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?