xendistar.co.uk

More on the title later, this past week has been a different sort of cycling week. Two evening rides, nothing exciting, one ride over the local heath and the other ride was around Throop and Hurn forest. The reason for two night rides was the fact I was working away this past weekend so I would not have much chance to ride although we (the wife came with me) did take the bikes with us.

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

Yes it is that simple, been busy I forgot to post….

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.

Driving, I think we all know there are some right muppets on the road and if we are honest with ourselves we have all done something stupid while driving. But having said that it does not make you feel any better when somebody stupidly pulls out in front of you…………..and then stops there!!

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…..

This past week was one that had I been given the option I would of avoided. On Monday my yo-yo weight returned. Late Tuesday afternoon I was informed of a minor problem with one of our database (at work) and tomorrow (Wednesday) can I get a copy of the database from the backups to they can compare the data tables. Why then on Wednesday do I get the third degree as to what the problem is and then I have problems with the recovery of the data from the backup tapes. Thursday, I get a phone call lunch time to say the father in-law had been taken to hospital after having a minor stroke. Friday no problems just rushing around catching up with everything else I had missed in the week. Saturday, had decided to take the wife out to Moors Valley for her second ride since getting back in the saddle. First problem can’t get near Moors Valley as there is a country show on in the area and all roads of grid locked. So we turn round and opt to go to Hurn Forest, find a parking spot, get the bikes ready, put helmet, on wife fall out van…………take helmet off, put bikes back on van drive home! Thinking I should stay in bed tomorrow……..

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.

To day I went to work and sat in a field for 4 hours (more on that in a moment). To be honest I was glad to get out the house, cabin fever was setting in. Because I could only drive one handed as any jolt through the steering wheel went straight through to my shoulder, driving since my tumble as been very limited and the boys with the pretty blue lights don’t appreciate you driving one handed.

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.