Category Archives: Home

I’m back

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 24°C, clear. C=88.9 miles

Rode home from South Wales today, not a cloud (…etcetera). I’ll upload some photos later.
chose a different route back since there were some nasty hills in the Wyre Forest going out last week. My mapdidn’t show the Malvern hills very clearly which was just as steep. Some of the climbs are quite hard work, especially bearing in mind that you have a further 50 miles to ride. A helpful trick while trying to keep a steady pedalling rhythm is to convery the roadsign gradient as from percentage to ratio- these were 16%, so that’s about 1:7
…I think.
At the top of the hill was a Cafe with a Russian tank parked outside. It must have been a hobby restoration by the Cafe owner.It looked pretty much complete, with engine and wheel rubbers. That machine must be of about 1944/45 vintage  – so that’s quite an ambitious project.

How is it doing?

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18°C, some rain due this morning.
Pigeon: we’ve been looking out for a pigeon with no tail, not seen it yet. It can’t be too disasterous for a bird to loose its tail- crows can often be seen in this state- I bet that’s due to "hen-pecking". It must make landing difficult though- no steering on the final approach to a landing perch.

It takes about 2 hours to fit new brakes to the touring bike, and only a minute to discover that the forks are dangerously cracked. I knew a guy in Bristol who sprinted across traffic-lights and his forks snapped, he smacked the tarmac hard enough to break his jaw. Presumably that means concussion too.
I don’t want that.
The other photo is of a Dahlia, which is possibly more interesting before it flowers. It’s a little character – the sort of thing that deserves animating.

Pigeon

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24°C, clear & light winds

Clawing the chimney-stack: Hannah called me down about an hour ago because she could see claws in the chimney. It explains the odd noises we heard all morning, an animal must have been trapped and slowly falling in stages down the chimney for about half-a-day. I opened the flue to get it (a common town-pigeon), breathing quietly holding onto the cast iron door above the fire- puzzled no doubt. My first grab with gloves on got me a large handful of feathers- including lots of long ones- oops. The second grab reaching in further up got the bird cupped in my hands.It looked well enough to put up[ a struggle, flapping and spreading small fluffy feathers all over the room. I dropped it on the soft grass outside then after a pause of a few seconds, it jumped up and flew high over the local houses.
Pigeons can fly quite well with no tail. Good luck pigeon!

flood retreat

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21°C, sunny, like summer.C=41 miles
Digging roots: in the garden is not easy- old plants that have been there need deep deep digging to get the stubborn roots that grip the deeper ground. Hedge trimming is nice, but not with a machine- I use shears and hate the noise that so many gerdeners make with their trimmers, mowers, strimmers and saws.

Unfortunately, Microsoft have broken live.spaces, upload pictures no longer works and pages take several times longer to open- this means I can’t make the
blog entry I wanted to today.

Below is a panoramic picture taken on the bridge where Sunday’s panorama was shot. Although MS have shrunk the picture to an extreme degree, it’s still just about possible to see the difference. Though the floods have gone, the smell of rotting straw in fields is strong under today’s sunlight.
try this page and Today’s

Oak galls

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20°C, same weather,

My favourite Oak tree has galls on its leaves. The tree lives in a small but wild field near home where I walk the dogs*. It turns out that those red balls on its leaves are created by gall wasps, each one has a young wasp gestating inside causing no harm ot the tree.
 
* I say "walk", not what they do.

Thrips weekend

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20°C, sunny with cumulus clouds

Yesterday: got slightly burnt at the Duxford airshow. Despite wearing some 15 & 45spf sun cream, it still got through. IU blame the thrips- they were everywhere, itching and bothering everyone around. I reckon in wiping them off- some of the cream came off too. Funny little things thrips.
The photo below shows some american planes, this opener was marred by commentary from an american woman who was lbatantly reading propaganda.
 
Today, same weather, but no showers and 72 miles on the bike. It’s been ages since I did that kind of distance so it was quite hard near the end ( but oddly, felt easier in the last 10 miles).

The difference a day makes:

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20°C, clearing, wind dying away.

Suddenly: feel back to normal, that "looking-slowly" feeling has gone, cough has too, now feeling more that summer is back.
Tomorrow is an airshow- Flying Legends which I’m taking my ol’ man to. Just an excuse for a day out really. I have some ferrying to do – that means getting up at 03.00 to take Hannah to start her German trip.
 
The ride home was less wet today, but my paper-files are not quite dried out from yesterday. I felt like a naughty schoolie with a sheet that was due in today being all sodden & frayed at the edges.
A-hem.

Cat on the head.

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20°C, heavy rain & light sun

Dawn surprise: 04.10 (am) cat falls on my head, all clumsy and claws. That leaves bloody gouges on my scalp which ache like  bruises. Stupid creature climbs in through the window, teeters past the clock and tries to get in the airing cupboard. He’s not clever enough, falls and then decides to take the opportunity to whip out hs sabres for a good gashing. I’ll teach him about rugby one of these days.
 
Game arrived, but no sign of that much needed memory return. Finally, may be well enough to ride tomorrow.