Starting fights in Tescos!

Grr! I'm so angry right now. Just got back from food shopping at Tescos and I was at the petrol filling checkout. Normally I'd pay by pump but because I had some discount vouchers I had to go to the checkout.

Once I got to the front of the queue there was a problem with one of the pumps on the forecourt and the assistant on the till to my right had to go and help the guy out. The guy who had just got to the front when the attendant moved away from the till asked "What the f*&k are you doing"! The assistant then said he had to help out someone at the pump. Then the abusive man said "No, stop and serve me, I'm a customer". The assistant then apologised and said that he had to help the other man as he was having problems first and was a customer as well. The abusive man then called the assistant a "f*&!ing as#%ole".

I was so annoyed at this point I turned to my right and said to the guy that he would get along much better if he weren't so abusive. He obviously took offence to this and then started on me. I had finished being served at this point and just smiled at the guy shook my head and walked out.

Nothing more came of this except for me being quite annoyed. One because there are people like this in our society and in my opinion they shouldn't be given the time of day. Two, at the fact that no one else in the queue behind me did anything about it. There were two people at the till getting abuse and everyone else just turned a blind eye to it. I'm sure if it had come to a fight they would all have run away and not want to get involved. What's wrong with this country when no one will stand up to idiots who think that they can get their way by bullying other people? Grr!!! I think I should do what Lola does and just hide in my bed.

Anyhow, a while back my friend Allen had asked me to help him jump start his car with mine. I pulled my car up next to his and popped the bonnet. He then proceeded to connect the jump cables and tried to start his car.

After a few seconds the cables started to smoke! I got out of my car and so did Allen, he then realised that he had connected the cables the wrong way around! The cables then started to smoke quite a lot and also melt. I quickly gave Allen my top to pull the cables off the batteries. They were much to hot to touch and fortunately he managed to remove them with my top wrapped around his hands.

Unfortunately my top had melted plastic on it and was ruined. The cars still worked fine after all this but I doubt it was any good for my car battery, which was brand new from a few months ago. A valuable lesson learnt, by the both of us.

Real Ale Wobbling Day 2.

The second day started much slower than the first. We were all aching a little from the previous days riding and it looked quite wet and about to rain outside.
Eventually we got out of bed and down for breakfast but only just! :-)

Here we are at our parked cars in the Llanwrtyd Wells town. William is on the left who we happened to meet. Susan's other friends and him were planning on going kayaking on the second day because of the heavy overnight rain. He said that there were several people who weren't going anywhere this morning because of the previous nights partying.
We decided to make our own route up this morning along the second days cycle and see how we got on to decide how long we could cycle for.
While we were getting ready an elderly woman came out of her house where we were parked and asked us if we wanted to come in for a cup of tea. We politely turned her down but it was a lovely moment.

Once we started to ride out of town it started to rain. Fortunately it didn't start off too cold because of the heavy cloud cover. There was a heavy mist and fog over the hills though. At one point in the morning there was a very long climb up a winding trail. It was quite knackering cycling up the hill and I had to stop once before getting to the top. We must have cycled for 20 minutes or so uphill without stopping.
Once I got to the top I was quite out of breath but my legs felt fine. I made a comment that if I was to die here I would be very happy. After all I was on my mountain bike in the hills with two women. Can't think of a better way to go myself. :-)

There were several streams that we had to cross today. Here's Wiki riding though one of them while I wait my turn.

And here I am making my own splash.

At one point we went right into the forest along a very muddy and steep descent. It was very dark in the forest, but not quite as dark as this picture makes out. At some points in the descent we had to walk, Susan however stayed on her bike and gingerly pushed/walked her bike down.

Susan took several pictures in this dark forest but unfortunately most of them didn't come out very well. We hardly saw anyone out today, probably because of the climate, but there were also casualties from the previous nights partying.

After the forest descent we managed to get a little lost on the tracks. It also started to rain a lot more as well. We were still having a good time in the rain. I remember this point as we had to walk up a series of very steep drops and at one point we were all laughing at how tired and wet we all were. Laughing in that insane way. :-) We'll all remember this moment as one of the many highlights of the weekend. Despite being wet, tired and a little lost we were all having a great time and felt totally alive.

Wiki and Susan trying to decide where we were and where to go next. Just after this we started to cycle up the trail behind them. I remember feeling quite exhilarated while cycling uphill as it started to get windier on the exposed path. The wind and rain made me yell out to the sky "Come on, give me your worst!", at this point Susan noted while following me that it then dropped a noticeable few degrees in temperature and also started to rain much heavier.
Shortly after this there was a fantastic long descent down to back where we entered the course. As I was descending I was expecting to catch up with Susan but didn't make much ground to her. She later confessed to me that she didn't use her brakes while going downhill either! We didn't expect to come back here and by now it was 1.00pm so we decided to call it a day as we were all a little tired and very wet and cold.

Here I am trying a steep descent. As you can see I did bottle it about half way down but then managed to regain my composure and continue to the bottom and all the happier at having done so.

Just after we got back we got changed into drier clothes in some public toilets. Not my best moment but I was thankful to be able to dry off a little more and not be in freezing cold clothes.
As soon as we started to settle down in a pub it started to sleet and then snow quite heavily. The hills around the town were covered in snow, we were quite relived that we decided to come in when we did, otherwise we would have been in the snow on the hills. Mind you at the same time some part of me wished that I could have been out there because it would have made the ride even more 'fun'. I'm sure we would have laughed about being caught in the snow as well. :-)

Finally here's the weather conditions that we had to contend with on the way home in Wales. You know you're in the welsh valleys when the welsh is above the english on the road signs. I'm just following Susan's car with her kayak perched on the top of her car. At least the snow helped clean a lot of the mud off my bike.

I had such a fantastic time this weekend, it's one of those weekends that I'll always remember. It felt like a holiday as we were in a country where I didn't understand the road signs. :-)
It's weekends like this that really make me feel alive and so thankful that I spend my time doing that things that I enjoy doing. For me life just doesn't get much better than this.

Real Ale Wobbling Day 1.

I was finally at the Real Ale Wobble event this weekend. It has been a long time coming and I've been really looking forward to this even since I was entered into it earlier this year. The weather was originally predicted to be heavy rain and light winds on both days, but fortunately for us it turned out to be just overcast on Saturday, but much worse on Sunday.

The idea behind the event is to do some mountain biking while drinking real ale along the course. The event is held over two days and non competitive.

This is the start of the event at the local school sports hall in Llanwrtyd Wells.
I'd never seen so many keen mountain bikers in one place. There were 600 entrants this year.

Here we are at the first check point on Saturday morning. All looking very clean and also full of energy. Susan on the left and Wiki on the right were both insane enough to join me. It was originally Susan's idea to do the event. We figured that she's the most insane and Wiki the was the fittest and me somewhere in the middle.

This is about half way up the first steady climb. both Wiki and I managed to set a good early pace up the relatively wide start.

There were a few of Susan's friends on the same event which we had a good time with. The tall guy in Orange was called William as well, and he was obviously the loudest of a good bunch of friends!

The trail soon narrowed and also turned into a series of quite deep mud pools that we had to cycle though. At some points the water came up to my knee! It was quite good fun to cycle though the water, if you can call it cycling.
At one point Susan had someone following her and all she could hear was the guy yelling at her not to slow down or stop because they would then have to wade though the water and mud.

Here's an example of some of the trails with very steep drops on one side. All the more exciting to ride long. :-)

Some of the fantastic scenery that we saw all weekend. The views were quite breath taking at times and made the up hill cycling all the more worth it.

Susan with Wiki behind leading a small pack of riders down a slight drop.

At one point after a good downhill ride over slate and stones there was a sharp turn left up a very very steep rocky incline. No one managed to cycle up the hill despite a few attempts. No one made it more than a yard or two up here before having to walk.

Eventually we stopped for a snack break about half way around the course. Fortunately we had arranged a packed lunch at the B&B that we were staying in. At this point I had fallen over my handlebars once at a steep drop. There was a fallen tree at the base of a drop and I was concentrating on ducking under the tree. Unfortunately there was a wheel sized hole just before the tree which flipped me over my bike. I only grazed my right hand but it drew a bit of blood, made worse by the mud and water everywhere. My first aid kit came in use today! I wasn't the only one to fall before the tree either, but I did make it look good by going over my handlebars.

We did more climbing after the break around the side of some of the hills. You can see some riders along the path in this picture.

At the very top of this hill were some boggy grass lands. It was quite breezy and very difficult to ride along what was barely a path. We had to stop and walk several sections as it was much to wet and muddy. Susan said that this part of the course she found the most difficult because of the wind and difficulty of the track. You can see her in the background here.

Just over the top of the grass lands there was a steep drop with lots of slippery grass and mud. You can see Wiki and me standing on the edge. After the initial steep section which we walked we had lots of fun cycling down the rest of the slippery grass. I had such a smile on my face coming down as I went sidewards several times, but held it together without falling.

Finally at the first beer stop! There were only two beer stops on the course. We were expecting a beer stop at the top of every hill but in the end there were only two, which disappointed Susan and I.

Finally at the second beer stop near the end of the course.

You can see the amount of mud and grass that my bike had collected on the first day.

We finally got back just before it started to get dark at 4.30. Because of the delay in registering we didn't start till 11.00. Five hours of cycling was quite enough for all of us. We were so happy to get out of the wet and muddy clothes in our hotel. We only had a bath in our ensuite. It took me two baths of water to clean the mud off my legs!

In the evening we had dinner at our own B&B and then went into the town to meet up with Susan's friends. There was a very good live cover band in a tent set-up behind a pub. We spent most of the evening dancing the night away and drinking beer. Because we had to cycle the following morning we didn't get very drunk but all had a great time listening to the music and chatting the night away.

"Mountain" Biking for Beginners.

Steve and his girlfriend Lesley came down to visit me in Bristol this weekend. They came down on Saturday and we went out for some food and beers around Bristol.

I had quite a good time showing some of the sights and sounds around Bristol to Lesley as she had never been to Bristol before.

We even managed to gate crash a private party at the Mud Dock later on in the evening. We managed to get into the private party venue without realising that it was a private party. I remember mentioning to Steve at the time that it looked like a bit of an odd set-up with a big happy birthday sign handing from the roof inside the bar.

Then when we got to the bar a few people were looking at us a bit strangely. I ordered a couple of drinks from the bar and before the barmaid could serve me a beer someone asked who we knew at the party. We all said pardon and then we realised it was a private party.

At this point we made a hasty retreat laughing all the way to the exit. If only we had been a bit quicker we could have just replied 'John', or 'Peter' and may have got away with it!

On the way out we noticed a small sign on the steps up to the bar saying that the private party was on tonight and the place was closed. How could we have missed it, I think I saw the sign on the way in, but didn't take any notice of it as I was too eager to get a beer.

On Sunday I convinced the two of them to come out on a small off road bike ride at Ashton Court. It was only a very short 5 mile beginner route and ideal for the two of them.

I really needed the training and would have gone on my own in the morning and let them stay in bed for a while longer if they wanted.

Fortunately the weather was quite good and
we all had a really good time on the ride. Even though both their bikes were quite old and didn't even have front suspension they both coped really well with the technical bits. I even had a quick go at Steve's bike and it was quite a bone shaking change to ride a bike without any front or rear suspension or disc brakes.

The three photos were taken near the end of the course on the easier gravel path outside of the forest. They wanted an actual action shot so the last one is of them on the bikes riding past me.

NFL Sunday!

Last Sunday Phil, Dave, Jason (Uni mates) and I had tickets to see the first NFL American Football game outside of North America. The game was between the New York Giants and the Miami Dolphins. The Giants were strong favourites as the Dolphins hadn't won a game yet all season and were mid way though the season. We made a long weekend of it and Dave, Phil and I got together in MFK on Friday night, then went to meet Jason on Saturday in London stayed at his place till Monday.

We had lots of fun playing games and enjoying each others company all weekend. We even got to meet up with another friend of mine Steve, on Saturday night for beers and a curry. I always have lots of fun when I get together with my friends from University.

Here's Phil (left), Dave (Giving head lock) and Jason in our seats at Wembley.

Pre game warm up by the New York giants. True athletes as you can see in the middle.

And the Dolphins cheerleaders put on a good show. The game was classified as a Dolphins home game so their cheerleaders were around to support them.

The kickoff by the Giants.

And the cheerleaders started doing whatever they do.

The quarterback star of the Giants, Eli Manning about to throw a pass.

Cheerleaders keeping us entertained, as to be honest the game wasn't a good one.
The Dolphins Quarterback Cleo Lemon (and he was one today) taking a snap of the ball to start a play.

The game was very wet with a very muddy field, unfortunately the cheerleaders were obviously getting cold as they put on their jackets for the last quarter.

The teams line up for a Dolphins snap. It was raining quite hard for the second half of the game.

Overall it wasn't a very good game, but the stadium was packed out with over 81,000 fans and the atmosphere was very good. The Giants won 13-10. I screamed my lungs out and was well heard in our area of the stadium. Even though I didn't really support any of the teams playing as I'm a long term New England Patriots fan, it was great to actually see a regular season NFL game in Wembley.

I was happy at the end of the day as the Patriots slaughtered the Washington Redskins 52-7 and are unbeaten so far at 8-0.

I also went running in MFK on Saturday morning and unfortunately managed to twist my ankle which put me out of action for exercise for most of the past week. Then I managed to catch a cold (probably from hugging and kissing Dave as his daughter had a cold and he was carrying it) which manifested itself on Thursday and put me out for this weekend. Grr...

A video of the stadium during the game.


And a video of a cheerleader for balance. :-)