Adventures in nonsense: The Mass Libel Reform Blog – Fight for Free Speech!

Adventures in nonsense: The Mass Libel Reform Blog – Fight for Free Speech!

Finally, August-type weather

This weekend finally found us some nice weather and we actually got some stuff done in the garden. Managed to mow the lawn, get rid of all the weeds in the strip between front lawn and driveway, Abi pruned the blackcurrant bush (the very small crop have already started the conversion into a small amount of cassis), and we even managed to eat the first five haricot vertes off our bean plants! It doesn't sound like that much, but I'm sure we had a productive weekend. Oh and Abi got very sunburnt on her back and her right thigh!

Edinburgh July 2010

We spent last weekend in Edinburgh with my Mum and Dad, seeing museums, general sights, eating, drinking, and generally chilling out. Though we did walk quite a bit, not good for Abi as her blisters had still not completely recovered from last weeks exertions up Ben Lawers.

The National Museum of Scotland is huge, and has a lot in it. Abi and I had seen the pre-history stuff before, so we went to look at other stuff, including the Lewis Chessmen. We also went to see the Scottish Parliament. (Man this is reading like a primary school "What did you do at the weekend" kinda blog!) The main debating chamber I thought was pretty cool; but as you walk around the building you see a lot of the concrete bits of structure close up, which is a bit odd, and detracts from the better parts of the building.

Otherwise we found a couple of good pubs, one from the Good Beer Guide (naturally), a not so good Indian restaurant on Rose Street, and a good Italian nearer the hotel. Of course, as soon as we got back home, the McMillans arrived, with a crazy son! So we don't feel like we've stopped for quite a while. It'll be nice to not do anything this weekend.

Zemanta

Image via Wikipedia

Just trying to Blog using Zemanta (a blogging tool that should enhance the blogging experience!) I just have to start writing a few sentences and then the app should automatically start generating relevant photos, bits of blogs weblinks etc.

Erm, to fill up some space, Abi and I are off to Edinburgh this weekend with my Mum and Dad, just to chill out. Eat, Drink, see some Museums or something.

Mmmm Zemanta hasn't started doing anythin, oh it has now, what have we got? Mmm this looks like it might be quite cool, not that I blog very often, or about much. Oooh, it's generated a load of labels for the blog post as well!

So if I click a photo, and then click again, it takes it out? Yup. Except now that I've gone away from the computer and come back, I now don't have pictures of Edinburgh as you might expect, but people crying outside a school somewhere, or even more disturbing, and rather saggy pair of boobs belonging to an elderly woman who seems to enjoy blogging naked!!

Of course typing all this now is presumably like a self fulfilling prophecy, whereby the more I type, the more crying and boobs I will see appear! Or not, now have more picis of Edinburgh! Unfortunately, it seems as though I can only insert images at the start of the blog, rather than after I have typed something relevant, and then have the image immediately after. And I can only insert one image in my blog not multiple ones, that sucks. Maybe this Zemanta is a bit pants after all! It may just be useful for inserting links and nothing more.

Loch Tay 2010

Thursday 22nd July saw us going off to Loch Tay for our (becoming) annual visit to the cottage hired by Abi's Uncle and cousins.

On the Friday, Abi and I decided to bag Ben Lawers. Last year we had only climbed Beinn Ghlas, not really aware of how close Ben Lawers was, so this year we decided we would do the bigger hill. At over 4000 ft, Ben Lawers is the 10th highest Munro, and this time,the weather was lovely, so much so that I got quite sunburned on my head.

The route we followed was initially the same as last year, starting from the Ben Lawers (now obsolete) visitors centre (marker in the bottom left of map below), and following the path out through the nature trail. Then instead of heading straight up Beinn Ghlas, we took the path that slopes gently up the west side of the mountain, and then actually goes around the back of the summit before coming out at the col between Ben Lawers and Beinn Ghlas.

We then headed to the top of Ben Lawers (top right marker, 2 hours 40 min), before heading back down to the col and going up Beinn Ghlas (centre marker), and then returning off the end of Beinn Ghlas to the nature trail and car park.

View Ben Lawers and Beinn Ghlas in a larger map

Like I said, it was a lovely day, and a good walk. This was the first time we had both walked using Trekking Poles; for Abi it was a case of seeing if it would ease pressure on her hip which has bothered her in the past. For me, I wanted to know if it would prevent my left knee from hurting on the descent; a knee that has hurt on descents ever since I hurt it when falling over in the snow in the Cairngorms years ago. Well I think they helped Abi's hips, but my knee still felt sore, and still seized up when I sat still in the evening.

It was a straightforward climb, but it is quite steep and rocky after the col up to the summit of Ben Lawers, but after that the descent and then climb to the top of Beinn Ghlas was an absolute doddle. The descent down the front of Beinn Ghlas is quite steep in places, but a lot of it has been eroded in the past and so now there are lots of rough stone steps down the path, which makes the walk quite boring and more jarring on the legs.

It was a super days walking though, as can be seen, we actually had blue sky and sunshine at the top, quite a difference from last year (see: http://rbetney.blogspot.com/2009/07/loch-tay.html). It's a shame our thighs were wrecked for the next three days, and Abi's blisters on her heels were awful.

Of course we also had a great time with the Mavor family ,associated spouses and offspring. Lots of good food, and cake was eaten, and quite a competitive game of Battle of the Sexes was played! It slips my mind who won! Oh OK it was the girls; but I'm quite proud of the fact I know nothing about Eastenders, Coronation Street, or Emmerdale, and the fact that the only answer I knew that none of the other guys knew, was that Noo Noo was the the vacuum cleaner in Teletubbies!

The Great Inverurie Bike Ride 2010

Sunday 18th July 2010

Hot on the heels of our Pirates of the Caribbean day, we cycled 25 miles around Garioch on the Great Inverurie Bike Ride!

The route was 25 miles, leaving Inverurie Kellands park, heading round Chapel of Garioch, past Bennachie towards Monymusk, before returning to Inverurie (see map below, long dark blue line, in an anticlockwise direction).

There were some fairly hard-going hill in the first part of the route, I don't think I had to resort to the Granny ring at any point, but Abi had to stop a few times on them. However, Abi was carrying the pannier on her bike with all our stuff in, whereas I had nothing. It was good that there was a juice and biscuits point at the top of the first really nasty hill!

Just before Monymusk, after the third and last nasty hill, we were rewarded with a downhill, but into a vicious headwind. Turning left, the wind dropped and we were really able to find a good rhythm and fly into Monymusk, where there was more juice, strawberrys & cream and cake to be had!

We had thought that Monymusk was the half-way point, but it didn't seem very long until we were told that Inverurie was only 2 more miles away! After Monymusk it had been possible to keep a good cadence going and chew up the miles quickly. So our official finish times were 2h 35min 58s for Abi, and 2h 36min 3s for me, and it was just left to pick up or complimentary T-shirts!

See, we don't look that knackered!

Pirates of the Caribbean

17th July 2010

We finally had a house-warming party!

Though we moved in on 31st October last year, we have finally had a house-warming bash. In keeping with the tradition of previous themed days (LOTR, Star Wars and Indiana Jones), we got dressed up as pirates and watched all three Pirates of the Caribbean films.

I was very pleased to see Phil and Kenny make a very good show with there costumes, and Kenny, Dave and I all sported excellent tattoos on our arms courtesy of Phil and a biro!

Of course it wasn't just dressing up and watching films. There were aged Caribbean maps on the walls, lyrics to all our favourite piratey songs such as Hoist the Colours, Dead Man's Chest, and A Pirates life for me! We had many bottles of Blackbeard's Bilgewater Grog, Rum (White and Dark; the white wasn't touched!), Jamaican ginger cake, and Abi even made some Hard Tack: a pirate staple food which is basically baked flour and water!

Watching all three films was no problem (after LOTR extended versions all in one day anything else pales into insignificance!), though I'd forgotten how long they were; At World's End is about 2.5 hours long. I still think that Dead Man's Chest is probably the weakest of the three, the slapstick is a bit silly but doesn't bother me that much. I think the big miss of the second film is Barbossa, as I think Geoffrey Rush is the hidden star of the films.

And what Piratey day would be complete without some dancing to videos on YouTube?! Highlights including Phil and Dave dancing to Shakira, Phil to Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush, and me to Vogue (You had me at Vogue, as Jess said!). All in all we had a great day.

Now who's turn is it next?

Cycled home

That was the first time I have cycled the whole way from work to home. It was a lovely day, I had finished all that I planned to do, so I decided it was time to try.

Once before I had taken the bike on the train from Inverurie to Dyce and then cycled back home, just to see if it would ever be possible to bike home. That really did kill me! I think I was so tired that I was hallucinating on the way up the last road to home! I then collapsed on the bed for 30 min, and couldn't move. The one amusing outcome of that day was being surreptitiously photographed at Inverurie station. Of course I had no idea at the time, but then was very surprised when I appeared in the GetAbout guide of train stations for the North East of Scotland!

Today, however, I was really up for it, the whole 20 miles.

It started badly. Straight up Foresterhill road from work, a thigh-burning hill climb. Then Anderson Drive (the Aberdeen ring road) was absolutely chock-a-block with traffic. 16:00 on a Tuesday, where was everyone going? Probably skiving off early like me because it was such a lovely day. So I cycled down the pavement until I was over the worst of it. This just meant that having to go up and down a few kerbs, the pannier jumped loose a couple of times.

By the time I had gone up Mugiemoss road though, the traffic was less, and I could concentrate more on the cycling. The thing that really broke me last time was the head wind. Yes, there are some steep hills, but it is possible to deal with this as long as there isn't a demoralising wind in your face the whole way. Last time I had to pedal hard going downhill just to go faster than slow-bicycle-race speed, and that really was energy-sapping. Not so this time! There still was some wind, most noticeably after Kintore and the golf club there, but nowhere near as bad as last time.

So I rolled into our drive 1 hour and 27 minutes after I left work! I didn't feel exhuasted; tired, but really pysched up. We even managed to go to Morisson's to do some shopping afterwards.

And of course this is all good practise for the Great Inverurie Bike Ride on Sunday!

Crazy things you can carry on your bike. Part 2

Part two - The 16" pizza!

Where there's a will there's a way. OK, so the pizza was a bit squished by the time we got home, but it still tasted great; even the next day. What a godsend three-way bungees are!

Crazy things you can carry on your bike. Part 1

Part one - The watering can

Not having a car can sometimes be a bit awkward, but generally it suits us fine. We don't have to pay for fuel, don't have to pay VED or insurance or MOTs, and no inflated prices for repairs to tyres etc (and there is a bit of a smug feeling of being in the minority of non-car owners!). Don't get me wrong, there are times when it would be very convenient to have a car, but at least we have access to a car if we need it. But after all, one of the reasons we chose to live in Inverurie is because it is on a train line so we could put off having to get a car as long as possible.

So, we are a three-bike family, instead of a three-car family. Of course this has its own problems, most notably carrying stuff around. But with the purchase of a rack, Christmas present of two panniers, and some inventive use of bungee cords, it's surprising how much can be carried.

As well as the usual clothes, book etc I carry to work each day, I've carried a lot of beer, fish and chips, 10 litres of washing machine Ecover (5 litres either side!), and of course the usual shopping. The Chinese takeaway I had to carry in my hand and just cycle one-handed.

The latest triumph is the watering can!

Yes, we went to the garden centre on Sunday, for want of a watering can (as well as some other bits and bobs), and was perfectly able to strap down the watering can onto my rack and jam it below my saddle. Please excuse the long socks, and the just got out of bed hair look!

Happily the watering can stayed on the rack all the way home, and is now in regular use helping along the courgettes and French beans.

Hopefully this will be the first in a series of posts as we carry increasingly diverse items on our bikes!

Better Late than Never?

I know it's February, but one of my new year's resolutions should be to try and blog more often.