Tag: Herefordshire

Plumbing Hell

On By AlexIn Other stuffLeave a comment

By now, you should all be familiar with my approach to any problem. First up is an all points bulletin explaining exactly why it isn’t my problem after all. It is, in fact, someone else’s problem, anyones, yours, hers, that badger over there. With that sorted, now sketch out some perfect solution that is long on fast talking and much waving of hands, but short on real world practicability.

At this point, I am essentially done, so hand it over to those with the skills and method to solve it, while staying peripherally involved to share in the glory, or prepare my exit strategy if it all goes to rat-shit.

And while this methodology has served me well in the world of work, it seems incompatible with the indescribably* complex plumbing system that has mutated from “these bloody storage heaters are rubbish” to “No that’s too easy, let’s install the new organic heating voles and back-pressure aware, quasi autonomous cosmic interface module”

I think you can probably guess which half of the project team is childishly excited by a plethora of technology which includes wireless control systems, high pressure pumps and great big bloody holes in the ground. The more practical half is left to worry about the kind of boring stuff which joins the many disparate parts into a working whole.

And while that keeps Carol awake, I’m naively convinced that integration of heat pumps from one supplier, flooring from another and the octopus mainline of pipes to somehow bring them together is easily solved with some money and more shouting. Sure there is some dim awareness that unleashing a seven ton digger may trigger a chain reaction of destruction that takes in flooring, hot water and heating which may be slightly difficult to reconcile into living conditions.

But like I say I’m not worrying about it because my skills lie elsewhere. Not sure entirely where, but it’ll probably involve a cork and an airy dismissal of some issue involving washing with a cold hosepipe. Carol has the plan firmly ensconced in her head, somewhat invalidating my multi faceted task spreadsheets, cleverly embedded with mighty pivot tables.

It has already started. Today four strong men propped up two floors with surplus circus stilts in preparation of the terrifying removal of a structural pillar, which long since paid architects assure us is probably not necessary. Having seen some mid demolition pictures, I’m advocating we sleep on the ground floor for safety. Or possibly outside in the car.

I’ve been busy designing my perfect workshop resplendent with custom designed shelves to create an aircraft hanger, and a bike storage facility with sufficient expansion space to deal with any future eBay/Wine interfaces. All that is left is to divine the x marking spot of intersecting lay lines. Because that’s where the beer fridge shall reverently placed.

You see while there are many, many problems to solve, I’ve reverted to type and admitted my main interest is if I can have a go driving the digger.

* Don’t worry I’m going to try.

Sated

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding2 Comments

Alarm shrills insistingly at 7am. My recently drunken brain equates this to work and despair leaks into my world. But, through the power of wooly thinking, I realise it’s Sunday and a happy person can select option 2 “stuff the alarm in a sock drawer and roll back over into a soft pillows and lovely, snory sleep”

Sadly option 3 has to be exercised. Along with me after a barely remembered text message exchange calling for an 8am start some 20 minute drive away. Now the horror of the 7am alarm call made sense. Well no not real sense because stumbling about in the dark and the cold, while being nipped on the toes by bin eating dog, is about the most nonsensical way to spend a Sunday morning.*

Now while the majority of the population are barely stirring, I’ve witnessed a fantastic sunrise, hit the trails in that exciting phase between refreezing and thawing, grabbed 650 metres of lovely descending, and surprised myself with a noticeable lack of gurning while depositing the height back in the gravity bank.

And at the end of it are the absolute best two words in the world** “Carb Window”. Apparently you can ape Mr Creosote for about 30 minutes after hard exercise and not get fat. It’s probably a lie, but I’ll strike down the first person who proves it. Because on a chilly, cloud locked Sunday morning, there’s not many better things than a monster cup of blitzkrieg*** coffee and an obscenely thick bacon roll.

It is in this state of ungrumpiness that I shall leave you. Expect normal service to resume tomorrow when another house quote comes in.

* I accept there may be more stupid things to do. But since I didn’t have a pride of lions, a stick and “the idiots guide to lion taming” to hand, this was the stupidest one available.

** Okay, okay maybe not but this is a family show 😉

*** The kind of stimulant that triggers the urge to go and invade a small continent, or – in these more peaceful times – go mad with the belt sander.

I’m taking that lying down.

On By AlexIn Other stuff7 Comments

I must apologise for any reduction in the already poor standard of grammar and spelling. This is entirely due to the content of this post being composed from a position supine on the floor.

I speak to you from this position after an involuntary collapse, following a nasty run in with the quote for the groundworks. It is not as if the work is unbudgeted. However the if you subtract the estimate in the – increasingly financially abstract – spreadsheet from the ginormous number that mugged me earlier, the amount that remains could essentially create the kind of liquidity conditions where Monkeys would be approved loans to buy houses*

At times like this, innovative out of the box thinking is clearly required. I’m considering either faking a gas leak and insisting the gas board dig up the entire plot to a depth of 10 feet to find it**, or using Verbal’s “Science Experiments for Enquiring Minds” set to create some kind of barely controlled explosion.

I’d be looking for a homage to that huge crater in Mexico which triggered the start of the end for the dinosaurs. I asked little Random what it was about the meteor that long term led to their deaths. “Well it would have hurt if it hit their heads” she offered.

Fair point, well made. Anyway, it’s either the teach-yourself-high-explosives or some kind of quick get rich scheme. And although neither look particularly promising right now, I’m pretty sure solutions will magically appear when viewed from the bottom end of a decent red.

It’s Friday, It’s 5pm, It’s crack-a-bottle.

* as opposed to the monkeys who are still trying to sell them.

** A ruse that is unlikely to succeed with no gas pipes being laid within a 2 mile radius of the house.

Everything for a pound.

On By AlexIn Other stuff2 Comments

This seems to be the mutli-layered marketing message* being blasted indiscriminately from every form of media outlet, although the input it triggers seems to be mixed. For example, Selfridges reported 2,000 delusional basket cases queuing outside since half way through Christmas day, whereas Ross-on-Wye was essentially closed.

Not entirely, but aside from some desperate window posters offering 70{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} off, a free holiday and first go on the owner’s budgie, it was all shuttered up and hibernating until the new year. Except for a good number of retail outlets that appeared to be closed forever, their little deaths confirmed by half iced windows not really hiding empty rooms filled only with uncollected post.

The BBC cheerfully quoted some Grim Reaper’s accounting committee who predicted the UK economy will shrink by nearly 3{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} in 2009 – a number so historic, our public service broadcaster was able to fire off a salvo of statistics likening such a downturn to the first year after the second world war ended.

Since my mum is staying with us, I asked her how bad that was. Apparently the problem was the country was entirely broke, and even if you had any cash – which nobody did – you couldn’t buy anything. Bread rationing actually started after the war, and those little books granting right to such luxuries as an ounce of butter were around until 1950.

But – sounding an optimistic note – she also told me this was fine, since nobody was getting bombed and a little Welsh fella called Bevan was promising the state would look after you. Completely different to 2009 then, where the UK has promised to try and stop bombing people, the state is going to hock itself up to the eyeballs with a level of debt so huge you need wide angle eyes to read it, but hey – GREAT NEWS – it’s unlikely we’ll return to rationing.

Every cloud and all that. The local outlet store (think of Bicester village and take it down a few notches, more poundstretcher with end of line duvet covers) promised massive discounts and indoor warmth, which led me to ignore the fiscal rules introduced since “Black Thursday – the day the Heating Quote Arrived” and go mad in the trouser department.

Four pairs of jeans for£50. Satorial elegance has never been my thing, but even at that price this stops me wandering the streets in my pants, while not constricting blood to my thighs, and er, other parts. We also bought a bin which cost twice that. It is quite a special bin tho and goes my the name of Derek (the Dalek Dustbin) – we didn’t really need a new rubbish receptacle, but Colin was looking for a bit of companionship.

I so need to go and ride my bike. Many reasons, but the one I’m citing here is that there are four pairs of jeans that’ll be nothing more than shelfware unless I either suck it and stop breathing, or get serious about reducing the girth of these “Buggery Grips“.**

* Coming Soon: “The Hedgehog Private Members Bill: Banning Marketing and shooting all the Marketeers. A vote for common sense”

** A delightful phrase served up from Dave ‘the Man of Shoreditch’ Hoyland. Took me a while to work out what he actually meant, and then “urrgghhhh“

Plane Stupid

On By AlexIn Other stuff, Photography3 Comments

Not those environmental worthies – most of whom happen to live under the Heathrow flightpath – crusading against a third runway, and generally being far too nice to prevent a million tons of concrete being poured. I struggle to see how making the Heathrow Terminal experience any busier can in any way be a good thing, but I care little for matters of the South nowadays 😉

The SuperCub celebrates its’ first birthday on Thursday. Last years’ Christmas present had been packed away and hidden behind the still many, many unpacked boxes*. Its’ abandonment was not merely physical, the first flights had not gone well, and even tho I’d put in some significant Sim Time, the prospect of drilling for mud with an extensive and expensive parts list held not much interest.

Especially after the local flying club – two miles away, beards mandatory, Cap and Tie at all times mandatory, humour and grace strictly forbidden – poo poohed my membership application on the grounds that it breached Rule 27, Paragraph 4, Subsection b), Item iii) towhit lowering the average age below 100. Anyway that route lay training and log books and theory, and frankly that’s far too bloody dull when you’re meant to be enjoying yourself.

So teaching yourself is both invigorating, occasionally frightening and always expensive. Yesterday with holiday and energy to burn, I launched the airdrill(tm) across the field and spent ten minutes wondering where I might be able to land it. In the same field actually, full of nascent winter crop and muddy enough to provide the kind of soft landings my vertical approaches require.

My flying has definitely improved, and I can say that with confidence because – even after eight impacts**, the stout little Supercub is absolutely intact with every component still attached. Sure I’ve had to empty the engine compartment of clay, and my lack of battery awareness did create a hike across someone elses field to retrieve the powerless plane, but otherwise all is tally-ho and top hole!

I can now fly right and left circuits, twirl figure eight turns, and mostly work out which way to twiddle the sticks when the plane turns turtle and heads back towards me like a homing missile. So having mastered that, I should bed down these manoeuvres, work on my turns, try and land the plane within a square mile of the house and generally hone my skills.

What I’m actually going to do is try some aerobatics. I know, I know you’re thinking the same as me “Top Idea what could possibly go wrong?”

* Does anyone else think if you have no idea what the contents are, and haven’t been casting around for the “forty eighth stuffed toy, you know the one that looks like the other 47“, donating the whole damn lot of unopened boxes to charity is the right thing to do? In our family, it goes 3 to 2 against, and that’s with me claiming Murphy’s vote.

** Landing would be too charitable. The field is rough, so even a perfect approach and flare would stil result in the plane’s arse pointing accusingly to the sky. That’s my theory not ever having made that perfect approach 😉

Gone !

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff3 Comments

1) The day with the shortest number of daylight hours. Pedants insist you describe it in this way because “it is not in any way shorter than any other day fnugh, perhumph*”. They also find this amusing, which is why many of us would like the shooting season to be extended to those whose goal in life is to tell you you’re wrong.

2) My hair. A pre-Christmas mow with the trimmer has finally answered a perennial question of “Which comes first the expanding crown or the receeding fringe?” The answer is both, and it now appears my bald pate is expanding ever skywards through what remains on the sides. In other hair related news, whispy gray folicles from every other orifice appear to be on the increase.

3) The number of rides that haven’t involved hub deep mud. A squelsh around the Wyre forest reintroduced me to chainsuck, unwanted sideways movement of tyres, a full body immersion experience enlivened by a hard pebble dashing from suspicious looking brown stuff, and 20 vigorous minutes with the hosepipe to find something even vaguely bike shaped.

4) Work. Until 2009, although only after three hours of purgatory on Saturday morning. My out of office reads something like “You poor sap still in the office eh? Stuff your email, I couldn’t care less frankly“. Well it doesn’t, but it would if I didn’t fancy a difficult meeting with Human Remains Resources.

5) My legs. After their feeble efforts to churn mud into dirt, they have adopted a mutinous position when presented with my idea for a quick ride today. But no matter, they’ll be flogged with the rest of me, since HONC is only three and a bit months away. and at least 4 kilos of Al needs to be gone before then as well!

So that’s me off riding then. Fortuantly there is a lovely real fire warmed pub that does the best Pork Scratching on the way back. Which is important as – like any honed athlete – I understand the importance of recovery food and rehydration.

* They all speak like that. Trust me I know, I work with accountants.

Meet Colin

On By AlexIn Other stuff5 Comments
That tree is nekkid!
That tree is nekkid!

This is our first live Christmas tree for many years. Previous attempts, when the kids were much smaller, generally led to frantic calls to NHS direct requesting the correct medical procedure to safely remove pine needles from a child’s internals.

Colin* was dug up by nice, if bemused, man with a spade and dumped in the truck. Where it gave me a nasty dose of “pine rash” every time I changed gear before dumping most of it’s prickly bounty on the seats and assorted children. I’m still finding the vicious little spines this morning – hence the concern of my fellow rush hour motorists on being serenaded with by a a middle aged man thrashing about, and making noises associated with significant pain all while still strapped into the driving seat.

It did provide sufficient distraction to ignore all the desperate marketing hiding behind the season of giving. Or receiving – overdrafts, final demands and the like. I know it is all a bit bah humbug, but Christmas is such a rubbish time. You just sit at home getting fat and wasting your holidays.

Round the other side of the world they’re tossing another barbie onto the shrimp**, catching some rays and thinking “hey it’s warm and sunny, what shall we do with the remaining ten hours of daylight“. Back on this storm tossed and icy rock, we’re left with reruns of rubbish films and the queen looking almost as bored as the rest of us.

Carol and I decided not to buy each other gifts this year. And considering the amount of shit we seem to have accumulated over the years, this feels like a good decision. We did – however – buy ourselves a joint present which should stave off dull days boredom, more of which when it finally arrives.

Anyway considering the never ending fiscal big bang exploding around us, I’ve decided to go long on “big biffin birds, new world reds and sufficient confectionery to silence an entire classroom“. This is a short term strategy I’ll admit, but next year we’ll be investing in timber futures and recyclable energy.

Yes the new years resolution appears to be to dig up the entire house, chop down most of Norway and somehow fuse the two together on top of some right on heating system, which also curiously involves digging up the garden. Well the car park that may one day be a garden.

I can see almost nothing going wrong with that, and as such have gone with my own premature New Years resolution to ram raid Majestics’ warehouse.

Bah Humbug, grumble, grouch, wake me up in spring.

* Yes I named our Christmas Tree. 3/4 of the family found this quite amusing, Carol hid her head in her hands agahst at my Peter Pan inability to grow up. Although I think she was just sulking after her name-that-tree entry of “Bruce the Spruce” was unanimously lampooned by the Colin Jihad.

** Surely this can’t be legal. Even in Australia.

Nativity plays: the rules

On By AlexIn Other stuff7 Comments

I feel well qualified to document the rules that govern every school play performed during the Christmas Term. I’ve now into double figures of watching the little cherubs fall over each other in a not terribly amusing manner. So here goes:

1/ Wherever you are sat, someone will apologetically wheeze in late encumbered by two screaming toddlers, and a babe in arms. The next hour will be spent receiving apologies, finger flung snot, sharp toys to tender parts, and endless screaming just below the pain threshold.

2/ On the other side, competitive dad will be extorting his little princess to barge her way past friends so he can take a better picture. The fact that we are some forty feet from the stage and his flash barely reflects the balding heads in the next row bothers him not at all. If you’re lucky a sticky sweet from the devil child next door will bypass your face, and instead attach itself limpet like to his lens.

3/ The X-Factor/Bone Idle/Who gives a fuck you can yodel in Yiddish TV shows have made this “me, me LOOK AT ME” so much worse.

4/ Hip flasks are not encouraged. And that’s probably right as some of these children are only five for heaven’s sake! And even if you water it down, it’s still a bit harsh for their little stomachs 😉

5/ You will leave the hall with a new and viscous airborne strain of something terminal. It is like being locked on the inside of a quarantine ward. Honestly they should give us all bells before we leave “UNCLEAN, UNCLEAN” we could cry whilst expectorating a pint of phlegm.

6/ The air will be thick with moral messages parotted by kids who ignore them almost as often as their parents. But they’ll be encapsulated in nice songs, so that’s alright then.

7/ You will be ex-communicated from every future event if you fail to buy less than 20 raffle tickets at a quid each. Don’t harbour even the slightest expectation that a boozey prize may be your reward. Basically the whole thing is fixed by the PTA – only they have winning tickets, so recycling all the prizes from the Harvest Festival and trousering the difference.

8/ Some unlucky bastard always get dressed up as a donkey. He’s the poor sod who would hand over his own underpants just to be one of the sheep instead. For the next 5 years, he cannot pass another pupil without hearing the sound of braying.

9/ However many kids are on stage and regardless of the number of musical instruments being played, not one note will ever be in tune. Children can’t carry a tune, but they do have the vocal armoury to drag it behind the bike sheds, and give it a good kicking.

10/ The last song is always the most uplifting, and many people thing this is why it gets the greatest round of applause. Us old hands know the real reason is this is the clapping of the mightily relieved and soon to be released. Hence, when the kids start milking it, the hissing breaks out.

Here’s some advice. Go in with a lively smile and dead brain, and be happy if you can escape before inter class fighting breaks out. And if a stage frightened little girl implores you with teary eyes to give her the name of the messiah, the bringer of the light, the new hope, the Son of God, do not – WHATEVER THE TEMPTATION – offer up “Bwwyyyan“.

I mean sure it’s quite funny, but that child is going to be permanently traumatised. Honestly who’d stoop so low as to ruin the whole event just for a cheap laugh?

Ahem.

Mad dogs and Yorkshiremen.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff2 Comments

Dog meets Man. Man loses.

If a man is knocked over in the woods when no-one else is there, does he still make a sound. Yes he absolutely does and the noise is “uuuumpppphh”. Murphy has learned “Come” but has yet to master “Stop” or even “Swerve”

Still he does reward your comatose form with a form of slobbery mouth to mouth that would resuscitate any human with even the merest flicker of life left within them. To the commentary of “Geroff, GEROFF, Yuk, Ugh, GERRRROOOOOFF“. This merely seems too encourage the pup who fails to understand that 25+ Kilos and a decent link of speed is likely to flatten anything with less structural integrity than a good sized building.

Low sun You never learn.

Either that or he just doesn’t care 😉 Properly icy this morning which made this afternoon’s ride swing between amusing and bowel clenching. It’s a good job the brakes don’t really work on a CX bike or I could have been in some real trouble.

Just walking the dog Bright light

As it was, I hurtled down frozen roads and scared a few dumb birds in the local woods with some ad-hoc cycle based beating. Not sure they are entirely legal trails, but since no one shot me I have added them to the list for further investigation. That’s the woods, not the birds. I shall be likely investigating those with a nice side of roast potatoes.

Talking of food, two weeks off the bike and a diet based entirely on whatever crap is placed in front of you, while you’re working your tail off, has not given me the turbo sprint or immense stamina I was hoping for. I feel some of the blame for this must be laid firmly at the door of full fat Coke.

You see, the South African’s refuse to accept the existence of fizzy drinks without a thousand calories in them. Or parts of a dead cow that don’t overhang the plate on both sides. “You want vegetables with your steak sir?” “Where do you suggest I put them?* Tell you what bring me a spare plate and a larger pair of trousers and we’ll be good to go”

A man came today and tried to introduce a sub prime bathroom experience by designing a “water based luxury experience” that would have cost about the same amount as the whole house. This did not sit well with my self imposed temperance approach to the weekend.

Still wine is basically one of your five a day isn’t it?

* Thankfully the waiter failed to offer the obvious alternative receptacle at this point.

Kona hits the dirt!

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography5 Comments

Kona Kilauea by you.

Although hit the mud would be a more accurate description of the first meeting of old bike and recently squelched trail. It’s a build completed through the scavenger process of beg, borrow and reverse-steal*. The wheels are borrowed, the outer ring offers no toothy service other than stopping the chain falling off and the tyres are a cheeky combination of old and useless.

A lovely warm morning greeted my childish pre-ride enthusiasm. And while I was ready, the Leigh brood were not. And in accordance with the law that any actiivty with Children – up to and including a week long holiday – takes twice as long to prepare than actually participate in, it was rain not sun which greeted our cautious slither onto the trails.

It’s been nearly eighteen months since the kids rode out on proper dirt. A gap only just long enough to ease the trauma of Verbal’s repeated facial braking experiments last time out. And although they both had little falls and the biting back of hurty tears, they also made their old man properly proud with no whinge mud sloppage, some fine turns in leafy singletrack and brave attempts at muddy roll-ins.

At the end of which, demands were coming thick and fast for grippy pedals, mud tyres, cooler riding togs and bigger wheels. All of which were apparently “holding them back”. I cannot imagine where they learned such things.

As 3/4 of the family retired to the inside of the love bus to munch snacks, I took the Kona for a fast run through some sweet rider built singeltrack. The handling is on the lively side of involving mainly due to a stem a full two inches shorter than stock. But the whole experience was about as I remembered it – instant pickup from a pedal stroke, look-corner(tm) steering negating the need for any obvious muscle movement and a wrist battering experience vaguely remembered from 1995.

I’ll leave you to decide exactly how such an experience came about 😉

If I close my eyes, I can see long summer evenings offering up dust and hardpacked singletrack in equal amounts. Riding something like this through the trees toward a dropping sun and a well earned pint could very well be a path to cycling nirvana. Although not until I can find a tyre that is a) less than 2 inches wide and b) points in the same direction as the front one.

* This is where you enter a shop, request a small but vital component only to stagger out some five minutes later having been legally mugged.