Molly is a Monkey!

I spent Easter weekend with my Sister's family and my folks who are back from Hong Kong for a good few weeks.

Here's a picture of Molly, a purple monkey that I bought for Aimee quite a while back. It's quite satisfying to know that she still likes Molly and by the looks of her, has been cuddled so much that she's almost worn out.

For Saturday lunch I went out with my parents, Aimee and Elise for Yum Cha in Southampton. I think the last time I went for Chinese lunch was with Allen out in Sydney. It was really satisfying to have Dim Sum lunch again.

On the way back from Southampton we stopped off at a Chinese supermarket for some supplies. Aimee and Elise were both given a fortune cookie. On the way home they asked whether they could open the cookies in the back of my car. Not really thinking I said yes. Unfortunately this meant lots of crumbs in the back of my car. Never mind, live and learn.

Here are the two little blighters on their Christmas scooters when out for a walk.

On Saturday night I went out with Helen and Aran for a few beers. It was good to get out with my Sister for some drinks. It was one of Aran's friends 40th birthday party. We all got quite merry and had a good time. However we all suffered a bit on Sunday morning.

I went out for a mountain bike ride on Tuesday over the Mendips. The planned route was a 24 km ride over the Mendips, starting at Cheddar.

I packed my bike into my car and was quite surprised at how much space the bike took in the back. I guess my choice of estate wasn't totally driven totally by practicality. I just couldn't bring myself to buy a more sensible Volvo or A4 estate car. I see so many of them on the roads and really didn't want to join everyone else.

I got to Cheddar just after ten and the Cliff street car park was very empty when I arrived. Following a route in a book that I have and also an OS map was quite easy.

However it does mean that I do have to stop every few minutes to check that I'm heading in the right direction.

My route started with a very steep 2.5 km climb, so steep and muddy that I had to walk about half of it. I was quite disappointed with myself at having to walk so much of the climb. I think I'll have to work out harder this summer to get much fitter.

Once I got to the top of the climb there were some spectacular views of Cheddar and the Cheddar reservoir.

At the very top of the hills there is a marker at Beacon Batch. I was quite pleased to be able to make it to the top and there were some great views of the surrounding countryside.

There are some great single track routes leading to and from Beacon Batch which I really enjoyed. Some of the routes had some very red dirt along them, which really reminded me of the dirt in Australia.

On my way down I took a slight detour though Rowberrow Warren. Just past the warren there was a strange set of settlements, and this bird was carved out of a tree on the settlements.

It felt a little unsettling to be there on my own and images of me coming across some hostile locals encouraged me to move along rather than hang around and take more photos.

Unfortunately all these photos were taken with my phone camera as I couldn't take my proper camera along. It was a simple choice between my lunchtime sandwiches or the camera.

On the way back down to Cheddar there is a great 1.6km downhill ride though very rocky single track. I decided to not go too slowly on this track to have the most 'fun'. I did almost come off my bike a couple of times. Once when I rapidly came up to a gate along the path and almost went over my handlebars trying to stop quickly.

At times the downhill route was quite steep but I figured that my momentum and a bit of luck/skill would carry me over the rocks.

At the bottom of the long downhill, just before entering Cheddar there were a few cows! I thought I had taken a wrong turn, but it turned out that I was in the right place and the cows were just there to congratulate me for not falling off my bike and arriving in one piece.

Once I got back to my car the car park was full of tourists and I was attracting a bit of attention. More so probably because I was covered in mud and had a massive smile on my face too.

It was an excellent ride and I really enjoyed it. The only down side was that I managed to lose my bike trip computer somewhere on the downhill section. I was also very lucky with the weather as it was raining the week before and the week after this day. Roll on the summer and even more adventurous bike rides. I can't wait!

Other misc photos...

Here are some photos that I've taken recently and didn't post and thought you'd like to see.

On our way back from the slopes, Elise forgot to take her skiing helmet off. It looks like she didn't trust Aran's driving in Les Gets.

On the way back to Geneva airport we drove though Geneva and I managed to get a photo of the UN building. Not sure what the three legged chair is about.

My best mate Dave who I go out mountain biking with in his wife's new ball gown! Just don't ask, I didn't want to. Each to their own, as long as he's happy, which it looks like he is. Anne's mum took the photo for me.

Did you know...

That there are cars with more than two seats?

Well I found this out the other day, and I even went out and bought one today. I'm amazed that there are cars with such a big boot space as well. I was always under the impression that cars only had two seats, but this one has five! Now my mountain bike and snowboard can be moved around inside my car rather than on the outside. I can even stop riding my bike to Bath and back on Sunday mornings, as I can drive there and back with it now. :-)

I went to a car Supermarket (Motorhouse) to look at an Alfa Romeo 159 estate. It was a 200 mile round trip from Bristol. The car turned out to be a real lemon of a car. The interior had been stamped all over by kids, the bonnet didn't close properly and it had a dead flat battery. Even after connecting an external battery it still wouldn't start. All this from a car that was only 18 months old. Even worse was that Motorhouse wouldn't negotiate the price and offered me a rock bottom price for my car. I was quite disappointed with them and wouldn't go to one again for a car.

I eventually agreed a price on a 159 estate from Black & White near Newbury. They were all very helpful and gave me a good price for my car and the new car.

I think I'm going to miss my S2000, it has been the best car that I've ever owned. After three years of ownership there has never been anything to go wrong with it. I wonder if I'll be able to say the same of this new car? I'm convinced that when I drive it around the corner the wheels will fall off and the steering wheel come off in my hands. I'll have to get the RAC coverage where one of their vans follows you everywhere you go. I'm also going to have to take some lessons on reversing it as well, given that my cars for the past ten years have only had a small boot over my shoulder.

Mind you I do like the look of the 159, even for an estate.


Now how do I lower the top on this thing?

Les Gets Snowboarding.

Sunday and Monday,

Les Gets by night view from a walk into town. On our walk into town we saw a long line of skiers going down the mountain carrying lights. It was a great sight and we were lucky to see it.

Finally got out to the slopes again at Les Gets with my Sister, brother inlaw, two nieces and my sisters friends, Andree, Neil and Soli for a weeks snowboarding. Despite them all being skiers, any chance for me to go boarding was welcome.

We had an unfortunate 3am start for the 6.45 flight, on Sunday morning. Once we were up an in the car everything was fine though.


Aran playing games in our chalet on Sunday afternoon.

After a short flight and 90 minute drive we finally got to our destination Les Gets by 12.30. We had arranged a chalet for the eight of us with Andree’s brother who owns it. The snow wasn’t quite as abundant as I had hoped as it hadn’t snowed since the 4th February, but on the runs there was plenty of snow to play with, even if it was a little icy on some runs.

On Monday I was finally out on the slopes after dropping the kids off to Ski school. Because Andree and I had just dropped Aimee and Elise off at Ski School there was the mother of long waits for the bubble lift to the top, as all the ski schools and hundreds of kids were queuing for them as well! Finally by midday I was on the piste and ready to go.

Aran and Aimee at the base of the green piste.

Unfortunately I had a bad start on my first run down the piste. Much to my embarrassment, I fell down four times on the way down the relatively simple blue run. It’s really just not the same going down the indoor Manchester ski slope compared to the conditions on a real run. There are a lot more bumps and inconsistent gradients on the real mountains compared to the artificial indoor slope. The indoor slopes are very smooth and a more or less constant gradient down hill, while the real pistes are quite bumpy and range from steep drops to very flat plains.

Helen pulling along Aimee on the flats.

On my second run I was much better and made it down the same slope without falling down once. After that, things went much smoother for me, I still had a few falls but they were on much steeper gradients and something that I expected while I was pushing myself. I was surprised at how difficult it was to get back into the groove of snowboarding after such a long break of a few years.

My final run down to the town I caught a mogul while turning from heal to toe on my snowboard. After falling down with some force onto my front, I continued sliding down the mountain on my front with snow flying everywhere and my arms crossed. I eventually slid round with my feet pointing downhill, put on the brakes with my snowboard. Got up brushed off snow and carried on with a big smile on my face!

Elise having fun.

I have a one on one three-hour lesson tomorrow afternoon with a snowboard instructor. I’m looking forward to some tuition on how to come down the slopes with a little more control. Sometimes when flying down the steeper slopes I do feel a little out of control and would like to know how to control my turns while avoiding picking up too much speed! Most of the time I can just run with it and stop at the bottom but occasionally I do have a big out of control fall.

Tuesday.

Tuesday night out meal. From left to right, Neil, Aimee, Elise, Soli, Andree, Helen and Aran.

Slow start to the day today as everyone had a lie in this morning. I finally got back on the slopes at 11.30, had a few runs on the blue slopes around Let Gets before heading off for my one on one three hour lesson with Mint Snowboarding. The meeting point was in the next set of slopes at the top of the Pleney bubble lift. I was a bit concerned on my route to the Pleney site as Neil said he followed part way along my route and said there was a really steep horrible slope at the end, which he’d never go down again! Even his instructor told him not to go down the blue run when they were learning.

The Viking hotel where I met Tammy from Mint snowboarding.

When I finally got to the steep part I thought it was really easy and nowhere near as bad as he described. In fact I thought it was very easy to board down. I got to my meeting point half an hour before I needed to because of the easier than expected run.

Tammy.

My teacher was called Tammy and she was the founder of the Mint snowboarding school a couple of years ago. She was very friendly and we got on very well throughout the lesson. She helped me correct all my bad habits, and there were plenty! We had to almost go back to basics to correct my habit of crouching to balance rather than standing up straight. Three hours later she had me standing up straight and leaning down the slope on my turns to turn quicker and have much more control. I did fall over a few times but each time was followed by a laugh.

I was very happy with my lesson and despite the expensive rate it was very well worth every minute. Tammy took me around all the other blue runs in the neighbourhood and also pointed out some other areas, which were well worth visiting later on. Tomorrow I’ll put into practice all my new skills and also be in a good position to explore the rest of the red and blue runs in the area.

Wednesday.

Some of the spectacular views of the pistes.

Got an early start today to get down to the piste by 9.00. My legs were starting to ache a bit this morning, however not as much as they would at the end of a full days boarding.










We took the route straight on in this picture, the drop to the left was a great red run!

I took Neil and Soli to some of the slopes that I went around yesterday. We had quite a good time exploring the western Pleney side of Les Gets. It was really good to put to practice some of the new techniques that Tammy had taught me yesterday.







The same position as the previous photo, but looking right at the drop we had just come down from.

Just before lunch I went down the main blue runs with my Sister, Helen. It was good fun to initially follow her and then fly past here with a big whoosh! Then Aran and I did the same things. We also did a small slalom run with banked edges, which we all managed without falling over.

I also tried one of the button lifts without much success. It was so difficult to get onto the lift as a snowboarder. I must have looked like a right idiot in front of everyone coming off the lift at the beginning. After lunch Helen tried the same lift and came off as well. Fortunately I was able to capture it on camera!

In the afternoon I went off on my own as everyone else was a little too tired to carry on. I went back to some new pistes that were in the vicinity as this morning. Lots of fun but my thighs were really starting to ache quite a bit on my last run down to Les Gets. I really enjoyed the freedom of going wherever I wanted to and managed not to fall over as well.

Thursday.

There was some low cloud cover on Wednesday and Thursday, you can't see the top of this mountain because of it.

For me today started feeling like a zombie, because of a cold that I had caught. I was so bunged up and had such a sore throat that I was tempted to just stay indoors. I managed to get out onto the slopes and I was really glad that I did.

Andree, Soli, Neil and I went out on some more runs on the west of the resort. We all had an excellent time and discovered some great runs, which we could all manage with ease.

After lunch we all got together to do some green runs. The eight of us had a good time following each other down the runs. After a couple of runs we then attempted the blue run down to Les Gets. It was a run that the Kids had done at ski school and Helen was a little apprehensive about doing as she wasn’t a confident skier yet.

Me, looking like I'm standing in front of a picture rather than really being at the top of a mountain.

In the end everyone got down fine and I was the only one to have a fall! I was on my heel edge on the flat snow and looking at the kids come down and didn’t think for a second and then caught a toe edge landing with a big whumpf on my chest. I have some bruised ribs but otherwise feel fine. Neil and Aran saw me fall and I think I’ve put them off snowboarding for now.

At the end of the day my legs didn’t feel tired at all, so I think I’ve mastered being able to snowboard without much effort or tension in my legs.

Friday.

Aran and Neil about to head down from the top.

We started another morning at 10.30 on the piste. This time we took Aran along with us to show him some of the other runs outside of the starter ones. The clear nights sky did mean that the slopes were quite icy in the shade. We went on some of the runs on the backside of the mountain and parts of the runs were very hard and icy.

After this we decided to get back on some new runs down from the top. We went down one new run and then followed some familiar routes from the previous few days.

In the afternoon we went out on another blue run that went all the way down to the next village in Morzine. We all went along with Aimee and Elise too, I was generally following the kids and helping out whenever any of them fell over.

Aimee did fly past me at one point and all I could hear her say was “I’m going through a forest.” A few seconds later she had fallen over after going a little too fast. When I quickly boarded down to her, fortunately she was laughing with some snow on the helmet and face.

Once we got to Morzine Neil, Soli and I took the last chair lift to the top and then made our way back to Les Gets. Meanwhile Helen, Aran, Aimee and Elise took a taxi back to Les Gets because they were a little tired.

My last chair lift view on my last run.

I had a really nice final run back down to Les Gets, mainly on my own and any other people around me too.

It was a real shame that I had to finish the holiday as I was really enjoying all the runs. From Tuesday onwards I was generally getting better and better at my boarding. It may be a while before I get out on the slopes again, but I’ll really look forward to the next time.




A Friday afternoon to remember.

After getting back to the UK, even after a day I’m really missing the snowboarding on the piste. I could have quite happily carried on snowboarding for another week. I think that visiting Tescos today made me even more depressed, as everything else seems so mundane and boring in comparison.

Elise doing the unintentional splits!

More great views of the pistes.

Aimee coming down and doing some jumps which proved to be very funny.

Elise and Aimee skiing. They're in the red outfits. Aran and Neil are in front of them and Helen and Andree behind them.

Elise and Aimee doing their funny mini jumps.

Me snowboarding.

Elise and Aimee having some fun.

18-1 is not good enough.

Last week I went to Milton Keynes at Phil's place to meet up with my university mates. We have always had a boys only gathering for the Superbowl weekend for the past seven years or so.

One bonus for the weekend for me was that the American football team that I have supported for the past 22 years, the New England Patriots were in the Superbowl. Even better was that they had so far been unbeaten all season long. They could make history and be the only team to go 19-0 and cement their place in American football history.

From left to right, Greg, Dave, Alan and Jason all quite drunk on Friday night after getting back from the pub.

On the Friday night we all met up and after a quick pizza, went out for a few drinks at the pub. After the pub the drinking continued into the early hours.

Dave and Jason had much too much to drink that night and would really regret it later on. Jason didn't really surface till Saturday afternoon and even then he was quite useless and went to bed quite early. Dave managed a little better and was almost normal by the evening, he even managed one Guinness.

I went out for a bike ride around Milton Keynes on Saturday morning to get some sort of exercise for the weekend. I really couldn't go for four days without using some energy. Unfortunately about half way into my ride and at the furthest point from Phil's place I got a front puncture. I had a spare inner tube in my backpack but when trying to remove the front tyre I snapped both my plastic lightweight tyre levers! Needless to say I was cursing my luck. I had to call Phil and Greg to come out to find me and give me a lift back home.

The main event was on Sunday evening and we prepared for it with plenty of ribs, chicken wings and curry chicken. Oh and some carrot sticks and celery for a balanced meal. :-)

Here you can see me looking like a dork in my full Patriots supporter outfit. Team shirt, beanie, mini football, ribs on my lap and also a carrot stick in my hand. I'm looking quite unstressed now as the game hasn't started yet.

Once the game started I was in full shouting mode. I should tell you that when the Patriots are playing I always shout very loudly at the telly. I'm convinced that the louder I shout the better my team will do, more so when the game is live. :-)

By the second half of the game the scores were still very close and I really started to worry as we weren't playing very well. In the end we lost the game, it was a very big upset for me and I words can't really describe how disappointed I was at the loss.

The following day I read a great quote from another Patriots fan which summed up how I felt too, "No matter that you've won every other game in the season, losing in the Superbowl still sucks!" A disappointing end to an otherwise fun weekend.

Christmas nieces, biking and snowboarding.

I spent this Christmas at my sister's place in Farnham with my nieces and my brother in law Aran. It was a great week off work and one that I really enjoyed to travel around the country catching up with friends and having fun.

We went down to Romsey late on Christmas Eve to see some relatives. My cousin Lisa who runs a restaurant there and traditionally has a late night Christmas Eve party after the place has closed for business at around 10pm. There were quite a few people there and it was great to catch up with some of them, which I hadn't seen for a few years. My sister and I used to spend a lot of our childhood Christmas's in Romsey playing with our cousins. We have plenty of fond memories of the place.

Christmas day started late for us all with a much needed lie in after the previous late night. When it came to the present opening this picture is the calm before the frantic opening. Fortunately Aran was there to make a note of who sent what to my nieces.

About half an hour later here's the big mess of wrapping and presents all over the living room. I'm sure that Aimee and Elise both enjoy the present opening more than the actual presents on the day.

For Christmas lunch we all went down to Lynn and Jeff's place who are Aran's auntie and uncle. They only live just up the road so we could all have a few drinks and walk home. We spent most of the day and evening drinking, eating too much and playing games.

The best way to start Boxing Day is with a Slipper Game. It was one of the presents that Aimee got and I was more than happy to play with my lovely nieces. Unfortunately I came last, despite collecting my ball gown, golden slippers, pumpkin, mice and invitation I wasn't allowed into the ball to meet my prince charming. Both Aimee and Elise managed it though. Maybe it's a girl thing.

Later on in the morning I had a chance to get some mountain biking in at a local army training ground. There weren't quite any mountains or even really high either, but there was quite a bit of mud and a few forests and one hill climb. Here's some of the terrain that I had to cycle though, lots of tank tracks filled with muddy water. It was a nice ride to work off some of the previous couple of day's excess food and beer.

On Sunday in the Christmas week I went up to Manchester to try out the new indoor snow slope Chill Factore. I took my snowboard and equipment up there and met up with my friend Jeff who was skiing with me. Here's the entrance way to the slopes.

Fortunately snowboarding was just like riding a bike for me, despite not having boarded for a couple of years I did remember all my skills. My first run down the slope was quite successful and I didn't fall over and remembered how to turn and stop. However it did remind me how much less fun it was to snowboard indoors rather than outside on the real mountains.

You do spend ten minutes queuing for the button lift and then about twenty seconds to come down the rather short slope. It's also very artificial snow as there are constant conditions with no ice or proper powder and also very few uneven slopes. It was a good primer and confidence builder but nothing more really. With only 90 minutes for £22 it couldn't be said to be great value for money as we got about a dozen runs in, but after 90 minutes we had had enough.

Here I am coming down the slopes, I'm the black dot that waves to the camera at the end. Dave took the video as he came along to meet us afterwards for some food and drinks.

I went from Manchester up to Preston for the New Year, met with Jeff and his very pregnant wife Claire, and also Steve and Leslie. Jeff's house must be one of the biggest and best houses of all my friends. It's an old victorian house that has four bedrooms, a study, living, dining room, kitchen and garden all set over four floors. As an idea of how large it is there are three doorbells on the identical house next door. Here we all are just before going out for the New Year celebrations in Preston.

Back to the badlands, well Llanwrtyd Wells.

Last weekend I went back to Llanwrtyd Wells with Susan and quite a few of her friends. About half the group were meeting up to do some kayaking and the other half to do some mountain biking. I was obviously going to have a go at the latter.

Unfortunately we were running very late and Susan didn't get to my place till 10.30pm on Friday so we weren't to arrive in Llanwrtyd Wells till 1.30am. We were going to stay at a hostel in the town and a couple of Susan's friends kindly stayed up to let us in.

Here's Dinny and Susan at the start point of our first days riding. You can see Susan's car fully loaded with bikes and kayaks! The weather was quite good if very cold at around 1 degrees C!

Just by the start of the ride was a giant overflow chute for a reservoir. It was absolutely massive and the kayakers were talking about going down it in their kayaks. Something totally illegal but possibly quite fun too. Now I wonder if I could do it on a snowboard, with some snow obviously as I'm not totally mad.

After a few decent climbs and descents with the usual great welsh scenery we had a very tough ascent up some slate trails. It was quite difficult to make it to the top and we all had to stop and walk at one point or another. However once we got to the top there was a fabulous view over some of the surrounding valleys.

Susan took this (and some of the other photos here) of me starting to come down from the top. You can just make out Alison in the background. I think I must have my usual insane grin on my face as I was probably having a good time.

After a good descent we followed a path around the edge of the valley. All around us were some stunning views such as this.

Here's (from left to right) Will, Catherine and Dinny catching a breath and admiring the scenery. You can make out the narrow track that we were cycling along. At times it was quite muddy and consequently very slippery.

At the same point as before, Susan is taking a photo of Alison as she catches up with us. The river around the valley that we followed is along the left. We really were in the Welsh valleys and couldn't hear or see a road, only the sound of me falling off my bike...

While riding over a particularly bumpy part of the trail I came across a technical bit that Catherine and Alison had stopped at. I tried to ride up it and almost made it but then ran out of power (and weight on my pedal) and fell left onto my bike. As I put my right leg down it sank totally into the mud right up to my knee!

At the time I didn't notice that I had caught my right calf muscle on the big cog of my bike and caused quite a small deep cut. It wasn't until we stopped upon coming to a gate that Alison noticed all the blood running down my leg. It didn't hurt because my legs were so cold and also because I was having so much fun. I patched up my leg and tried to stop the bleeding and then we carried on.

There was one final long climb back to the cars. Fortunately it was on the road but it was very long and I enjoyed every exhausting minute of it. :-)

Once I got back to the hostel I got a chance to check out the damage to my leg properly. This photo taken with my camera phone actually makes the damage look quite spectacular. Actually most of the red is just blood and the only damage is the two dark patches on the right hand side. It wasn't as bad as I thought but it does look good and did bleed quite a bit. :-)

Later in the evening fortunately I could replace the lost iron in my blood with plenty of pints of Guinness in the pub next door to the hostel. Before we went there, actually it was in the middle of a couple of pints in the pub, back to the hostel for a fantastic stew made by Susan and then back to the pub for a few more beers. A fantastic evening of beer, great home made food and more beer followed by some very drunken pool skills!

On Sunday Will, Catherine, Dinny, Alison and I went out to do a red and blue bike run that was very close to the main beer stop at the Real Ale Wobble. The others all went to do some kayaking. Will did have the most to drink the previous night and wasn't quite feeling in top form. He had to throw up about half way up the first ascent up the red run. It was a very, very long climb to get to the top, but once we got there it was even more of a challenge to come down!

This was probably the most technical part of the descent on the red run. We had to zig zag down a long path to the base of this hill. It didn't help that the ground was mostly frozen so the tractor trails made horrible ruts to ride through. I fell off my bike several times (only bruises and smiles) and also had to walk some of the descent, but it was still fun all the same, if a little frustrating at times. By the way, we didn't cause the deforestation in the picture!

Once we completed the red run Catherine, Alison and I went and rode a blue run while Will and Dinny took a long tea break. This was slightly less of an ascent and the descent was much less technical with a track which was much less bumpy going through the forests.

After we finished riding we met up with the others in Mertha Tydfil to browse some very cheap book stores and have some lunch. Unfortunately for the others, they couldn't do any kayaking as the river levels were much to low and they would end up pushing their kayaks along the river rather than paddling along.

Still it didn't detract from a fantastic weekend of cycling and meeting some new friends. I had a great time and would love to get out again with the same group for more cycling, and possibly some paddling as well... maybe...

I'd like to thank Becky for my early new Christmas present, some full cycling gloves for the winter. I'm sure they helped stop me getting more grazes and cuts on my fingertips!

The best technical descent ever, near Bolton too!

Last Saturday My mate Dave and I went to ride the Rivington Pike Loop, which is just west of Bolton. Dave got the route we took from the Internet from a guy that claimed it was the best technical descent ever. Well a claim like that was enough to convince us to have a go at it.

Here we are at the base near the start of the off road section of the route. The ride would take us around 20 miles over mostly exposed terrain. Note the odd units on the sign.
From here you can see the two peaks that we were to eventually climb up.

This muddy bridle path is typical of most of the off road terrain that we encountered. There were quite a few horse riders around as well as a few cyclists and ramblers. I'm sure we also encountered just about every type of animal poo you could find on the hills as well. You name it we either saw it, rode though it or stepped in it!

This shows a TV mast along with mobile phone masts near to the top of one of the hills we climbed. Before we started off from the cars Dave realised he had forgotten to pack his waterproof/wind breaker, which wasn't so bad as fortunately it was quite sunny today. However as he was getting dressed he realised he had also forgotten to pack his cycling shorts! He accidentally packed his swimming trunks instead!! He went out with his trunks and a couple of T-shirts, while I had my two thermal layers and a windbreaker and my well padded cycling shorts. I suppose I was being a wimp and he was going hardcore cycling with swimming trunks.

This is the view down a winding road, which was great fun to go down really quickly, and even more fun (for me) to cycle back up on the return route.

Here's Dave at the top of the first hill. We had lunch here sheltering behind the rocks against the very windy conditions. As soon as we moved away from the rocks you could feel the icy wind trying to blow you over. Having lunch here was great for the views, but not so great as we started to cool down and the only way from here was down the exposed hill.

When we saw the other hill from here I thought wouldn't it be funny if we were meant to be at the other one instead of here. As it turns out we did take a wrong turn from the unclear directions and were actually up the wrong hill! Never mind I'm sure we needed the extra exercise, and it was fun to make it up this hill as well.

About half way down the first hill, here's Dave about to 'drop' off on the descent. Dave was consistently much faster on the downhill sections. He summed it up as he was mostly waiting for me at the bottom of hills while I was mostly waiting for him at the top of hills.

Dave at the top of the second hill where there was a small single castle turret. We had to cycle on a steady slope around the hill, as the direct route up the hill was much to steep and up some stone steps. I think he's also managed to produce a dog from his swimming trunks. Needless to say that it was bloody windy up here too. We did have some spectacular views over Bolton and the surrounding countryside.

A very strange gatehouse that we saw about half way down the second descent. Unfortunately it was all boarded up. From here we came across the main part of the technical descent. It mostly consisted of the remains of a narrow rocky creek riverbed without the water, i.e. full of small and large rocks to ride over and test our suspensions. It was fun and quite satisfying to ride down but also quite hard on the arms. Not quite the best technical descent ever, but good fun all the same.

At the top of a small wooded area we came across a small flowing river and still pool of water. Very picturesque and calming, and sheltered from the wind as well.

As usual we were both caked in mud at the end but very happy too. The course felt like much more up hill cycling than down hill, which suited me fine, probably due to the longer steep ascents. Another fine day cycling, and even better was that I only fell off once, and I was going uphill at the time so it wasn't at speed. Nothing as bad as the last time I was out with Dave and did a face plant!

On the Sunday we went to see the new indoor ski slope near the Trafford Centre. It was quite impressive and I can't wait to have a go on my snowboard the next time I'm here.