Blog

  • Cycling update

    Not done much longer distance cycling recently – though some would say I’ve never ridden a “long” distance, my 30 milers are as good as it gets. My excuse: the weather’s been awful this summer with LOTS of rain. But it’s finally getting better, so it’s time to get out and trying to build up […]

  • Buying a house

    We’ve done it! We’ve had an offer accepted on a house! Actually, it happened a lot more quickly than I thought it would. So quickly that I didn’t get to write anything about the house-hunting process. You build it up in your head as being this huge thing that’s really hard and takes ages to […]

  • Critters!!!

    For a while now we’ve had cockroaches in our house! And I wanted to write up my experiences in case we ever get them again. The Wikipedia article is pretty good and has been very helpful. My experiences are given below. Finding them It started ages ago when I found one in the bath. I […]

  • The mountain biking, road biking debate

    For my birthday, back in June, my sister and her boyfriend offered to take me on a “Mountain Biking Experience”. As someone who’s got quite into road cycling, but who also loves the great outdoors, mountain biking really appeals, however, you have to have a decent mountain bike before you can even start, and my […]

  • RPM vs the great outdoors

    “Ride the Calorie Killer” says the wall of a small, bicycle-packed room at our local sports centre. This room is the home of an exercise class called “RPM” (TM), which is what most people would call a “spinning” class. I’ve been to this class once before a few months ago – but Sally and I […]

  • 11000 miles and everything's falling apart.

    Something else that’s new to me this year is owning a half-decent car. We bought a 6-year old Peugeot 206 when we moved to Swindon. It’s actually the second car I’ve owned but the first one was old enough and small enough to be easily repairable and this second purchase has entered me into the […]

  • Finally…SPD's!

    Yay! I finally forked out and bought some SPD “clipless” Pedals (Shimano M424’s) and some cycling shoes (Specialized Tahos). I’m very happy with them now but I learned a few lessons along the way. Replacing pedals The man in the shop caused some confusion about which way the pedals were threaded. He suggested the intuitive […]

  • 12 mins and 40 seconds

    Sorry, but if you understand my own internal competitiveness with myself you’ll understand why this is worthy of its own post. Yesterday I set a new personal best for my ride home from work of 13 minutes and 49 seconds, thanks to a new route from my friend Mike and a strong tailwind. Today I […]

  • Naturewatch: Our new Bonsai Tree!

    At one of our friend’s weddings we were fortunate enough to win the Bonsai tree that was used as a table decoration. This is my latest nature fascination. Sadly, as we went on holiday for a week it got a bit neglected and dropped lots of leaves. With some TLC, lots of water and the […]

  • Facebook Feed

    Facebook’s import of my Blog into its “Notes” section has been on the blink for a few weeks and today finally gave up on me – so I’ve reconfigured the feed and re-synchronised everything, so hopefully it will stay up to date now. Apologies for any confusion.