So Long, Farewell, Auf Weidersehen, Goodbye

No don’t get too excited I’m not stopping blogging just moving my blog to www.curry-lovers.co.uk/myblog which is hosted on my own web space using Wordpress.

I may start to use the location as my primary site providing access to my pictures links etc but I’m not sure at the moment.

All of the previous posts are there and this will be the last post on this blog – see you on the flip side…

Its finished!!

 

Well it took a while but the last few days holiday allowed me to make the finishing touches to the drive, including hiring a Wacker plate to smooth out the bumps and dips. The photo below shows the staff who were employed on the project  (myself and my trusty companion Barney

 

 

So now its time to get my weekends back again and it started with a 8.5 mile run this morning. Unfortunately it was also supposed to be the weekend I resumed my sailing too, but the water level at Durleigh is very low indeed and some boats have run aground  on submerged trees and bridges causing extensive damage.

I haven’t been working all week though and on Monday I finally ordered my new bicycle. The new 2010 Bianchi bikes were much lower spec than the previous years model so I decided to go for a Specialized Sirrus Expert 2010 which I hope to collect on Sunday 20/09/09. This means that I might just have the chance to use it for a while before the weather turns nasty. Its a good job I didn’t have it this week as I probably wouldn’t have got any jobs done.

Work is still very busy and I am due to go to Qatar on the 27th for a few days. We (Carol and I) are also planning a few days off in early October and hope to go somewhere like the Isle of Wight or somewhere similar.

As I sit here writing this, the sun is shining outside and its a lovely late Summer day in Weston super Mare – so I’m off out there…

The loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

 

Sunday September 6th and my first 1/2 Marathon –ever. I was a little nervous about this as I felt that i had not done enough training for the event.

I shouldn’t have worried as I managed to stumble around the 13 odd mile course in 1hr 59 mins along with a record turnout of around 16,000 other runners. As this is the 3rd event that I have done I must say that I quite like the atmosphere the crowds the costumes – it really lifts your spirits. I fi8nished in the 5000’s but much higher in my age group not too bad for an old codger

I ran with a friend from the running club and we kept each other going throughout – as we sprinted (yes really) towards the finish line I remarked that would he like to do the same again and make it Marathon – I imagine that you could guess the reply!!

The bug has bitten though and if I recover in time I would like to do the Burnham on Sea 1/2 on 4th October – this one is supposed to be flatter than the Bristol so a good opportunity to improve on my PB.

Ola from Spain

 

The blogs are less frequent these days – mainly as I have been busy but also as I haven’t really had anything too interested to say. Over the past few weeks though there has been a little more activity to report on.

Progress continues on the drive and this weekend I have been cutting the blocks to fills the gaps at the ends of the rows. The tools of choice has been a petrol disc cutter and very effective it is too. I have finished the cuts today without any accidental amputations.

Yesterday I did my last bit of training for the Bristol Half Marathon that takes place next Sunday (6th September). I did 11 miles and it felt good so I hope that it will serve me well for the 13.2 miles next weekend.

This week it will be a few short runs just to keep the muscles loose so long as I don’t overdo it.

The title reference to Spain is because we went there last weekend –Barcelona to be exact.It was a weekend away with a neighbour and friends of theirs. The weekend was great but spoilt by the theft of my wallet and this extended to the remainder of this week – trying to sort out all of my cards ID etc.

Barney has been in the wars a bit for the past few weeks and it has been costing us a small fortune at the vet – the latest is that he has had to wear a collar for the past week or so, which has been a little uncomfortable for him.

The few photographs that we took during the weekend can be found on our new photo site – powered by Smugmug and we are in the process of moving all of the photos from the previous repository and those from our web site to a single location. I like the interface of the site and i am slowly in the process of customising it to my particular requirements.

And that’s about it really – oh the voucher has arrived for my bike now so I just need to wait until the 2010 models are launched.

My Finest Hour…

It was a warm August day and all around  the drone of spitfires flying overhead filled the air. The  small but strategic Cambridgeshire  airfield was playing host to a very special event that would bring about a lasting and abiding memory for a (young?) trainee pilot who would be taking his first steps into vintage powered flight.

Well this weekend I was the” trainee” and I got the opportunity this last weekend to do just that. For my Birthday this year Carol bought me a 30 minute flight in a Harvard T6. This aircraft was the trainer of choice for those plucky pilots making the leap from the Gypsy Moth to the Hurricane, Spitfire or Mustang.

I skipped the step on the Gypsy Moth – well you would wouldn’t you given the opportunity to fly in a 500 hp single engine but two seater World War II aircraft.

The venue was Duxford and we travelled down to Cambridge to spend Saturday evening in this very charming and historic city. It was also conveniently located for the airfield and after breakfast on Sunday we set off for opening time.

The flight was booked for 11.30 and the weather was perfect. The trip was organised by Classic Wings who operate regular pleasure flights from Duxford and at certain times during the year ups the anti and gets some “heavy metal” for the public to try. The pilot was Anna, a civilian pilot who happened to be a fully trained acrobatic pilot for Spits, Hurricanes and Mustangs – some weekend job eh!

She was really friendly too – the Health and Safety police were there in the background but it wasn’t going to stop Anna making the trip enjoyable. The plan was that she would take off, after the briefing, and then she would run through the controls with me in air and then let me have a go. Following that she would go through a few aerobatic moves.

Well it was brilliant. The plane was set up to mimic the movements of Mustang control set and it was amazing that the controls were very light to the touch – Anna complimented me on my gentle touch – that’s not been said  to me for a few years now. We tried a few turns and then came the serious stuff starting with the loop the loop and a barrel roll. Well I thought that I would be eating my breakfast again as we pulled around 2g in these manoeuvres.

My favourite however was the Victory role. A sharp pull on the stick and suddenly my world turned upside down – literally. I enjoyed it again so we did it again twice more in fact. The previous victim had made a low pass across the runway but we had a friendly intruder that stopped us – a Spitfire was practising a display and flew past us as we toyed around – what a sight!!

All too soon the time was up in fact we had an extra 10 minutes making it 40 in total. When we landed and I got out of the aircraft it was all slightly surreal. Carol commented that I was slightly subdued – in fact it was more reflective really. The whole event was a bit of a sensory overload trying to pack so much in to 30 mins or so. Too expensive to repeat too often it was the best present that I have ever had  - so far…

BTW see the photos of my finest hour and a few of Cambridge too, by following this link…

The First 25 years (are the worst)

 

Or so they say but I can’t say that I agree with them. There have been a few bad times, lot’s of good times and no regrets.

As regular readers are aware we went to New Zealand earlier this year as part of our wedding anniversary celebrations but decided that the great day couldn’t go without some special event. So we (I) decided on Spain and more specifically Malaga and Granada – with the second location being the site of the Alhambra (The Red One). It is a basically a citadel located on the top of the hill that was constructed during the time of the Moorish empire and it is listed as one of the top 50 places to visit. Better still in my opinion was the hotel where we stayed and you can see photos of all the places we visited by following the link.

It certainly didn’t disappoint and the weather was good too. Plenty of time for some R&R before getting back to work – which as ever is challenging.

The driveway is moving along slowly but steadily and work went well yesterday with the combination of good weather and a great deal of effort on the part of Carol and myself. A separate blog will follow with all of the pictures but here is a shot as at yesterday – just before it rained.

I bought Carol a bracelet and a necklace for the anniversary but she got me a pair of cuff links but with a difference. The centre of the cuff link was made from the engine material of a Spitfire and the number of the Spitfire was embossed in the centre. A very nice present indeed.

On the bad side our IPOD dock has decided to expire so I will be looking to replace that in the future – there are a lot about and it should make the coming months interesting in auditioning the favourites. At the moment I am interested in the Fatman itube Carbon which looks very nice.

I mentioned in a previous post that I was looking at buying a bike. With the cyclescheme run by Arup it effectively allows you to buy a bike at around 50% of the price and pay for it over 12 months interest free. The scheme was open only briefly in March but now has reopened again at work so I have been spending the last few weeks selecting a model I like. I won’t go into all of the details over Hybrids, cyclocross, road bikes etc but I will probably go for a Bianchi Camaleonte 5 which is festooned with bits of carbon, is very light and is unavailable for this year!! The new models come out in September so by then I should have my voucher to use.

The idea is that when I’m in the office I will share the commute between the train and the bike to improve my fitness. Unfortunately it will arrive too late for my next run – the Bristol half marathon which is at the start of September.

Finally I won’t be working on the drive next weekend as I am off for a very special Birthday treat that Carol has booked for me. More news on that when I return.

And still it goes on…

Being busy that is but with an added dimension. Some people might consider it foolhardy – I am beginning to - when I decided to relay the front drive of the house. The existing drive is tatty and in need of a makeover so off with the old and on with the new. 2 weekends later and I have removed all of the tarmac and dug out most of the drive ready to add the hardcore next weekend. The weather has been great for it, if not a little hot, and the combination of a Bank Holiday and an extra few days off has allowed me to progress quite well. Still lots to do though but hopefully not as labour intensive as the first part.

Yesterday we went looking for Pavers and I have a bit of CAD work to do today so that I can send a drawing of the drive to the supplier to calculate quantities of blocks.

Work has been frantic again with a week long trip to Doha (in Qatar) a couple of weeks ago where the temperatures were warming up to around 38 centigrade (due to rise to around 50 C later in the year)

These activities have curtailed the Gym a little but I have started running with a local running club based at Esporta and I try to get along there on Thursday nights (6 mile run) and Saturday mornings (8-9 mile run). I need to though as I have signed up for the Bristol half Marathon after running the Bristol 10k in May at a slightly better time of 49m 45s. Of course any activity wouldn’t be complete without some sort of technology so I bought this the other day it’s a Garmin Forerunner 301 which is a wrist watch GPS. I tried it out yesterday in the pouring rain on our run and it works very well.

Went sailing yesterday and the conditions were very good if not a little chilly. the wind was constant in direction and speed and it made for some good sailing.

On the Techie side I now have an Edgestore 5 bay DAS drive with 4x 1 Terrabyte drives (in 2 raid 1 configurations and a spare 320 GByte (soon to be replaced). This is the central repository for all of my backup data and is sitting in the loft connected to my XP machine. There will perhaps be a reconfiguration  to  a single raid 5 array when I get the last drive – Birthday perhaps?.

And if this weren't enough then I am in the slow process of ripping all of my CD collection to hard disk in an uncompressed format. The idea is that I sell / dispose of the CD’s that I don’t want to keep but have a copy of whereas the favourite CD’s can be kept in the loft to make some space in the computer room – for more junk.

Carol’s birthday is coming up and I have sorted out the presents but soon after that is our wedding anniversary and I have planned a small trip for that too.

looking forward I have a mind to buy a new bike (pedal not motor). There is a cycle scheme at work which gives around a 50% discount on the purchase and interest free credit. The scheme has been suspended at the moment but is due to start up soon again so I am looking out for that.

Anyway off to do some more digging now…