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. :-)

Practicing for the Wobble.

Unfortunately not too much to report except for training recently.

Wiki, Susan, Nick and Susan's flat mate (Sorry, but my aging memory has let me down on his name, Matt or was it Ben?) went out for a short ride around the Oxfordshire countryside a couple of weeks ago.

We were lucky to probably catch one of the last warm days of summer. We met up and went straight after work for about three hours.

It started out as a gentle ride along the road up and down some hills. Wiki made up the route for us and she did say that it was a gentle route with only one big hill, which was off road. I tend to think when Wiki says the route is gentle then it's probably average for most other people. :-)

As it turned out the route was quite gentle and there was only one really steep hill. It was quite good fun to cycle up it as well, as the off road bit was more of a wide bridle path and I managed the up hill in one go.

Mind you it was probably only because the hill was in a forest you couldn't see the route up and the top. As the route up was divided up into lots of hidden steep bits and not so steep bits it was quite easy to just keep chugging along till I got to the top. I think if I had seen the route up from the beginning I might not have made it.

There were the usual number of stinging nettles on the way back along the bridle paths. At one point I was following Wiki along the paths and while going though a very overgrown set of nettles Wiki started to slow down. I shouted at her to not slow down at the nettles and to speed up. I think she had a long sleeved top on and shorts so wasn't quite feeling the nettles as much as I was in my shorts and T. Either that or she just doesn't notice them. Once she heard me she did start to speed up again. Susan later on said that she could hear me laughing and shouting at Wiki to speed up, all very funny. I really felt the nettle stings all night long!

On the way back we had the fortune to see a really lovely sunset while cycling along some fields. A marvellous end to a good fun cycle ride.

I've also been trying to train harder and harder at the gym and on my weekend cycle rides in preparation for the Real Ale Wobble in November. I've had some mixed results as the gym training is working out quite well, but trying to do longer and longer cycle distances is proving difficult. My last cycle to Bath and back really took a lot out of my legs, I can do it in one go with one brief stop in Bath, I covered 34 miles but it was all on tarmac. I'll be much happier the sooner I can invest in a road bike rather than having to take my mountain bike on the roads!

My bike was serviced earlier this week and I was quite proud as the tyres needed changing as they had worn down enough. A proud first for me. :-)

Recipe for Disaster.

- Take one software development company and make the development team go outside.
- Add an idea for a country pub crawl and mix in some bicycles.
- Have some of the developers drink lots of alcohol when at the pubs.
- Watch them fall off their bikes as the day progresses.
Well that was the plan...

Earlier this week we had our development summer do. We normally do something like hire one of the company boats and go up/down stream visiting a couple of pubs during the day, or go bowling or go karting as they did last year. Remember I was in Sydney last year so missed the go karting. This year we went on a local country pub crawl, most of us were on bikes but those that didn't want to ride walked/drove a different route.

Being so energetic I wanted to go on the same off road route that Wiki and I did the last time I was cycling around Wallingford. Roger was up for it as well so we both got into work early and went out. Unfortunately my car could only take one bike and Roger's hire car wasn't exactly big either, so both of us drove to the start point and went from there.

We were quite lucky for the entire day as the weather was ideal. It was partially cloudy so ideal for cycling.

Roger and I managed to do most of the off road course from Wiki's map directions before we had to head back to Wallingford to meet up with the rest of the development team for the pub crawl. It wasn't quite as good as I remember it but still fun all the same.

Here's Roger taking some snaps of the green English countryside for his friends back in Australia.

Once I got back I had to organise the cyclers back at work. We had a split of about two thirds of the team cycling and one third walking. The route we had planned would visit four pubs and be all on minor roads. There were only a couple of hills and I figured that the less able cyclers could at worse walk up them.

Once we set off I felt like I was leading a gaggle of ducks just waiting to get run over by the cars. I was in charge of the cyclers for the day as Wiki was unfortunately down with a cold.

We had a good start and managed to get to the first pub without any problems. Here you can see Simon, Allen and Roger (L to R) going off road to take a slightly different route to the first pub. This time I stayed with the main group to keep an eye out on everyone. At the first pub we stopped for forty minutes and all had a pint, some even managed two pints!

On setting off to the second pub a few people went an alternative off road route to it. I went with the off road group as everyone else assured me that they could get to the second pub without any problems and that they had a map anyhow.

The off road route while not very challenging was good fun with Simon, Roger Allen and Andrew. We followed some single track bridle paths which went through plenty of stinging nettles, ouch!

At the second pub we met up with the walkers who had been on a short walk to another pub and back in the morning.

Phil bought in his automated chicken coup door opener. It basically has a light sensor and at dawn/dusk raises and lowers the door to the chicken house. Here we all are gathered around the gadget while Phil explains how it works. Apparently the chickens automatically go into the coup when it's dark. The device works very well and has saved Phil plenty of trouble in having to open and close the doors.

We had a rather sumptuous three course lunch at this second pub which was quite filling. After lunch we were meant to visit the last two pubs but we were all so full of food and beer that most people were happy to stay at the same place and just head home later on in the day.

Mohamed my boss was quite shocked by the bill as it came to £1030, so much so that he shouted out the amount much to our laughter. He was quite happy to pay it though as I'm sure it wasn't that expensive compared to other expenses claims.

On the way back Simon who probably had the most to drink during the day managed to come off his bike at the bottom of the steepest hill. I wasn't there at the time as Roger and I took an off road route back. He was probably coming down the hill much too fast for the 90 degree bend at the bottom. That combined with the amount he had to drink meant that he fell off quite badly and split his head open!

There was blood all over the place and the people with him called an ambulance. Two arrived, one from Reading and one from Oxford. In the end neither of them took him to hospital, they just patched him up and Mohamed called someone from work to take him to the Oxford hospital. He ended up with 25 stitches in his forehead and probably a ticking off for not wearing a cycling helmet. Simon should be back at work on Monday and I'll enjoy taking the piss out of him for falling off.

Here's a picture of just about everyone in our development team outside the manor house building where we work. I took this before we set off for the pubs in the morning.

Near the very end of the afternoon Mohamed managed to come off his bike as well but he only grazed his knee and I got a rear flat, probably while coming down some good hills on flint stones. Some of us went for more beers and a curry in the evening in Wallingford.

All in all a wonderful fun day out and with a 96% personnel return rate to work it was regarded a success too!

Peak District hill biking.

Over the past couple of days I've had a small holiday up in Manchester and the Peak District. I've been visiting Anne, Dave and their daughter Jennifer.

Dave and I went out mountain biking in the Peak District. We were quite lucky with the weather as it was partially cloudy and there wasn't any rain or wind.

We went to the Derwent Reservoir and the surrounding hills to go biking. Here's an image of the Ladybower Reservoir right next to the Derwent Reservoir.

The initial part of the ride was a gentle ride up and around the reservoir on wide gravel track.

We didn't see a soul for the first fifteen minutes, which was very peaceful. We did eventually see one fisherman in the distance and strangely enough a towel and pair of trainers beside the gravel path, but no one else in sight!

Here we are part way up the ascent and looking very happy, even though we were a little tired.

Once we started the proper ascent up one of the hills the bridle path started to get very narrow and also very steep up the side of the hill. It was just about impossible to ride the bikes up the hill so we had to walk most of the way up. It was enough of an effort walking up the hill, let alone having to carry our bikes up there as well!

The only animals we could see on the hill were the sheep and some grouse. Some of the sheep weren't that afraid of us and remained in place as we cycled by.

Once we neared the top of the hill we went over some flagstones that had been put down. They were a relief to cycle on on the way up and would prove to be really good fun to cycle over on the way down.

Here I am cycling towards the camera on the top of the hill. There was a fantastic bridle path along the top of the hill, which consisted of several dips and bumps and lots of large and small rocks to cycle over. It was great fun to cycle along the path bumping the bike over the numerous obstacles and almost falling off the bike several times. Needless to say that I had a massive smile on my face while cycling and really enjoyed it.

I was quite determined to try to cycle through every part of the path that I could to get he most out of it all.

Once we reached the other side of the top of the hill and started to descend we decided to turn back and head back down the way we came up. Continuing along the path would mean a very long cycle back to the car and we didn't have time for that.

Going down the flagstones proved to be a very good test of the suspension of our bikes. Fortunately for me I had a full suspension bike and I really needed it. Poor Dave whose fillings and arms must have been shaken to bits on his hard tail bike.

Once we started to descend the same path we came up things started to get a little hairy! I wasn't sure how far I would go down the narrow path before deciding that it would be safer to walk.

I surprised myself by going down the single track, which had a steep drop down the right and a steep climb on the left. I kept myself focused on the rocky path ahead and knew not to look right, down the hill, as I knew it would be a scary sight at the speed I was going. Dave managed to go much faster and even did a tail slide around a sharp corner.

As we got near the bottom of the hill the track got much too steep and rocky for us. Here you can see an example of what he had to deal with. If we went for this it wouldn't be a case of if we would fall off but more when and how badly!

We did see a mountain biker on the way up who was preparing to go down this part of the hill. He had a full-face mountain biking helmet on as well as some body armour. I wonder how he got on on the way down.

Also on the top of the hill we met three local lads who were out for a walk. They did look like they had just popped out for a walk around a town centre rather than a walk over the peak district. Totally unprepared, wearing the wrong clothes and not knowing where they were going really. I hope they managed to make it back without too much trouble.

Once we got to the bottom of the hill we took a short break beside a stone bridge where you could go for a dip in the river. There were swarms of midges by the river, which must have taken great delight in taking several bites out of both of us.

We then took a road path around the other side of the reservoir. It was a great end to a fantastic ride that day. We raced a little way around some of the climbs and just after one race a giant Hercules transport plane flew over our heads at a very low altitude. I put up one of my hands and yelled out to it in sheer joy!

It was a fantastic day and one that I really enjoyed. I didn't feel too tired after all the climbing and cycling and had so much energy I could have done it all again on the same day. Even better was that I didn't fall off my bike at any point and besides the midge bites I came away wound free!