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Lets set the scene, Wednesday, nice and sunny after the early morning drizzle, cycling on one of the cycle paths in the New Forest. Riding along and heard this rustling in undergrowth then all of a sudden saw two pink and black pigs, scared the hell out me. Not because I am scared of pigs, just never expected to see any pigs.

The bike ride continued with out further event until I saw this fungi growing at the side of the road. We had stopped at the end of the cycle path and were about to join the public highway back to Burley when I spotted this guy (pictured right). There were no other fungi around just this lone solitary one. It was only about 12 inches from the road, perfectly formed (well I’m no fungi expert so I can’t say it was a perfect shape but it was perfect from the point of view the canopy was in one piece, unlikely many others we had seen on our ride).

No sooner had we stopped and taken a photograph of the fungi (using my phone) than another couple of cyclist turned up and seemed equally amazed by the location of the fungi as we were leaving they started taking pictures of it.

We left them to it and headed back to the car park in Burley for lunch. Lunch was nothing fancy just sandwiches sat with the bikes in the car park watching the world go by, or should that be watching the stupidity of some people.

Anybody that has been to the New Forest will know that the animals (New Forest Pony, donkeys, cows and pigs) roam free  which includes many car parks. There was a young pony (larger than  a foal but not an adult) wandering around the car park. This family (mum, dad, two young children) approached it. The pony seemed interested in the family for about 10 seconds until it realised there was no food involved and walked off, mum follows and pats the pony on the bum. The pony swishes it tails at the women to indicate that she should leave it alone and walks off. The mum follows and strokes the pony on its back, the pony turns it head towards her and tries to give her a nip (as in telling her to go away) and walk further away. Mum thinks this is fun and follows the horse and is about to pat the pony on the bum again, the pony realising this decides enough is enough and swiftly kicks the women on the knee. The husband was heard to say “I told you so”, but honestly what was she thinking, what would of happened if one of her kids had been in range. There are plenty on signs saying don’t touch the animals……..

Went out for another ride today, lets just say that the wife’s falling of her bike is getting more extreme. She managed it twice today, the first time was within 60 seconds on climbing on her bike she fell into a holly bush. Then later on in the  ride she fell into a puddle…………..a big puddle and had to finish the rest of the ride in wet clothing. Problem is it happening so much now people are expecting it to happen.

Well I have waffled enough, until next time, enjoy

For the first time in many years my weight is in the 18 stone bracket. It was weigh in night on Monday night and for the first time in a few weeks I had a good weight loss (4.5lbs to be exact) and managed to crack the barrier that had been holding me back for a while now. I can’t think to many people would be happy to be 18st but for now I am but I don’t intend to hang around in the 18st bracket for to long. My eye’s are already set on a much lower weight target, not sure exactly what my target I want to be but is but I have a target area in my mind.

My next target is a lot closer which I would like to hit next week, though it would mean losing the same amount again this week (or more which I have done in the past), so I am looking for a good week this week and fingers crossed for Monday night.

I am hoping the extra bike riding I have been doing will help, been out riding the past two days and going out again tomorrow for a long ride. Yesterday was only a short ride but we tried a completely new area of Hurn Forest. There was a large hill which we both walked up because apart from being quite steep it was a deep sandy\dirt track. Once we got to the top there was a large hill to go down, by the time I got to the bottom I had blurred vision it was that bumpy. Today’s ride was longer but cut short again as our son ran out of legs and the wife got another puncture (front tyre this time). So I rode back to the other end of the trail to collect the car and drive around and pick up my son and wife. Mind you I did have a nice ride back at speed and without having to wait for anybody. Even managed to get up the big dip which was also nice.

As the wife’s bike had different valves which meant carrying two pumps (and we left her pump in the car 4 miles away from where she got the puncture) I bit the bullet and bought two new inner tubes (actually bought three, got a spare for the ruck sack we carry) with the same valves that my bike has which means we only have to carry the small pump with us.

Tomorrows ride is out in the New Forest again, not sure which route we are going on yet. Once the riding is over it is back to the bike shop to drop the bikes off for their first service (on Thursday). Let hope I can get out of the shop without the temptation to spend anymore in money in there.

Dog shit!! Yes you read that right, I want to talk about those irresponible dog owners who takes their dogs out on to public land and then let it mess all over the place and then can’t be a decent responsible owner and clear it up.

We (the wife and I) have just taken up cycling, mountain bike riding to be exact, ok there are not many mountains around Bournemouth and to be honest the smallest hillock leaves us gasping for breath, so we have taken to riding the cycle paths in Hurn Forest. This is Forestry Commission land, it is open to the public, young and old a like but dog owners believe they have some god given right to let their dog crap anywhere they want and not have to clear it up. The nearer you are to the car parks (the Matcham Lane end at least) the worse it is.

Would these same owners leave it lying around their garden if little Fido left a couple of dog eggs on the lawn, of course they would not, they would be to afraid their children or their grand children would step in it. They would be out there clearing it up, so why the hell wont they clear it up in Hurn Forest, I guess they are not worried if somebody else steps in it?? Maybe if they were to become responsible owner and clear up after their dog then everybody could enjoy their walk, jog or cycling in the forest more, rather than having to play dodge the turd…..

Right now I have got that off my chest, I had a couple short rides in the forest this weekend. Yesterday we left it till after dinner when the rain had stopped before venturing out but before we left I had to do something I had not done for some 17+ years, repair a puncture. The wife rear tyre was completely flat so I had to dig out the repair kit and fill the bath with water. Fortunately I soon had it fixed and we were out in the forest. Went up a track we have not been up in the past and the wife found a tree route and then took a close inspection of the grass. Once she had picked herself up and wiped the mud from her cloths she gingerly got back on the bike. Unfortunately she was quite sore from her fall so we headed back to the car.

Today the wife decide she was too sore to ride but she would come out to the forest as our son was coming with us and she could keep an eye on him. Now sooner had I got going then I found myself going over the handle bars and inspecting the grass, got my front wheel stuck in a rut the bike stopped, I did not. Nothing worse than a couple of bruises and some mud stains. Later on caught up with the wife and son and took my son round one of the easier areas, but as we were riding it in the opposite direction I missed my turning. Started to turn around and as I did so the front wheel picked up a length of bramble and with the angle of me turning dragged it across my shin. I am no sporting a lovely area of scratches down my shin.

I have a couple of days off this week so I am intending to get out and do some more riding. The bike has it first service on Thursday so I want to make sure I get as many problems out of the system as I can before the service.

It has taken 34 days from delivery of the first cooker to the delivery of a fully working and undamaged cooker. Some of the delay were not the fault of the manufacturer as we took several days to get back to them to arrange delivery of the latest one, day to day life just got in the way. I’m getting to know the fitter that well now that I made him a cup of tea without asking if he wanted it.

The whole family went out riding on Sunday (as mentioned in a previous post), a first for us as the daughter is either working or baby sitting her younger brother. But she was on holiday this weekend so we all went out to the local forest. The wife decided she wanted to take things easy after her tumble on Saturday so stayed on the main path with our son while the daughter and myself ventured off onto the smaller paths. This was fun until we pushed it to far and ended up in grass up to our knees and that while sat on the bike…………..

I was hoping that all this bike riding would help with the weight loss, but yesterday weigh in was a gain. OK I am the first to put my hand up and say that I strayed into eating some wrong foods but even with exercise I should at least lost a couple of ounces?? So I am trying to have a good week this coming week (food wise) also doing a food diary to record what I eat. My problem comes around the weekend when we have just done the shopping and there is more opportunity to eat the wrong food. Still intending to keep on with the cycling as I believe it will start to help with the weight loss.

The wind is looking good for this weekend as well so I might even go kite flying as it is likely to be the last chance I get this year on the home field as it normally floods over the winter. I have a couple of days holiday next week so hopefully going to fill that with either kite flying or bike riding.

BT, I can not believe how appalling this companies customer service is. I try to deal with them as little as possible at work but looking after the groups phone system makes that a difficult thing to do. Our latest run in stems from the fact that we want to move a telephone line to a third party. So BT send me a letter telling the date when this will happen and also telling they are going to charge me over £850 for the privilege. In my attempt to phone them I became the unwilling participant of inter-department ping pong, being shunted from one department to another or if I was unlucky just being cut off. After an hour of phone calls I found one person who was prepared to try and resolve my problem. Unfortunately he was unable to do so and has passed my details on to the department who should be able to help me but I have to wait for a call back……………………….I am not going to hold my breath or relish the fact that I will end up having to call them, I feel this is going to run for a while.

It was a lovely sunny but cool day today, we decide earlier in the week that we would go for a ride in the New Forest. We decided on our longest route to date, 12 miles round trip, ok nothing to the season rider but to a couple plump newbie it was an interesting challenge. It also turned out to be our hillest ride to date.  I only failed to ride to the top of one hill (the longest) and that was only because I stopped twice (on the same hill) for the wife, in the end I gave up and pushed the bike to the top with her, all of about quarter of a mile.

The wife even managed to fall off again, she has this problem where she stops and then forgets to put her feet down, head first into the undergrowth with only her legs sticking out. This time she did it opposite a car park and everybody ran to her aid. Fortunately it was only a bruised knee (and ego). We even managed to get lost, we were having problems deciding what was a path and what was a track, in the end we took a left when we should of carried straight on, just meant we came out on to the road a mile or so earlier than we should of done.

By the time we got back to the car park I was not feeling to bad, certainly a lot better than I had expected to be feeling but then again I had ridden at a slow pace to keep up with the wife. Hopefully going out again tomorrow, this time to our local forest and the daughter is coming along as well. I think the game plan is wife and son ride off on the simple route and the daughter and I go exploring.