Category Archives: Hobbies

50 things.

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A break from the rain, 5C, SSW strong wind.
50 things I’d like to do. I am 50 later this year, so my thoughts have turned to a list of stuff I ought to do and want to do:
Cycle more than 6,000 miles this year,
Ride a carbon bike,
Gliding,
Hot air balloon,
Gocart,
Velodrome,
Scuba diving,
Climb Trifan,
Climb Suilivan,
Meet a whale,
Quad-bike?
Whiskey tasting,
Traditional Italian barber,
British Museum- see that rembrandt picture I have liked for so long.
Learn to cook Japanese food,
Oil painting, return to,

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Another record

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11C, rain. CR:60

Only to echo last week, the GCSE results are out today, likely to be the 24th consecutive year of higher results. The changed course structure will get some of the credit this time, it’s more modular now, so girls will probably do better. This story is worn out.

BBC The Education minister wants to end modularity, so perhaps we’ll see the boys catch up from nest year. The Daily Mail report was interesting, in almost every respect, they got their fact diametrically opposite to the truth. They said boys were closing the gap (the gap has widened), that the yearly grade inflation (which they blamed on Labour) had finished (the increase is about the same as last year). They couldn’t have got it more wrong. Why do people buy this newspaper, everything they print is wrong?

Later: Sunshine after an afternoon decorating. Rode for 60 miles and felt really strong. No aches, stiffness or discomfort, the ride simply flowed nicely. The end of the summer holidays is often like this.

Nant Gwynant

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upto 21°C, still & no cloud

Just got back. It was great, but I’ve brought a cold with me. It’s been strange, it came on tentatively on the drive there. But it held back for quite a few days, drawing my strength in the background while I climbed mountains. Now I’m all bunged up and have gone to bed with a roll of tissue paper. No, Wait! that sounds terrible.

Another interesting physical process can be noticed when falling asleep. As you drift away in a campsite, sometimes you snap back. When you do, the first thing that snaps back into focus is the sound of the river (on the opposite edge of the camp). It jumps into your consciousness almost as if someone has thrown a switch. This can happen repeatedly until you finally do fall asleep.

Anyway, where have I been?

  1. Rhinogs: walked up Rhinog Fawr, clear & cold.
  2. Nant Gwynant, Yr Aran (the summit cleared, much to my surprise)
  3. Nant Gwynant: Climbed Y Llewedd (on the Snowdon horseshoe)
  4. Nant Gwynant: Moel Siabod– near Capel Curig. A fine mountain with an ice scarred east face hidden by soft grassy slopes to the North & west.

iPod clone

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9°C, dull grey clouds.

I have it: a 4Gb mp3/4 player. It’s half the price of  an iPod, stores twice as much and will play wma sound files as well as video, text and photos. the downaide is the very awkward controls, changing album folders, or modes is the oddest process- it makes no sense at all.
 
Here’s a good animal story.(click the picture)

Dragon Rapide

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20°C, windy

Yesterday: Duxford- I took a short flight in a biplane. It was a twin with seats for 8 passengers and was built in the 1930s. Although there was only canvas and a wooden frame between us and the engines, the sound wasn’t very  loud, perhaps because the engines were relatively low powered and under the lower wing.
The views over Cambridgeshire was spectacular- the sunlight getting low- longer shadows and mid-summer golden colours.
 
Another bit that amused us was earlier in the day. They’d set up some demonstration tailers for rolls-royce aero engines, two merlins and a griffon. Each had small propellors to drive, and since these engines are run on open exhaust pipes – the noise was tremendous. Each trailer had an engineer controlling the engine ( see picture below)
 
I have shot some video clips which I can post to my photobucket site when they are edited together. so… that means Adobe Premier needs re-installing.
 
My mother’s cousin was there(John) which had lots of interesting stories to tell of our fmaily history, most of which I have no clue about before. Moreover- there were plenty of people to meet , some who’d crossed the atlantic to get there.
excellent and tiring day.

Airshow 2

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18°C, steady South Winds
Took my stepfather and a nephew to the Duxford airshow today. The lad got a ride on a tank careening around a muddy course also. The show smelt different this time- more parafin less petrol. Still is shorts weather, though I did feel chilly in the prop-wash of 7 spitfires preparing to take-off. A thoroughly good day .
See here
The ladies need a haircut.

Hendon

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24°C, nice very->

Visit to RAF hendon

The lighting is quite low in there, which a friend warned me about before I went. His photos were quite dark, so I used my Tripod which made all the difference. Got pictures of some very rare old birds. Some sections are closed off because they are moving planes around, sadly you could only see the Wimpy from a distance, and only small parts of the halifax. There were some real gems there though.
Upstairs was a small exhibition if paintings with battle of britain theme, many were in oil, but the lighting was so low that it was not possible to see then really. See their website-> RAF Hendon
 
On the way back I called in on the de Havilland Mosquito museum near Junct 22 on the M25. What a different atmosphere there- the whole place is much more "hands-on" & there are curious bits from planes lying all around the exhibits. A good place to drop in – if you are into that kind of thing.
 
On the return drive, a lorry blew out a tyre on the M1. It went off with quite a bang and the whole motorway was filled with a cloud of brown dust. I changed into the outside lane and slowed down. Amazing how loud it was over the sound of my up-turned car-sterio.
Finally- on the drive down- average 44.8 mpg! How good is that ( for a Passat)?? Oddly a bit less coming back- 41mpg & it wasn’t windy.