Don’t ask me how I stumbled upon the Church Sign Generator, but it’s very very good fun.
On the farm… summer 2008
Lovely trip to Fiona(sis-in-law) and Graeme’s – at the Bank Holiday weekend.
Highlights include:
- The weather – hardly a drop of rain all weekend – a real August rarity this year
- A lovely cycle ride from their place over to the Wensleydale agricultural show at Leyburn – riding on ‘new’ roads and seeing new places is always a pleasure
- Some of the usual rumpus fun on the huge trampoline – with full stomachs.
- Celebrating Jenny’s ridiculously good GCSE results
- Lily having a ride on Lucy’s horse, Hamish
Too busy to blog
It’s a sad state of affairs when you get too busy to blog. Considering we haven’t been away this summer, it’s been pretty hectic.
Obviously, having a new(ish) baby about the place is a good reason to keep my fingers off the keyboard in non-work time, but it also seems to have just been a bit of a packed time. Loads of things have happened that I’d usually go into great detail reporting, but the reporting time itself is at a premium, so instead, in the ultimate compromise, a list-view of recent goings-on:
- Two fell races (and one more coming up this Wednesday) – in the Rossendale mid-week series – finished just about where I wanted to in the Golf Balls fell race and let myself down a bit in the Pilgrim’s Cross fell race. Google Earth maps of the fell races here
- Two smashing days out on a long weekend:
Morecambe: – had a trip to the seaside in some pretty decent weather at last – and a great chance to play with Lily on the beach (although she lost Ariel’s arm!) and visit the recently renovated Midland Hotel – an art deco landmark. A fully restored Gill relief sculpture of the Morecambe Bay area was a lovely highlight, as was getting a snap of Mum on the steps of the Hotel holding her wedding photo from the same spot. I also managed to sneak in a nice ride back from Morecambe via the gorgeous Trough of Bowland and long climb of Waddington Fell.
Great Hucklow: – an annual trip to catch up with some old friends from Gloucestershire – Will and Juliet – and their fun family. A grand day out including some climbing wall fun and Will being part of the Doris Dancing team.. - Some good momentum in the Three Peaks training, with some great 6:20am starts now three Sundays in a row (albeit with some appallingly bad mechanical incidents, the training still happened!).
- The Olympics have been a time to be proud as a cyclist. We should make the most of times like these and it won’t be long before the Telegraph and Mail bits of the country start hating pesky lycra louts again. The Olympics in general have been a great reminder of how utterly rubbish the ‘normal’ sport on TV is in this country. So, so so so so so so badly skewed in favour of footballers pretending to be fowled. Some dodgy tattoos though.
- I’ve relaunched the UKCyclocross.com website. It’s now a fully functional ‘ning’ – a cyclocross social network with some stunning functionality – I really hope people start using it to upload their own reports and images.
I’ll hopefully gather some time in the near future to start writing ‘properly’ some time soon. When things calm down. That distant, lovely day that never comes.
Photo moblogging at last
I’ve finally got round to getting to post photos directly to my Flickr account from my mobile in one very easy click. There’s something of a compromise here though. Shiny, feature-packed and lovely though my Nokia E71 may be, its piccies are clearly those of a phone, not a camera. It’s still worth it though. I love the feeling of live reportage when I can post on the spot, even though the subject matter to date has been mainly family snaps.
Helping out for an evening
Lily and I went to Marshall at the Science in Sport criteriums in Preston this evening – a nice chance to help out by putting a tiny back into this great race series that I try and get to most weeks.
Given that the cyclists came past roughly every 2 mins 20 seconds, it gave Lily plenty of time for a good load of hand-standing, as well as practising her own riding and running about.
By the river in Hubberholme
Some 30 years on, history repeated itself yesterday as we decided to make the most of some gorgeous summer conditions and spend an afternoon by the river Wharfe in Hubberhome. Going to exactly the same spot that I went to as a young boy, Lily and I frolicked in the cool water with the inflatable dhingy, Elvis dug all day for always-just-too-large stones, and Katie and Elsie managed to sneak in a tiny bit of chilling time. Just a bit.
I rode home on the bike in the boiling heat and got a few miles in, which was a lovely thing to sneak in.
We made video with incredible similarity to the family cine films of 30 years ago, including me looking scarily like my dad when I swim.
A long overdue meet-up with Biggers
It’s been seven years since we saw my old and lovely school mate John Bigland, and we finally got together on Sunday for a BBQ in Helmshore’s finest July weather. Or the finest it could muster up, which means just freezing northerly wind.
It was so great to catch up and it’s nice to have these reminders from time to time about how simple it is to get on straight away with people you grew up with. Good mates, a shade of reminiscing but not too much. No need… life’s still fun for all of us without any need to recall the past. Still nice to have a quick chat about whether he still has Tears for Fears posters up on his wall. Sadly, he doesn’t and neither do I. I prefer to think of it as a phase, and I’ll put some up again soon.
A night at the races
We took a family risk last night – hard for us middle class types – and let Lily stay up on a week night so we could all go and watch the Colne Grand Prix. Having the seven week old Elsie ‘stay up’ until 9:30 is a bit of a habit for said small person – so not an issue.
I’ve had such fun at this race in the past (2007 | 2006 | 2005) and it always seems to have been in great weather – but true to form, last night’s event was held in pretty rubbish conditions. We stayed dry – just – but it was cold and the rain before the event had kept away the hoards of locals who normally turn out to watch the event. See the pics here on Flickr.
My Team Wheelbase team mates Lewis and Stuart were riding, and it was great to go and lend a bit of support. In the end, it didn’t work out for either of them (though Stuart’s 25th was very respectable)… tough Elite field, valiant efforts and all that. Lily’s turning into a bit of a partisan, cheering for all the Wheelbase riders, including Rob Jebb at one point, who wasn’t even there!
Simon: Member of the worst five-a-side team in Britain
I’m very proud to announce that my brother-in-law Simon is a member of the country’s worst five-a-side football team.
Four Four Two: The worst five-a-side team in Britain.
Lily’s sports day – very short video
Katie, Elsie and I popped into school to watch Lily’s sports day today – her first. I’m sure it’s one of those parental thing where you love observing your children from ‘the outsider’s view’ but Katie and I were just wetting ourselves at Lily’s constant ants-in-her-pants movement in between activities.
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Elsie slept through it.
Tour de France vs Wimbledon
I really love both Tennis and cycling – they both make good spectator sport on TV, but if people want to look at athleticism, this is an interesting stat….
Rafael Nadal, Wimbledon
7 Matches
in 18 hours and 32 minutes
Kim Kirchan, Yellow Jersey in the Tour do France
7 stages out of 21
in 28 hours 23 minutes
impressive stuff for us cyclists, but what’s important to remember is the knock-out style of the Tennis contests…. even so… it’d be a bit dull to watch just 16 cyclists battle it out for the final five days, like Wimbers.
Mark Cavendish: A star about to shine
When the 95th Tour de France gets under way tomorrow in Brittany, our own Mark Cavendish is on the verge of becoming a star, and the thought excites me. Though we’re not yet on the verge of producing the first ever British overall winner for yellow – the centre stage of cycling – I predict we’re about to see the coming of age of the finest sprinter this country has had in (my) living memory.
Cavendish is still young, still fresh, oozing confidence… but he also has utter class and a ferocious sprint that, at the end of a fast, long stage, is just unbelievable. Yes – it’s the Tour to France and a lot can happen – including some nasty crashes in the first week, but if Cav stays out of trouble, we’re heading for a great first week.