into their new enclosure until I’ve erected Colditz type electric fences, surrounded it with ninja voles and armed the new chickens with automatic weapons. Yes, we’re going for four more, and this time we’ll try and discharge our duty of care with a little less naivity about how high foxes can jump.

And that’s not all that’s changed. My attitude to fox hunting has always been on the liberal side of hand wringing served up with a shoulder chip of class warrior. But having found that not everyone who participated was total dick, and having seen first hand the waste of fox kills, I’m not so sure anymore.

I am sure of one thing, if I saw that fox, I’d shoot the bugger.

Herefordshire’s finest WW1 Trench Experience

On 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 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 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.

Giant Herefordshire Hedgehog forced to diet.

On By AlexIn Other stuffLeave a comment

Some kind soul sent me this article describing how a porky ‘hog had some gorged himself to three times the normal size for spiky roadkill. Because this particular fat boy lives out his days stealing cat food at a sanctuary near Ross-on-Wye, the sender assumed that it must be me.

Stop laughing. It’s not me, ok.

On reading the article I find “Maureen Webb, who runs the centre, said she was fed a normal amount of cat food but had been “growing and growing” and that “the hedgehog, which weighs the same as a small cat, was named after its “stroppy nature“.”

So I can see how my reader could have been easily confused.

I’m off for a ryvita lunch and a conference call with my legal team.

Some pictures, less words

On By AlexIn Photography2 Comments

That’s before Ken really got started. After he’d finished, it looked more like this:

Gardening The Manhatten Experiment

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.

Beer Fridge Shrine Lintel Mania

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.

Murphy - 11 months Murphy - 11 months

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.

Holey Moley

On By AlexIn Other stuffLeave a comment

We’re going for a temporal shift tonight. Rather than me imagine something that could have happened and may be amusing, I need you to stir your creative juices* so to paint some pictures in your head**. Because the photos that really should accompany this post are as yet untaken. There are many good reasons for this, but I shall give you just one: It is already dark and somebody stole the spare from my time.

First the “garden” – never really a garden really and certainly not one now. After Ken “The Lost Wurzel” and his mighty digger excavated an unbelievable 150 tonnes of harcore, this former car park now resembles the showpiece exhibit for the Manhattan Project. Either than or ground zero at a significant meteor strike.

I expect to receive our first inquisitive visitors once we’ve upgraded to the full Flanders Trench experience due next week. Christ knows how much deeper we can go before we hit the water table. Or Australia. Not that this troubles the many tradespeople now setting up second home in our house. A round table roll up and tea excavation summit ended with the following joint statement “Arrgh, she’ll be fine”

Yes, we do seem to be employing pirates. This in no way phases me as I have really no idea what’s going on at all anymore. If one of the interchangeable Geoffs/Johns/Kens wandered in and announced “okay the Gorrilla is here, still going in the utility room, yes?” I’d just assume the big furry fella is an integral part of the heating system, and go and fetch some bananas.

There has to be some reason for the roof being four inches higher than it was*** and a 8 foot primate would seem as good idea as any. It certainly looks like Godzilla was involved in cutting a doorway between the hall and the mini warehouse tacked onto the side of the house. And quite why a new wall has gone up in there is the kind of mystery beyond my ken to solve.

Maybe we’re going to box the kids in? Not that I’ve seen much of them either because my time is spent between keyboard and paintbrush with not much in between. Today I wasted invested four hours protecting our massive erection with a fluid not unlike the fnar-fnar where we came in.

I was – predictably – so bored I painted in a style of whatever the mp3 player was shuffling. So Green Day meant anarchistic splashes while The Killers segued into rhythmic stripes. A long forgotten prog rock track extended the brushing past the end of the wood, and onto the dog. Still he looks good with a racing stripe.

You really do need to see some pictures. Not because it is any way interesting, rather I need someone to tell me it’s going to get better soon and all this money/dust/boredom/stress is worth it. I’d consider pitching a tent in what’s left of the garden and declaring myself temporarily insane except a) no one would really notice and b) it’s not so bad that CAMPING could in any way be better.

Well it wasn’t that bad until I found another big hole. It’s in the budget spreadsheet and I’ve just filled it with a large glass of wine.

* Perfectly legal with the proviso that no animals are harmed during the process.

** Better than crayons eh? I’ve got a good handle on the mental age of most of my readers.

*** This was amusing. A bunch of blokes trying to gauge how long four inches was. The fairer sex were somewhat more accurate.

Waiting for the bus

On By AlexIn Bikes, Road RidingLeave a comment

You can keep your fancy GPS’s, chuck your heart rate monitors in the hedge and worry away at your statistics spreadsheet, because while you are working out where you lost that time, I am waiting for a bus. I know it was only last month my witterings on targets had me chasing virtual training partners all the way to work, and then spending the remainder of the day lying down.

But it became clear I must apply Al’s rule of achievement* to my heavy legged pursuit of stupidity. So now I’m measuring my progress by playing chicken with the “Bromsgrove Omnibus”. The first time I met this bus was nearly the last, as it aurally indicated a desire to pass on a road that I’d always assumed was adequately sized for only single file cows and possibly a MP3 driven bicycle.

He passed with inches to spare and a “I’ll get you butler” gesture expression which I deigned unworthy of a reply** and gave it scant thought until it became obvious this wasn’t just any bus, this was my PACE BUS. And if I could squeeze in front before a singletrack road some five miles from home, I could keep the miserable bugger behind me for a good couple of minutes. Now that’s sport right there.

So now I’m off the Hereford train at 18:37 clipped in and heading out via the squashy slalom of random pedestrianisation, immediately looking for ways to cheat the God of Time. First up is a cheeky trail through ledbury, much wooded, significantly dog walked and offering lippy roots to straight line difficult line choices.

Then out of the town and chasing nothing but my hedge painted shadow, gagging a bit on dusty clay vectored off busy tractor ploughs, loving the sunshine, feeling way stronger in my knee and lungs that three virtually bike free weeks could possibly allow.

But this is merely a pleasant aperitif before a meaty main course of Omnibus and tarmac that’s coming up in four miles if I can turn these pedals a bit harder. That’s the distilled and beautiful clarity of riding a bike – it’s the simple joy of smooth circles driving you on, the grin of sweeping bends, the whum of hard tyres on baking tarmac, the just-bloody-nobody-gets-why-bikes-are-so-fucking-fantastic that justifies an obsession.

And that bus that’s going to be hitting that junction at 19:01, so I need to be there first. By a quirk of geography, the cross in the road is visible from 45 seconds upstream, meaning if I’m not hitting that crest at seven o’clock or better, the bus ain’t waiting for me. So it’s back to standing up and clicking a gear combination that shoots staccato breath from an open mouth, burns muscles from ankles to hip and strains arms dumping sweat onto the bars.

6:58, big sodding river bridge coming up, can’t slow down, feel the tyre squirm into the tarmac, feel legs slowing down, feel lungs desperately screaming for more air, feel… feel… feel, this is the stuff of life isn’t it? This is why we do this, this is what makes us different to the bloke next door with his paintbrush and his paunch. This is what makes us a little smug, a little bonkers, a little more obsessed. Because this feeling needs bottling and selling.

I can see the junction, and I can see the bus lumbering up the hill heading for the turn and I can’t see anything else. Now it’s a straight run – slightly downhill – four clicks on the shifter, big gear, out of the saddle, ignore the cacophony of body complaint and charge down the tunnel of vision that displays just a short tarmac ribbon, an onrushing junction and a big red bus.

Briefly considering – and calculating it’s a reward that far outstrips the risk – that traffic may be steaming past the junction, I slow not even a little bit, swerve right as the bus turns left and give it a few final desperate pedal stamps to nip in front.

And then – pretty well spent – have a nice minute or two finding some breath for my lungs and oxygen for my legs while a frustrated man in a dodgy cap impotently guns his engine behind my serene form. There is a perfect symmetry there – people wait for a bus, and now the bus waits for me.

Look I know what you’re thinking. But honestly with my legendary limbo boredom threshold, I need something to keep me amused on the commute. It’s that or getting off the bike and jumping in with all those lovely lambs 🙂

* If at first you don’t succeed, redefine exactly what you mean by the word “Success”

** Mainly because I was having a rather trying time extricating myself from a drainage ditch much inconvinienced by a bicycle.