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You sometimes have to wonder about the logic of those in power, particularly your local council. There is a dual carriageway near us, a major artery when it comes to traffic in and out of the local town and surrounding areas. The dual carriageway is to undergo a major refurbishment in the new year and as a preliminary exercise the local authority are removing all the reptiles (the road run next to forest and heathland which is home to smooth snakes and sand lizard, both protected species) from the verge area and clearing a lot of the undergrowth.

For the past couple off weeks one of the inbound carriageways has been permanently coned off so that stretch of the road is extremely busy with two mile tail backs normal in both morning and evening rush hours. Now they don’t start work till 7:30am and they finish around 4:30am which is 9 hours, this is equal to 37.5% of the day. So for 62.5% of the day the coned off carriageway is empty with no working going on. while the traffic queues up around the cones

Now as you can imagine the local shop owners and business have kicked up a stink over this, it is an important time of the year for them leading up-to Christmas etc. So what brainwave have the local authority come up with to get help the local shop owners and business??? lets stop work on the inbound lane and move the reptile collecting and verge clearing to the outbound carriageway!!!

Er let me get this right, we welcome visitor to our town but if you have to sit in a traffic jam to get out of our town well hell we don’t care……………………

I use the A34 from Winchester to Oxford on a regular basis, a section from Tothill to north of Newbury has just been re-surfaced with all the work going on overnight. This is a major artery for the south of England, while not on the same scale the A338 is a major artery for the Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch areas. So why can’t our local authority take a leave out of the Berkshire local authority book and do the work overnight so as to reduce the traffic chaos that is happening.

But it is not just the traffic that is jammed up on the A338, all the other surrounding routes are jammed up as well as motorist try to find their way around the traffic, local residential roads are blocked with traffic as more traffic try to find a faster, less traffic jammed way home.

I could go on but I just feel so frustrated by it all…………..

For more information on this mess from the local authority here is a link to information about the work on their web site

Web link

And its a good thing!!!!!!!!!!!

I am talking about my weight loss, tonight was a weigh in night and yet another loss but I did not get pass my next mile stone but a loss is a loss none the less.

But before I go on, lets roll back some 18 months and a visit to the doctors. I had been told many times in the past by the doctor that I needed to lose weight (not that I needed him to tell me that I already knew). But this time after a set of blood test I was told if I don’t get my weight sorted now I would diabetic soon. The blood test had revealed that I was not diabetic yet…………….but I was well on the way to becoming diabetic, this was my last chance to turn things around before my health took a turn for the worst.

The wife was already a member of Slimming World and her weight loss was going well so it seemed like the place for me to start. It was an un-nerving thing to do as I was publicly admitting I had a weight problem. It was even more un-nerving as I was the only bloke there but I was welcomed, I soon found out that men do join Slimming World although to be fair men are the minority.

Now I am not going to recite what the Slimming World way is, but suffice to say it about food optimisation and as I have lost weight I am not going to complain, its is working for me. If you want more info and where your local meetings are held then www.slimmingworld.com will be the place to start.

While Slimming World is helping me know what I can eat and the quantities I can eat, it is fair to say it is only one part of my weight loss plan. Exercise is a part of my plan, getting the Mountain bike and going out riding is helping (Note, before you try doing any exercise get yourself checked out by the doctor first………….I’m not allowed to run!!). Finally commitment, commitment to make a change to your life for the better, mine came with the health warning.

So back to the present day, I will be the first to admit it is not easy………..hey if it was then nobody would have a weight problem. But one of the things that has bugged me for the last few years is buying trousers. I have been limited to a few shop that sold the larger sizes instead of the entire high street and those that are on offer are not exactly fashionable. I have a wardrobe full of cloths that I have not worn because they were to small but hopefully I will be wearing them soon.

Finally, to date I have lost 2st 12lb, I intend to be at a 3st loss before December and come out the other-side of Christmas still with a 3st loss. Starting the new year 3st lighter than I was 19 months ago will be a good starting point but my weight loss still has a long way to go and it can only get better.

The other half has been pestering me about what do I want for xmas and she had even mentioned a GPS and it is not the first time she has mentioned buying one (it is not as though I have a bad sense of direction). A couple of years ago she suggested one for kite flying, while I can see it could be useful when flying at the beach and you can get some good long runs at speed (you use them to record the distance travelled throughout the day, top speed and average speed for the day etc.). But as I don’t fly at the beach very often (2 or 3 times a year) it seemed very pointless when our local field is only half a mile long.

But now we are into mountain bikes I can see A GPS would be very useful additions, at least I think it would? But the more I look into it the more confused I become. Let put it this way I can see three possible usages for using a GPS with mountain biking.

• a) For planning a route before leaving home and using it for directions while out riding
• b) for recording a route when you are out riding
• c) to aid redirection if you change your route while out riding

So lets start with a) this is all well and good until you find out that with some GPS units you can’t use the maps from the GPS on your PC to plan the route, you have to invest in third party software at more cost.

Then there is b) now this is fairly simple for most GPS units or so I have been told, this is useful if you find a new paths and want to record it, you just cycle down the path and the GPS will record the route for you (assuming you told it to record the route you take).

Finally c) so you have gone out for the day and you end up injuring yourself, nothing serious but it is enough to stop you from completing the ride and you need to get back to your starting point or the point where you were going to be picked up by the quickest route. So you want to be able to say, I’m at A and I want to get to B, it can do that but not in the same way as it would do it with a Sat Nav from a car. It will point you in the right direction but it won’t tell you there a large lake to go round or a cliff to get down.

Then there are the maps that the GPS units use (most come with a basic map but you need to purchase more detailed maps), various different scales, various areas of the UK and all with a nice price tag on them. Now obviously the cheaper the model GPS the less features, the bigger clearer screen the more ££££’s will be leaving your pocket. All in all it is not a cheap option.

Now before anybody says buy an OS map, I have, 3 to be exact, but they are not the easiest thing to use when out riding (also means I have to carry my reading glasses with me to be able to read the map).

I had hoped to get out riding today but the winds were just to strong, gust up to 65mph locally with the wind eventually dropping off around 5:00pm tonight. Add that to the near horizontal rain, it was not an ideal recipe for riding. Which was just as well. I had some new handlebar grips to put on my bike and when I went out in the shed to fit them I found I had a flat tyre. The culprit was a 3/4″ thorn stuck in the front tyre, not sure where it came from as the last ride was a mid week blast on the road around the block.

No taker to my last post then………………..oh well onwards and upwards as they say

This post is going to be a ramble about anything and everything. It was weigh in on Monday night and I had lost 2lbs. I am now at my lowest weight for a long time, was hoping to push it this week to get a 3lb loss to hit the 3st loss mark but I don’t think I will be able to rely on the cycling this weekend to help, the weather is looking totally pants. I went for a ride last night only a quick ride around the block, set the gps on my mobile phone before I left, got it out my pocket on my return to check how far the ride was and it had failed to work. It is not the first time the gps has failed but I am not sure why. I think the ride was about 4 maybe 4.5miles and I did it at speed, well fast for me anyway and I was bloody knackered when I got back. Apparently 5 miles in 30 minutes is supposed to help with my diet, only Monday will tell.

Talking GPS, her indoors in pestering me about what I want of Christmas, a GPS has been mentioned by her but I am not sure, it really depends on the level of details that I get from the screen\maps. It certainly would be handy for cycling but a handheld GPS is an expensive items, just not sure it would be worth it and give me what (I think) I want from a GPS.

While I have been doing all this cycling the one thing that has suffered is the photography, I have not taken a picture for month. My main area of interest kite flying is closing down for the winter (at least in my area, the look site we can fly one is water logged). The next big event we go to (and that only to take pictures) is the icicles (so named as it bloody freezing on the beach in January) event at Westward Ho! (its the same location the sidebar photographs were taken) towards the end of January 2010. Been the last couple of years for the day, would like to think I can get the camera out before then though. Would like to take it when we go out riding but I think the risk of falling off and damaging the camera\lense is to great. Thinking about going to the MTB centre near Blandford over Christmas\New Year so might do a bit of both, half day riding then half day photography and then half day riding……………..something tells me that won’t work.

The photograph’s I have added bear no relevance to this post what so ever, they are only there to break up my boring writing, the wood scene was taken 18 months ago and the sunset was taken over 2 years ago!

I have decided that I am going to make some changes to this site, while I like the quirky nature of this theme I just feel……………..well I feel I could find something better so I am on the lookout for a new theme.

Well that is enough of a waffle from me, I’m out of here

It is just over 7 months since I started this blog (on blogspot.com) and I am getting lonely. In all that time nobody has left a comment, not even a nastie one (thats not an invite by the way). I am beginning to wonder if anybody reads this blog although I will be the first to admit I am no writer. So if there is anybody out there, please leave a comment to let me know I am not alone?

To those of you that don’t leave a comment I have one thing to say to you:

to you too!!

As is customary of late we were out cycling this morning, we went out early as A) we were expecting rain this afternoon (started raining about 6:00pm) and B) had to go shopping this after. Todays ride was a first, in fact two firsts, it was the first time we have ridden from home and the first time we had ridden on Canford Heath. The heath is only a mile and a half from our house so we rode over to the heath. The first half of the ride was very much a wide gravel type path, then it turned into narrow tracks. We even had to negotiate getting past 4 Shetland long horn cow type animals. They had very large horns and were stood on the track blocking our way. So we decided the best thing would be to get off the bikes and walk past them which meant walking through the prickly gorse. It was an interesting ride and one we will be doing again.

The afternoon was set aside for shopping, we went into one of my least favourite shops Primark, Chav central and boy what a messy disorganised shop that is. There were item of clothing and shoes all over the floor every where on all 3 floor, kids were running riot. Having said that the wife did pick up a pair of lycra jogging bottoms for cycling for a £5 which should prove useful.

While we were in the shopping centre we were accosted by a couple of Storm Troopers, Darth Vader and a few other characters from Star Wars, not sure why they were there, they just were.