The weekend of the 5th, 6th and 7th May were booked to go to Tosside (Gisburn Forest)in Lancashire to meet up with some friends from a mountain bike forum. I had planned to leave early Friday morning going to our branch in Preston and then when finished head over to Tosside about 40 minutes away for a weekend of trail riding. Things did not go to plan, Thursday night I got a phone call at 9pm to say that the power had again gone off at head office (they had had power problems all day but we had been told by Eon at 5pm that everything was sorted). So a change of plans for Friday morning, I now had to get to head office before they start work on Friday morning. They start at 7:30am and I live 130 miles away, you do the sums, at least head office is sort of on the way to Preston.

I arrived just after 7am and thankfully all the servers fired up without a problem, but by now it was rush hour time so we hung around head office before hitting the road shortly after 9am and headed for the M5\M6. Preston was reached just after midday after an interesting drive through the town centre (missed turn off on M6, sat nav choose the route through town).

Things did not improve with the job I had to do at Preston, missing instructions, people not putting me through correctly on phone systems and idiots on the other end of the phone. Once everything was working (well at least my part was working) I phoned the alarm company, after a couple of unsuccessful attempts to get things working I was told that they would need to call me back which may be on the following Monday I told them that I would not be there on the Monday and that they can come out and resolve the problem themselves, I had had enough.

We eventually made it to the camp site by early evening, lovely and sunny but a bit windy, a small group of riders went of for a early evening ride but I decided not to go, but then I decided that I would and got changed and then headed out towards Gisburn Forest (we were and 1/2 mile from the forest). I came across the new Hope trail and headed off down the trail. The first thing I will say is it not really my sort of trail big jumps and big drop offs, not my sort of ride by I got to the bottom and met up with the riders. After a play and chat we decided to ride back up to the top and do another ride down the Hope trail. Once back at the bottom we headed back into the strong wind back to the camp-site.

Back at the camp site I came across a problem, despite filling the water tank up with water the previous night our water tank was empty, not good. In the end I used the on-site facilities and then joined everybody else for our hot pot evening meal (provided by the camp site manager). It had been a very long day so it was not long before I was heading for my bed. I wanted a good night sleep for the following mornings ride.

In the end I had a lousy nights sleep, got up with a stinking head ache. As I sat there drinking tea and feeling sorry for myself, my phone rang it was my son, “Dad we have got a leak”, then I heard my daughter in the background and my son past the phone to her. Apparently she had woken up to water coming through the bedroom ceiling in our room. We made a few phone calls and past on instructions but in the end there was only one thing we could do, go home. So we packed up, said a quick good bye to everybody and embarked on a 295 mile 6 hour drive home.

By the time we got home the leak had stopped, I was in no mood to venture into the loft so I decided that was going to be a Sunday morning job. Unfortunately at around 1am in the morning the leaking started again and in short I just lost the plot. I could not sleep in the bedroom I was curled up on the sofa and the black clouds were now at ground level.

Sunday morning dawned and I was in no mood to venture into the loft so we did the only thing we could do and called a plummer, it was a cost we could do without but we had to fix the leak. Thankfully they came out quite quickly and considering it was a call out on a bank holiday Sunday it was reasonably priced.

By now it was to late in the day to do anything so I just sat on the sofa feeling sorry for myself for missing out on the weekend.

The miserable weather has stopped me from riding lately, I went out riding this past Saturday and Sunday but both were shortish rides. I did consider riding yesterday except it rained and it rained again tonight. Tomorrows an early start, Thursday is shopping night as it is our sons birthday on Friday. So it is the weekend now before I get back on the bike.

What has got me wound up this past few days is the fact that I need to purchase a mobile dongle for work, just one dongle but Orange seem to be happy to ignore my offer of money for a 12 months contract. I thought (how ever foolishly) that it would be easy to go to the Orange shop and purchase a dongle, well it would of been had I been happy to purchase it in my name and pay for it via my bank account or via my credit card. But it is for work and I won’t be the one using it, apparently their system can’t handle a purchase for a business in the shop (or though I have had some thoughts on this more later).

So I thought I would phone Orange Business on Thursday afternoon, three times I tried, three times got through the menu system and three times I was cut off. So I clicked on that little button on their web site that say arrange a call back, twice I clicked and filled in the form have and guess what no call back. I tried calling them again to day, this time I got through the menu system, the phone rang and rang and rang and then a nice lady told me my call was important to them and they would answer the phone soon possible, then it rang and rang and rang and then the nice lady…………….. you get the picture, (Before anybody says well buy one from one of the other mobiles communication companies, I can’t, it has to be Orange, it is a long story).

Now I have been thinking, that I can’t be the only person wanting to buy a dongle (or phone) from an Orange shop for business. Was it just to much trouble for the shop assistant to process my order (we got as far as sitting in the little cubicle and tapping away on her screen). So I am going to try one of the other Orange shops in the area. But what gets me is the stupidity of it all, I just want to purchase a single Orange dongle and so far Orange are refusing to deal with me.

If you work in a mobile phone shop that deals with Orange, you could be my next best friend

Went out for a ride yesterday, choose to ride in the New Forest, It was shorts and tee shirt weather again. I did a loop which included 3 large inclines, one close to the start and two about two thirds of the way round, one after the other. Well the first incline a long loose gravel climb required a pit stop half way up, I was feeling I had left my climbing legs at home. The section till the next hill went pretty much as normal although I did notice it did not matter which direction I was riding the wind was always in my face?

The good bit about the second climb is that it is on tarmac and starts gently (it also the longest). The bad bit was that this section was also the final run in area for a 10k fun run so dodging runners was on the cards. Ducking under the obligatory plastic tape across the road (bare in mind this is a public road still open to traffic) I continued towards the pub where the hill kicks upwards. Now I normally stop at the pub but with all the runners and families milling around I decided to head on upwards and take a rest at the top of the hill before I ride the short down hill bit before climbing back up again.

I arrived a gasping wreck again having beaten the hill with no stops for a rest. I took a 5 minute break, the next hill was gravel, it is also one of my nemesis, I don’t think I have cleaned it to date. Having rested and determined to get as much hill out the way I shot off down the short hill, I was soon pedalling up the hill and then soon into the granny ring, I just kept pedalling away till I reached the top, again a gasping wreck. Not bad two out of the three hills cleared (and I cleared the hill yesterday I had targeted on the heath as well), maybe my hill climbing is getting better.

I carried on across the open heathland of the New Forest headed under the A31 and set my sights on Burley. Now the problem here is I have done this ride at least a half a dozen times but I don’t think I have ever ridden the same route back to the car park twice. I always seem to find myself on a different path back to the car park. Unfortunately I found myself heading in completely the wrong direction and found myself needing to climb another large incline. Unfortunately a pit stop half way up put paid to my decent hill climb average for the weekend.

While I never set a time for the ride with the intention of racing around the ride to beat my fastest time to date, I did complete the ride in the time I had expected so I was happy with that.

Going to try and get an evening ride in this week, now the evening are getting brighter and we are having an early summer

So as I stepped on the scales at slimming world tonight I watched the digital read out as it first flew past my last weeks weight and then came back down to rest 4lb less than last week, I think it was then that I let out a loud sigh…. I think that was very good considering I lost the plot Friday night after the bad news (I’m a stress eater). I was even more surprised by the fact that I won slimmer of the week and had a large bowl of fruit to take home.

In regards to the doctors I have have some new cream to try which will hopefully resolve my problems and stop it flaring up again. I was a bit surprised when he said it was two years since I had the last lot of cream, which was why they would not let me have a repeat prescription and had to make an appointment.

Don’t think an evening ride is going to take place this week, have a couple of ideas for the weekend but need to check what the weather is offering before I decide.

Was hoping for an early night to night as I am up early and off to head office tomorrow but that not going to happen now especially as the daughter said she might phone me to come and collect her from the concert she is gone to if she comes out too late for the bus. The last two days have been a case on answer the desk phone and the mobile rings, answer the mobile and the desk phone rings. I spend half the day answering the phone and the other half trying to catch up where everything is behind.

I went for a ride this morning (pre-broken tooth) with my son. As it has been a couple of months since his last outing (and painful knee due to schoolboy pranks) I decided to go out to the New Forest and ride the old railway line from Burley to Holmlsey and back. It is only 5 miles round trip but by the time I got back to the car park anyone would of thought I had ridden 10 times that distance, I was just dead on the bike. As is normal when we are in this neck of the Forest I was forced to stop at the Station House Tea House for refreshments, as you can see cycling requires a lot of chocolate cake and milk shake.

Ryan refuelling

Waiting on the old platform

Saw a mountain biker who shall we say was doing a different kind of riding in a BMW convertible, not that I was worried but please on a residential road!!

Also had a numpty in a four wheel drive who thought it would be good to see if he could run me and some pedestrians over as we crossed pelican crossing. Yes he had the green light but he was still on the round about 60mtr prior to the pelican crossing so we had plenty of time to cross with out obstructing him, even the pedestrians got a cross with out a problem but it did not stop him from screaming the engine and glaring at us as we crossed in front of him. I offered him a single digit salute to let him know how I felt.

Just spent a pointless 2 hours trying to get something to run on the server at work this afternoon (need everybody of the system to run), it failed, not sure why as it ran perfectly when I did this in November. The joy of working from home over a weekend, looks like I will be trying again tomorrow evening.

A quick check around the Internet and TFTuned seemed to be the people to service my Rockshox Forks . To be honest I did try another company but after four attempts during the day they failed to pick up the phone (and still have not returned my answer phone message I left). So a quick call to TFTuned so see if there were any inherent faults or any other sort of gotcha with these forks to which they said there was not. So Monday night I filled in the online service request form and parcelled up the forks for their trip to TFTuned on Tuesday.

This morning just after 11am I got a phone call from TFTuned saying the forks were ready, a complete service, all new seals throughout the forks and a bill for £89. On the one hand it is an expense I could do with out, on the other it is cheaper than a new pair of forks and now I will be able to ride over the Xmas and New year break, so it is win win for me…………….what do you mean how? I now can’t afford an xmas booze so I won’t ruin my dieting by drinking and I can carry on riding to help with my weight loss, well that is my story and I am sticking to it.

Hopefully I will be doing my traditional Christmas eve ride, done it for the last couple of years, weather is looking OK. Then hopefully I will be out for a early Boxing day ride.

As for the rest of life it is a right pain in the rear, work is nothing but a nightmare at the moment, I think somebody has tied a target on my back as most of the agro seems to be directed in my direction at the moment. My other problem, or rather the other half problem of being made redundant on Jan 31st is not really helping matters, neither was a decline after what she thought was a successful job interview today. Seem to remember being in a similar position this time last year.

Now for the not very regularly ABS (Arse Behind a Steeringwheel) Award goes to a driver on the M3 this morning just south of J9 A34. I was on the inside lane which becomes the slip road while the middle and outside lane continue on as the M3, I was going a bit faster than the car in the middle lane and the lane marking between lane 1 (sliproad) and lane 2 (now lane 1) had changed to show that I was clearly now on the slip road, so what does the ABS do, move and indicate (in that order) onto the now slip road narrowly missing my front bumper because he did not like me undertaking him. He then realises that he is now on the slip road for the A34 and promptly moves back into the now inside lane of the M3 and accelerates away.

Yesterday ABS Award goes to the little old lady in her silver Micra who waited until the lorry was about 50yds from the junction before pulling out in front of him, thankfully there was nothing coming in the other direction and the lorry was able to swerve onto the other side of the road to avoid her whilst locking everything up in a clouds of blue tyre smoke. I was speechless at her stupidity, I not sure what the lorry driver said but I some how don’t think it was printable judging by the hand gesticulation I could see in his cab mirror.

Here a picture of what I have been working on at work

Servers & Sans

Two new servers (the green lights) and two new San units (only read if you like reading geek) above the servers. A total of 36 disks, 18 in each San unit which is small fry to large corporation style sans but for a small business, it is a lot.

Took the camera out and took some pictures for the first time in months. Only went down to the local beach on a windy day but it was fun.

Here is a kite surfer about to launch their kite.

Kite launch

The shot was taken looking towards the sun which is why everything look so dull apart from the bright blue kite.

Here a shot looking out toward France (it is over the horizon a bit!!)

Breaking waves

Finally from the camera a dog and ball leaving the water, I had a bit of fun with this one

Dog, ball and water

On the bike riding front, I was intending to go on a club ride this afternoon, but thing got in the way and ended up going shopping this morning when I wanted to do a couple of bits on my bike. So I did the work on the bike this afternoon, including bleeding the rear brake as it was a little soft and every intention of going out tomorrow morning.

Friday was another day for riding, went out in the afternoon, went for a ride across the local heath then into Delph Woods then down the Castleman Train to the Roman Road at Upton, then up the hill until I turned off on to Upton Heath. I have only ridden this bit once before and I thought the turn off was in the first quarter of the hill not the last. This part of Upton Heath is the part that was featured on the national news earlier in the year when it went up in flames due to a suspected arson attack. The whole area has now started to regrow, the only sign of the fire is the blacken trunks and branches of the trees and bushes. Apparently the wild life has moved back into the area, I met a photographer who was stalking a deer which after I came rattling down a hill had moved into a clump of trees and out of site, opps

Saturday I had to work, only made worse by the fact that I had to travel to the head office in Worcs. so no riding. I was supposed to be riding with the son today but he stayed over at the mother in-laws last night and did not want to come back for a ride, add to that it has been raining all day so I did not go in the end. Definitely going out riding tomorrow morning regardless of the weather. Going with the wife to Moors Valley where we will both ride the Through the Tree trail and then I will shoot off and ride some other bits while she pootles back to the van. I am not back to work till Wednesday so I am hoping to get another ride then.

This past week has been a strange week, a sort of lull before the storm, although I am not sure when the storm is going to hit. Work has been those sort of days when you are busy all day and then look back at the end of the day and nothing has been accomplished, you just spend the whole day dealing with lots of minor dead end problems. I am on holiday for the second part of next week and the first part of the following week but it looks at the moment that I am going to have to work on Saturday (the one in the middle of my holiday) again, work that one out!

I am living in a house of bugs, we had a phone call on Monday asking us to collect our son from school as he was unwell. Fortunately I was able to leave work and go and collect him, since then is has had a hacking cough. I was feeling below par earlier in the week. The wife felt under the weather in the middle of the week. The only one who has not been ill is the daughter and she been working long hours and overnight so she been temperamental because she is tired.

Virgin Media are really peeing me off, the internet problem I complained about back in May and contacted them again at the end of September and early October which they complete ignored is still on going. I have not contacted them yet as I know it won’t be a pleasant call to them. I am planning on doing it one day next week when I am on holiday but I will be more angry when I come off the phone than when I start……

I have done no riding this week, I had planned to go out one night this past week but forgot to put my light on charge (it takes over 18 hour to charge). Then I decided not to ride the following night as the weather forecast was iffy and it turned out to be a lovely night………well would of been had I gone out for a ride.

I am not happy with the bike at the moment, it has a creak and I can’t find it and I hate the sound of that creak as I pedal along. I spent this morning and the early part of the afternoon trying to find the creak to no avail. I popped into my local bike shop for some (creak resolution) advice, his advice was to go over everything I have done again. I picked up a few useful tips on the Mountain Bike Forum so I have a lot to do tomorrow and my son want to go for a ride although that will depend on how bad his cough is.

I think I am getting to that age when all you do is moan……………

After an early start from home on Saturday I was soon at head office shutting the IT system down so I could do some work on the support equipment. Thankfully it was one of those day when everything went as it should of done (well almost) and by mid afternoon we were on our way to Tewkesbury for an over night stay.

Having sorted out how to get the TV working I watched the highlights of the Wales v France rugby and like everybody else felt Wales were robbed. We then went for a wander around Tewkesbury grabbed some food and then retired back to the van.

Sunday dawned sunny but by the time I got up it had clouded over, watched the first half of New Zealand and Australia before heading for the Croft Trail at Swindon. It was along the M5 that we bumped into a Pheasant. It decided to walk across the hard shoulder into lane one, he got as far as lane two and then turned round and headed back toward the hard shoulder, with us closing on it quickly, it then decided that it would try and out run us, Pheasant are not renowned for their speed (on foot or flying) and the inevitable happened, a loud thump from the front of the van and the Pheasant was last seen heading at great speed into the undergrowth at the side of the hard shoulder. On reaching the Croft trail car park it was not hard to find the Pheasant’s point of impact, there was plenty of blood, feathers and guts on the front bumper.

After three laps of the Croft Trail and some lunch it was time to head home as I now had to wash the blood and guts off the van.

Not sure what the week holds for me, feeling a bit below par at the moment

Let start with the annoying bits, the new school term is about 4 weeks old, to date we have lost one football sock, lost one pair of trainers, ruined one pair of shoes and had one call to collect son from school (injury). I just hope things improve in the next 5 or something year while the son is at secondary school.

Works is becoming manic, the easy jobs become hard jobs and take twice as long to resolve, the hard jobs (the jobs that are actually hard) don’t get started because the easy jobs are taking to long.

Riding, well there have been a couple of rides, I had my hardest ride (ever) last weekend over the South Downs, did not help that I choose one of the hottest days of the year to do the ride and claimed yet another puncture. A couple of miles later I felt better as my ridding buddy also got a puncture. I had an attack of the cramps during the ride (again), I managed to keep the worst of it at bay but it stayed with me till the end of the ride. I reckon I drank over 5ltr of water and energy drink during the ride and ate one energy bar, two small pieces of flap-jack, two slices of malt loaf and an ice cream. The ice cream was my treat on the way down the hills, we passed a car park where the old ice cream van was doing a roaring trade.

I was planning on an easy ride on Sunday but I just had no energy by the time we had finished cutting the grass and washing the van. Made amends later in the week by going out for a ride in the evening, had to take my big light as it was dark enough for it.

This weekend I am not sure what riding will be done, will be keeping an an eye on the weather and decide on the day.

On my way through Worthing yesterday near the hospital on the A27 (I think), saw a car waiting in a side road on my left to pull out and turn right, then when I am no more than 40yds from the junction he pulls out in front of me and then stops as there is traffic coming the other way, not sure how I missed him I just hit the brakes. The ABS came into operation and I stopped just short of ramming his drivers door. I got nothing from the driver apart from a horrified look as he pulled away and disappeared off down the road.

What can be more simple than mounting a cabinet on a the wall?? I marked the wall where I wanted it. I even marked the cabinet to ensure the correct orientation, so can you spot the deliberate mistake in the picture below?

If you still can't see it, look at the label on left hand side of the cabinet!!

Communication companies, why are they so bad at communicating?? Lodged a complaint for the third time on Sunday still waiting for a reply. The auto reply I got said we will be back to you within 5 days (5 days in these modern times is woeful), well today is the fifth day, anyone want to take bets on me getting a reply??

Going for a ride over the Southdowns tomorrow, hopefully I will take my riding legs with me unlike last night ride…..

I did actually go out and ride this morning (on my own), ended up going over the local heath, tried a few more of those paths that I had not tried to date. Tomorrow I am trying an old route with a new twist. After this past week I might be asking for trouble so I am not saying anything about it.

The reason I went and sat in a field was the company are having a show this weekend and they move about 70% of their stock into a field adjacent to a Theme Park. As this is only one of three show (I don’t go to the other two) during the year where the sales team from all our branches meet in the same place at the same time, it is an ideal time for me to grab their laptops and install some new mobile Internet dongles.

As ever the install was nothing like the instructions, when you read the instructions you need to read between the lines. Like, at no point did the instructions say reboot the PC\Laptop, but I had to reboot each laptop three times at different points during the install for the process to work properly.

I eventually got 4 of the six dongle installed, (one never turned up, and one is not there till tomorrow) and left the sales team sitting in the field in the rain. My days of working that show are gone, I used to there at the start of the set-up of the field a week before the show, I used to work the weekend of the show and then I would be there the week after taking it all away again, 10 straight days of early starts and late finishes. those were the days.

Tomorrow will be my third day of working from home and I am starting to get cabin fever, Thursday I have to go out for work but fortunately it is not to far away and then on Friday I have the hospital apponitment and then I have a meeting near Southampton.

While my shoulder is getting better, I now have a fairly full range of movement of my right arm now without pain (until I try to either push, pull or carry anything) trying to sleep is a nightmare. The only position I can lie in without pain is on my back but I can’t sleep on my back. Lying on my left side is reasonably comfortable but the position I rest my right arm in soon become uncomfortable and I have to turn over. Well I would turn over if I could, I can’t lie on my right side as my shoulder is still to painful. I have tired lying in various new positions but they feel so alien I can’t get to sleep. Then when I do fall asleep I will turn over in my sleep and then wake up in pain as I turn on to my right side.

We won’t go into Monday nights weigh-in the weight loss went out the window which based on what I ate after Wednesday crash is hardly surprising, just got to try and keep the food intake sensible this week and hope I can get back on the bike Saturday.

Thursday the motherboard turned up along with an engineer to fit it, a quick swap over of the disks and everything is working as it should be………………………..er, no. Having got one server back up one of the other servers has a strop and drop one of it three hard disks, fortunately this server only runs background jobs so it has not caused as many problems as the other server.

Friday did not improve with a printer and a laptop dying. The weekend did not bring a change in fortunes as I two of my PC’s at home died one of which was my main PC. Just hope things improve tomorrow when I am back to work.

No riding this weekend, yesterday was a rainy miserable day and today with all my PC problems at home I decided that I had better get it all sorted out. Then in the middle of setting up my e-mail this afternoon I get an e-mail telling me that one of my domain names had expired yesterday, a distraction I could of done without. Still have a fair bit of data to recover from my old PC but I have the basics up and running and I will do the remainder as and when I get time or need it.

Weigh in last week was a small gain and to be honest I am not expecting any improvement tomorrow night, time will tell.

Trying to get any info from the guy that supply our phones was a waste of time as the info he supplied was as accurate as a map showing where the treasure is buried.

A meeting was agreed for today at 10am at the local branch to me (it should of been last Thursday in East Sussex but I had to cancel). So I arrived nice and early at 9:30 and the directors arrived at 11:45 and then said he was leaving at 1:00pm, who give the boss a bollocking for being late??

Now I had done a bit of research on the net in the past week checking out what needed to be done, so once I got the phone I spent 20 minutes with half the office staff trying to read the pin and iemi numbers written on the sticker under the battery, it would of been easier to write War and Peace on a grain of sand. Once I had the information it did not matter what I did I could not even get beyond the registering the service with out an error message. So I gave up and phoned Vodafone, well in 10 minutes the phone was set-up and working and 15 minutes later the e-mail was working (most of that was setting up the e-mail account).

Now all I have to do is do the other Blackberry, accept he has his swapped his Blackberry for an iPhone…………..

Last night was weigh-in night and it was another loss, not a big loss but a loss none the less. This week is going to be a trying week with hot cross buns and chocolate in abundances. Looking at riding on three of the 4 days over the weekend, Friday I am going to be chasing a creak on the Whtye.

Todays photo is straight out of the Anorak section, I used to be a train spotter (don’t tell anybody) and so when the chance came round in 2009 to look round the railway works at Eastleigh I thought it would be a nice day out and my son would enjoy getting up close and personal with some trains. I had been to an open days at Eastleigh many years ago but boy was it different this time, the place was empty compared to how it was on my first trip there. BR pulled out many years ago and now there are several small train repair service companies working out of then various engine sheds, nothing like it used to be.

Here you can see Western Champion in it original colour scheme sat in the sidings. Many years ago at Bristol Temple Meads I had the opportunity to drive one of these beasts, admittedly it only moved about 10ft but as far as the 16 year old me was concerned I drove it. More info on the Western class can be found here

Western Champion

Since Monday I have been fighting Trojans, or to be more precise, fake Trojans. The type that pop up a fake security warning saying you have 20,000 infections on your PC, enter your bank card details below and watch us empty your bank account!! Just a pain in the arse to deal with (goes well with the pain in the groin).

Well last night was weigh in night and it was a loss. Bit of a surprise really after what I ate of Friday and Saturday, but hey I will take it. Just need to get my mind into gear and get into a new number (e.g. 16st area).

As spring has sprung (and despite the forecast rain tomorrow) here is a view of summer for you.

Sunset over Poole Harbour

Firstly they would not log off from the failing server, then when they had been asked not to log back on to the server they did log back on and got upset when I kicked them off the server. Then when they could not log back on they complained that they were unable to log back on. Fortunately by lunch time the message had gotten through to most of them.

I am hoping to get a couple of rides in this weekend, we have rain over night which should be finished early morning so maybe lunch time I can pop out for a ride. Might even try and get the Cannondale out on Saturday, just the new chain and a couple of little jobs to do. Sunday looks like the better day, so hopefully I will get a nice long ride out on Sunday.