Saturday I went out for a ride over the local heath, still building myself up after the several weeks of no riding. The ride itself was nothing spectacular, made it up a hill which I have targeted as one of the hills I need to beat although I was a gasping wheezing wreck at the top. It was nice to be able to get home and not have to wash the bike as the ground was so frozen although thinking about it I would of been unable to wash the bike as the hose was frozen!! I digress. Anyway the wife had gone shopping so I came home to an empty house. When I put the bike round the back of the house I noticed that the back door step was wet, which seemed strange since everything else was frozen and it was dry when I left. I went back round to the front door and let myself in. I then headed through the house toward the back door so I could go and lock the back gate. When I opened the utility room door I was greeted by a lake of water on the floor, it could of only come from the washing machine or the washing machine plumbing.

I called the wife and informed her of the problem and suggested she curtailed her shopping trip to come and help with the bailing out. Once out of my cycling gear, I realised that the puddle was not getting any bigger so what ever was leaking had stopped (or run out of water). The washing machine had been on but had now finished its cycle. That meant that either a pipe on the washing machine had split or the waste. outlet had sprung a leak. The wife arrived back home as I finished clearing the washing machine so I could move it out and get to the pipework. I started to pour some water down the waste pipe which quickly overflowed onto the floor. I gave it 5 minutes to run a ways and then pour some hot water down the waste pipe, this started to backup but then suddenly cleared. The waste pipes runs round the side of the house and under the back door, sometime ago the bracket holding the waste pipe under the door broke so there was a slight sag in the middle of the pipe. I guess that water was sitting in the pipe and overnight Friday and Saturday morning it froze. A temporary repair has been made the hold the pipe up so that it maintains the run to the drain and does not hold any more water.

While the rest of the country woke up to snow this morning, all we woke up to was wet rain soaked roads and a rise in temperatures. So this morning ride was a mud fest, although there were still some frozen bits hidden in deep puddles which made things interesting. I did a Throop loop but it was only a short loop as my legs were feeling it a long with a another problem\injury I am plagued with, so I decided not to push it and headed for home.

I am hoping for a quiet weeks this coming week, some how I don’t think I will get one.

Now a tale of customer service, first good customer service. I arrived back home last night and as I walked into the house I thought it was cold, checked the central heating pipe in the hall and they were stone cold, checked the boiler clock and the lights were indicating the boiler was on. Checking the boiler there was no pilot light, I relit the pilot light but still the boiler failed to function. I had this really bad feeling about the central heating at this stage.

The wife remembered that we should of had the boiler serviced back in December as part of the deal we have with our gas\electric supplier, so she phoned them up. By the time she got through it was 6:30pm, she explained the missed boiler service and the now dead boiler to the guy on the phone who replied “thats ok, you have 24\7 support on your central heating”

This surprised both of us but we sure as hell were not going to complain, we were duly booked in for an emergency call out and told an engineer will be with us in the next 12 hours and yes that did mean even at the early am hours!! Thankfully just before 9pm an engineer turned and had our boiler sorted working in less than 10 minutes, it seems that when somebody relit the pilot light they forgot to turn the dial another quarter of a turn which allows the boiler to fire up. My excuse is that it was only the 2nd time in 9 something years that I have had to light the boiler.

Now bad customer service. I ordered two laptop for work back at the start of January, at no time was I made aware of the fact that the said laptops were out of stock, I was even given a delivery date, when the delivery date came and went with no laptops, I phoned to find out where they were. Apparently they were out of stock, the story has progressed with broken promises, e-mail sent with no replies, phone calls not returned and promised not honoured. This is not a large multi national, this a major local company who could of got all our business, it now looks like that possibility has gone the same way as their delivery dates.

Well that is it till the weekend, bye

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.

Back home I am left to my own devices as the family go off to do some shopping. With everything assembled and a quick run through the gears and everything seemed to be OK. A quick spin down the road and back revealed otherwise. The chain would not lift off the inner ring and on to the middle ring, it would either end up sucking it self between the chain stay and chain ring or just sit half way rattling across the teeth of the chain rings. No amount of adjusting the front dérailleur made any different, so I loaded the bike up and headed over to Cyclefix to see if they can resolve the issue so I can at least go for a ride.

Diagnoses came down to two possible faults, the small inner chain ring was worn and holding the chain or the middle chain ring was incompatible in some way. The only way to resolve this was to fit a new one of each (one at a time) to see if this resolved the problem. I could leave my bike and it would be ready late afternoon or I could do it myself in the shop using the spare bike stand, I took the later option. I soon had the crank out and in bits fitted the new small chain ring and then re assembled the crank. A quick test on the bike stand showed it was changing ok so I took the bike for a ride around the doctor surgery car park next store. The changing from small to middle chain rings was now working. So yet another chain ring was purchased, all in all an expensive morning and the bike is now sporting three new chain rings and a new chain.

Here is a picture of the old and new chain rings (sorry not a very good picture)

The old chain ring is the top one and if you look carefully you can see the wear compared to the new one behind

Here another reason I had to change the chain ring

Bent tooth

After all that I never had time to go for a ride this afternoon so the bike is now ready for tomorrow mornings ride

I will start with good news, the wife has got a new job and starts on Monday, she was told she had got the job on Tuesday but there was a bit more form filling and checking to do, but it was not confirmed 100% until nearly midday Friday. So thankfully that is one major issue out of the way.

After my cold laid me low last weekend I thought I had been getting better all week, that was until this morning when a sneezing attack followed by a runny nose (for the rest of the day) made it’s return. To go with the runny nose I also have heavy eye syndrome, you can liken it to how your eyes feel when you have been a wake for more that 24 hours and want to go to sleep but you are forcing yourself to stay awake. At least I am not alone with the cold this time as my son has it as well.

I was intending to go for a ride this morning but several factors put pay to that. I still had the front gear change to check after the chain suck problems I had at Cannock the other week. I got the bike out the shed and put it on the stand and was looking at the front gear change mechanism from the left side of the bike (based on you sitting on the bike) and I remembered something I read on the MBR Forum in the week about a guys problem with chain suck and checking the chain rings for hooked shaped shark finned teeth on the chain wheel. Sure enough I had those very same “hooked shaped shark finned teeth” on my middle chain ring. No amount of playing with the mechanism was going to solve that problem, so I dismantled the crank and chain ring so I could get the middle ring off and then put the bike back in the shed. With winds over 20mph all day today I don’t think I would of enjoyed riding today.

In need of a new chain ring I thought I try a new web site I heard about on the (previously mentioned) MBR Forum, Bike Discount, it is a German web site and they are more than happy to post to the UK. I have heard nothing but good things about this company so I thought I would give them a try and what is even better is the cost of a new chain ring and the postage was cheaper than I could buy it from any of the UK web sites, is that just stupid or what??

So another weeks goes by with no rides due to a case of bad bike servicing on my part, weather and illness and my weight loss program is non-existent at the moment which is not being helped by my eat anything and everything in sight mind set.

This is not the start to 2012 I wanted, the only way is up………………………….I hope

Back on the 31st December I mentioned the ride (or should that be slide) around Badbury Rings and one particularly narrow section that had been cleared back but still only had a narrow trail down the middle of it. Well I found a picture of the path I took earlier last year.

wide lane narrow trail

As you can see it is a very narrow trail down the centre of the path, as it is only April it is not that overgrown yet, but it gets to the point in the summer where you can’t see the path for the long grass and you have to duck to avoid the overhanging thorny bushes.

The wife went to her interviews to day, she seemed positive about both but it is now down to the waiting game. She is off to another agency tomorrow to see about the possibility of another couple of jobs, still crossing my anatomy.

Well there won’t be any riding this weekend for sure which is a shame as it will be clear and sunny if a bit cold and frost for the next few days. Might try and sort my front gears out if I don’t fill to bad tomorrow.

The wife has two interviews on Monday which is a good, fingers and other part of my anatomy crossed for a positive outcome.

The wife has been told her last day will be the 31st Jan, not what we really wanted to hear but we needed to know so that we can start to sort a few things out. She had an interview last week and was told that she was second pick if the first girl declined the offer. For some reason I would prefer not to know, knowing you were second just make you feel worse.

We arrived at Cannock at about 10:45am after our sat nav decided that we wanted to go to the local power station at Cannock, once we corrected that little error we were soon in the car park. Just on 11am we left the car park and headed to the woods. Its fair to say that this is probably the biggest forest trail centre I have been to so was a little unsure what to expect. One thing I was not expecting was how unfit I felt, any sniff of uphill and I was a wheezing gasping heap. Anybody that has been to Cannock will know there is a lot of ups so that did not bode well.

One thing I hate about new places is that they show you up so badly (well at least for me they do), I guess because there are no real trail centres around my ways I don’t get to practice on the narrow twist trails or the rock gardens. It is not that I find difficult but more frustrating when I don’t clear a particular obstacle and unfortunately there were a few of those.

About half way round the trail, my trail enemy turned up, cramps. Now I had filled my 3ltr Camelbak with plain water and had a 1ltr water bottle with SIS Energy drink in it. By the time I had got to 3/4 of the way round I ran out of all drink and the cramps were hitting me really badly. Thankfully one of my fellow riders gave me some of his drink he had left. At one stage the pain in my calf’s was so bad from the cramp that I could not stand up on the pedals. Despite all this, I was enjoying the ride but the cramps and the uphills were killing it for me. I was not alone in the cramps department, a fellow riders was suffering with cramps in the thighs.

I must thank my fellow riders, despite my slowness they were there waiting for me at the end of every section and allowed me time to recuperate before heading off to the next section. This made it a bloody long day and we only just got back with enough light to see where we were going, the last section in the tree was very dark.

Despite my discomfort it was a very enjoyable days riding with some very nice fellow riders.

Ready and eager for the off, yours truly 2nd from left

I have been looking into my cramping problem, I am a person that perspires a lot anyway so normally drink a lot, on one of my normal rides which is flat compared to Cannock I don’t normally have a problem. But when I do rides like Cannock, ride in a group (I do a lot of solo riding) or an organised ride I tend to push that bit harder, thus I sweat a bit more thus losing those vital electrolytes quicker (at least that is what I think is happening). I was hoping that I could keep my Camelbak just for plain water, but now it looks like I will be adding some form of energy drink to my Camelbak to help resolve my cramping problem.

One other problem I had which I did not mention was I was having chain suck problem, this did not hold me up to much as I found it was best to leave it in a low gear anyway. I had a play with the front mech on the bike a couple of rides ago so I think it might be to do with that. I had to fit a new chain to day as the other one had reached its limit so I will be doing a little adjust later in the week, it started to rain so had to pack up.

Finally Clive over at MassiveMTBer put me onto this this new blog , have a read and let me know what you think.

And absolutely finally because I told him I would, here is dear son doing what he does best

Drinking hot Chocolate

Looking at the weather my only chance of getting a ride in before returning to work was going to be Monday. I was deciding in my mind what to do when one of the club members (Dorset Rough Riders) posted on the clubs Facebook page if anybody wanted to go for a ride on Monday. Before long a small group answered and the venue was chosen Wareham Forest. Normally the club grade their rides, Easy, Medium and Hard which are all self explanatory. Now I normally do the easy rides as I am a slow riders so I enquired about the grade of the ride and was told it was open to all as they would wait at the end each section. So I signed up and made my way to the pub car park for 10:30am this morning. Eight riders left the car park and met up with a further 5 riders about half a mile down the trail.

It soon became apparent that even on the flats there was a big speed different between me and the rest of the group, on the climbs even more so. I did what I normally do in those situation and tried to keep up and it soon became apparent that it did not matter how much I tried I would not be able to keep up with them. They were honest to their word waiting for me after each section or climb and giving me time to catch my breath and I guess these guys could of gone a lot faster if they wanted to. So I opted to take the ride at my pace otherwise there was no way I was going to finish. I must admit I was not happy at the thought of everybody waiting for me, I felt under pressure.

I had not ridden in Wareham forest for over 12 months so I was glad to be back there and the opportunity to learn some of the single track trails, some of them were quite challenging but as I was always pushing on I never had time to think about whether I could ride it it was more how do I get down the trail without falling off. Only on one downhill section did I look along with several other riders and I decided I would take the chicken run, simply because I was exhausted at this stage and to prove my point where the main run and chicken run joined back up I got got caught by a clump of long grass ended up in the grass losing the front wheel and going over the bars. Fortunately I was not hurt, just exhausted. At least I now I know I am a long way from a medium level ride, while my fitness has improved there is still along way to go.

Here is a link to a video that one of the riders made of the Wareham Forest ride . There none of me in it as I was always at the back.

Tomorrow I will be servicing the bike ready for the weekend, I don’t go back to work until Wednesday.

Due to the weather I never got to go for a ride on Thursday, it was wet and windy. With the wife at work I brought the bike into the kitchen and spent an hour or so on a small job to hopefully eliminate the squeak on my bike. I removed the chain-rings and chain-ring bolts, cleaned them and then reassembled with a little copper-slip grease to hopefully eliminate the squeak.

Friday dawned damp and miserable with the threat of heavy rain to come in the afternoon. While having breakfast I received a message to say that the ride was still going ahead although the distance had been shortened due to the conditions. So I loaded up the van and then headed to mother-inlaws to drop our son off then headed out to Sturminster Marshal which was where the ride was starting from. By the time we left there was 14 of us and the rain had started to fall, we did not get very far as we had our first puncture within 20yds of starting. Apparently a small flint like stone from the ride leaders drive was found in the tyre. We were soon back on our way as the rain continued to fall, our fist section of off road track came with a health warning as parts of it were chalk and in these wet condition more like ice, they were not wrong. The front wheel was sliding around on the chalk between the grasses bits trying to find grip, it made avoiding some of the deep puddle interesting as you could not just suddenly change direction.

The rain by now had changed to a fine drizzle, the riding was through mud. The basic of the ride was that we would go around Badbury Rings and then head out to the old airfield at Tarrant Rushton. There is only a hanger, a couple of other building and the some of the perimeter road left there now. We slipped and slid around Badbury Rings on to a narrow trail about 6″ wide. This narrow trail which is sunken into the ground is difficult enough in the summer with the long grass, stinging nettles and over hanging branches. But now the entire pathways has been cut back but you still have a narrow trail which is just a stream of mud which you have to stay in the middle of to avoid hitting the sides otherwise you end up falling off. Fortunately everybody made it down in one piece and in my case with a lot of dabbing of the foot to help with balance and forward motion.

Another climb across an open field of mud before we came to the airfield and around some of the perimeter road. As we left the airfield and down a narrow trail along the edge of a field I saw a mouse or a vole like creature scurry across the path just in front of my wheel not once but twice. 14 miles later we were back at our starting point where the ride leader turned hostess laying on a mini buffet and drinks (tea to sloe gin) for all the mud splattered riders. I think it was more of a slog than a ride and as can be seen from the picture below it was dirty, yours truly is far right.

A view of the dirty bums from yesterday ride

Due to bike cleaning duties (I was only able to hose the bike down yesterday) and dads taxi duties this morning I was unable to get the bike ready for the last ride of the years so I will be starting off the new year with a ride tomorrow after fulfilling more dad taxi duties taking the daughter to work.

Finally to all of you a happy new year and may it bring you the joy you are looking for.

Just before starting this post I decided to read what I wrote in this blog last year, I had an idea what I wanted to write this year. Well I could of simply just copied last years post over to this years and they would of said exactly what I wanted to say. The past year started badly got better in the middle and then fell over at the end. My diet has been non existence where I have just bounced around the same weight as I was at the start of the year (and the end of 2010). I am not going to blame anybody except me, I am a stress eater, when the stress mounts I eat and all boundaries become non-existent, if it is food I will eat it in copious amounts.

I was intending to go for a ride with our son this morning but it was bleak and showery all morning and he decided that he did not want to go riding in the wet. The daughter had gone out so I was left baby sitting our son so I was not able to go out on my own for a ride. Weather is not looking much better for tomorrow or Friday when I was hoping to go on a club ride. Tomorrow I might be able to coax our son out to Moors Valley but it does depend on the weather which is not looking wet and windy.

Well I am out of here for now, I will be back before the end of the year

Last night I planned a ride out around Badbury Rings but the wind was blowing when I got up this morning so I decided to ride at Moors Valley Country Park with the shelter of the forest. The open fields of Cranborne Chase with the wind blowing across would make riding a bit hard. The ride turned out to be a short ride for no other reason I found myself back at the van earlier than anticipated so I called it a day, still managed about 12 miles which included a lap of the Through the Forest trail at speed (well speed for me anyway).

Everything was going ok until I was three quarters of the way round when I found my path blocked, I don’t mean the narrow cycle path but the fire roads (the cycle trail pops out of the forest onto a fire road for about 100yds before disappearing back into the trees). Cars were parked all down one side of the fire road, flag down each side of the road, a small tent at the side of the road, people stood around in the middle of the fire road. I rode slowly through the crowd avoiding hitting anybody, got told I should not be riding through the crowd, how about you should not be blocking a public right of way!! Apparently it was a Boxing Day orienteering competition as I was to find out later. I pushed on slowly through the crowd until I found the cycle trail and disappeared into the forest leaving them all behind.

Having finished my first lap I decided to do a second lap adding all the extra secret trails sections as I went round the official trail. This normally means I do three questers of the trail and then turn off and head back to the van (roughly where the orienteering group had setup camp). Everything was going OK until I spotted a new bit of secret trail I had not seen or tried before. After following the trail and being spat back out onto a fire road I did not know where I was in the context of the trail and my parking location. I followed my nose and then suddenly found my self being swamped by those in the orienteering competition. They were literally coming out of the woodwork or in this case the forest, not on the paths but literally out of the trees and heading for a small narrow bridge, I suddenly realised where I was. It was the same foot bridge I needed to get back to the van (this is a small single track bridge about 15ft long over a water filled ditch).

Now I am happy to share the forest with anybody but please show a bit of common sense, there were 5 of these orienteering folk stood around literally in front of the footbridge blocking mine and other orienteerer’s from accessing the bridge while they tried to decide if they should read the map or follow everybody else, (yes I over heard them asking each other that question) NO get the F**k out the way!! I had rolled up behind them and two members of the group turned and looked at me but failed to move out the way and carried on standing in front of the footbridge. They had moved to let other orienteerer’s access to the bridge (about 90 degrees to my right) but if I moved to where they were getting on the bridge then I would have to fight for a position against the swarming masses and get onto the bridge at right angles.

Suddenly they moved into a tight huddle and I lunged forward and forced my way onto the bridge. I ask you some people, I guess after my actions they felt the same about me, I am quickly going of these orienteering folk.

Realising where I was I headed for the van I decided I had had enough of fighting this orienteering lot, my riding was over, the forest was there’s.

Well it is morning time now, it got late and the wine was affecting my brain, so I gave up writing last night. No riding today, think I am being dragged around the shops later….joy NOT. My next ride will be Wednesday when the son is coming out for a ride

Lets back track a few days, Thursday I collected my forks from TFTuned despite getting lost looking for the Industrial estate, must update my sat nav, according to the sat nav I was in the middle of a field. Later that afternoon they were fitted back on bike, unfortunately I was not able to take them on a test ride as I had other things that needed to be done and anyway I had a ride planned for Friday morning.

Friday was a day of heavy precipitation (rain to me and you) so the bike stayed in the shed.

Today is Christmas Eve and I had to keep up the tradition of riding on Christmas eve, but first I had to drive the troops to the shopping centre so they could mount a dawn raid on the local supermarket to get those fresh bits we were still missing. In the end I still managed to head out on my bike just after 9am although I was not sure how long I would ride for.

For the past couple of weeks I have had an aching pain in my right leg, I can’t lay in bed on my right side for long as I get a pain in my right hip which is the one I fell on when I came of my bike in the ice and snow in January this year and then landed on again when I crashed in May. My knee has a dull ache in it like a pulled muscle but without the pain of a pulled muscle when you move. I also have a pulled muscle feeling around my groin on the right side from time to time (sound more like the walking wounded).

I decided to ride the Throop loop. At the start I was feeling a bit tight like I had not cycled for a few weeks but as I got a couple of miles under the tyres I felt OK. It was muddy, on two occasion having me off the bike, the first was when I tried to ride up the side of a rut, the front wheel just slid along but I had already committed to going to the right and the bike just fell side ways and I was able to just step of the bike. The second was in a deep mud pool the bike just stopped, I got off the bike and the bike just stood there supported by the mud.

By the time I was left Hurn Forest my right leg was aching and as I came down across Parley common I could feel my thighs starting to pull so I decided to give the return loop back to Throop and along the river a miss instead heading straight for home via the road.

The forks acted as they should which was good news, always a bit concerning when something fails but they can’t find anything wrong with it.

I am planning on going for a ride on Boxing day morning, dads taxi start again as I have to get the daughter to work as there are no buses, so as I am up I might as well go for a ride. Not sure exactly where or how yet but a ride I will do.

OK it only leaves me to wish you all (and your families) a Very Merry Christmas

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.

As expected it was quite muddy in places, I tried some trails I had not ridden for a while and found one that I don’t think I have ever ridden. It did not take log for my legs to start complaining, not sure if it was the lack of riding or the amount of mud I was trying to get through. I should of taken a picture of the bike when I got back it was covered in mud.

I had intended to go for a ride tonight, well one night this week. It won’t be Wednesday as I am up to early and knackered by the time I get back and Thursday they forecast gales and heavy rain, Friday night is shopping night so that only leaves Tuesdays, it never happened. Not sure why just did not have the get up and go (I think it got up and went…)

If you have wondered how the weight loss is going then don’t, it just not happening at the moment, my mined is else where at the moment and times like this I eat, not a good combination.

The Internet, why is that the one thing communication companies can’t do, is communicate, I mean I have been promised call backs by Virgin media regarding my Internet access (which has got better but not what it should be) and I get nothing. Yesterday at work I call BT because we had a problem with a phone system, they will call you back within 4 hours sir I was told, so why was it this morning (20 hours later) that I got a call from BT far east support centre asking me what the problem was, are they as bad at reading English as they are speaking or listening to it that they could not understand the notes they had been given . So 4 hours after fixing the problem the problem reoccurred, oh hum. But why are they so bad, BT are honestly the worst company I have to deal with, they are so incompetent and stuck so far up their own rear, it does not bear thinking about. They have a monopoly on telecoms in this country (ok the monopoly is not as bad as it was) they just think they can do what they like and please don’t mention Ofcom, they are a toothless tiger. Complained to Ofcom once about BT complaints department, what did they do, pass it onto BT Complaints!!

Right I am stopping, I am starting to rant, peace and love, peace and love…….

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.

In my case “my tomorrow” is a couple of months away, yet the time will no doubt fly by. I have no control over what is going to happen, I only have control over preparing for when it does happen. It is sometime very difficult to remember that and it is not helped by the fact that some of the preparation can be a bit unpalatable but has to be done. It is also not helped by the fact that it is the season of goodwill when everybody is supposed to be happy. Well I am trying to be but it is not easy.

Yes I am being cryptic about what is going on suffice to say I tell you when I have it settled in my mind…….

While I am having a moan, Things I hate about other drivers………………, the driver that slowly overtakes you on a dual carriageway and then cuts back in front of you narrowly missing your front bumper and then brakes, why overtake me if you are going to slow down? I have had this happen to me twice in the last three days.

Sorry if I am being cryptic and not making a lot of sense as I can’t say what the problem is at the moment, all I can say is I have been there before, it was tough and I did not enjoy it, this time it going to be tougher.

My mind been else where last couple of days, I was intending to do some work on the bike this morning to help find the creak and ride later in the day but I just did not have the interest to even get the bike out the shed. Not sure if I am going for a ride tomorrow, at the moment I am pushing myself to do anything and I don’t want to be faced with problems, I think going for a ride and hearing that creak will not be good for me.

Their is nothing exciting to look forward to next week, work, dentist (for root canal work) and parents evening at the school where we can discuss our son being bullied and of course the problem, all exciting things to look forward to, oh the joy.

Well I not in the mood for any more talking and as you may of gathered I am not making great conservationist at the moment so I shall call it quits until the next time, when maybe, just maybe I might be in a slightly better mood.