Category Archives: Travel

DofE 1: Abingdon in-school training

Posted on by
Reply

+6°~-3°C, calm hi high-pressure sets in.

Same start as last year with similar weather, cold dry and frost predicted. I’ve been give permission to camp in he school grounds which solves two problems: the campsite is 7 miles away and is likely – waterlogged.

d1: been here before, and familiarity brings some ease. We have toe groups to take through a classroom based training booklet. The kids are delightful and eager. One of the girls is the younger sister of one from last year, she even texted to check, and Flo’ said I was the best one. Wooo! This group declared themselves “massive Miranda fans”. That meant catchphrases from the show sometimes, bare with, bare with!

Fine but cold weather.

Overnight, I planned to camp but given the chance to bed down in some kind of annex, I took it. With some time to kill, I did another page in the A5 sketchbook.

Day two, a Sunday. More classroom training but with added trips outside. I showed them how to put up a tent and finished the syllabus.

The centre manager wants instructors to have the same groups on practice in march. I’m only on the reserve lists so sadly…..

Latest: I’m on! I’ve been moved off reserve and will now work with both groups in march.

Hills and drizzle

Posted on by
Reply

10°C, sunny out but bands of drizzle in the afternoon, light S wind.

In the morning, feeling lively, I took on some hills – Dalton and Bannister. The Arrow is great for long steady miles. The steel frame soaks up the bumps along with 28C tyres set to 70psi. That was a nice ride, not even the rain made it cold.

The frame needs some attention. There are some rusty pits hidden beneath one of the tubes.

Twycross by Arrow.

Posted on by
Reply

10°C, sun, light breeze and dry.

Stopped by the bunker

The photo was taken near an underground bunker by Elford. Such a strange structure which now has a visitor’s book. Not an official one, but an old sketchbook with a few mindless comments and badly drawn porn.

A slow and steady ride which passed Twycross Zoo. This time of year, their hedges are bare so you can see in. I looked in and two giraffes looked out.

Just like old times when I lived here, the miles effortlessly rolled by on he near empty roads. My mind wandered all over and the effort to ride got lighter and lighter. This bike used to by my steady winter ride (and commuter) but now I have others.

One thing I always like about these silhouette shots is the halo around my head. It’s something in the way leaves reflect light back along their path. I don’t mind the shallow ego boost nonetheless.

Muddy hours on the Mustang.

Posted on by
Reply

8°C, grey start turning to rain.

Weather change: we’ve gone from cold and clear to mild and damp. My house hasn’t kept up. The windows were steamed up this morning, remarkably – on the outside! The house must be colder than the air.

The flooding is remarkable, saturated soil and large ponds in any dip a field may have. I put the CX wheels back on the gravel bike. I’m so glad I did that with today’s conditions.

Hour and a half mudding.

Posted on by
Reply

7°C, sunny with light wind

Coming to the end of the wettest autumn I can remember. Black gritty mud coats most roads and puddles hide portholes. When I get time, I’ll put CX tyres on the commuter.

What about this little painting? It’s acrylic onto A5, painted while the others were watching Strictly. That makes it about 1 ½ hours or so. It needs a little work around the left eye and hand; about another half hour.
I found this quite tough in comparison to oil paint.

  • Sometimes you go back to a colour on the palette and it has dried up,
  • blending is rough when applying new colour to dry paint,
  • the colour changes as it dries,
  • the surface is chalky,

Most of these problems could be solved by using a slowing agent, the problem they introduce is that they look milky. All of those problems could be solved by using oil paint.

Ninety minutes at night

Posted on by
Reply

6°C, cold and dry.

A 1½ hours after work. This is a return ride after over a week of feeling poorly. I’ve really felt the cold but, unsurprisingly, it’s not noticeable after the ride.

As you can see, the speeds are quite low, partly because of restrictive warm clothing. Ironic that I overheated slightly. A week of no exercise does make the cold air more biting.