TAKE THAT....but no party...

Hola!

Here is the next paltry offering into cyber space. I'm kind of out of the habit now and getting back on track feels difficult. It isn't quite like riding a bicycle. Which, incidentally, I did today (13.06.11). Oooh, that was tough. I haven't been for more than a couple of miles in over a week. Did a little turn around the block and felt worse than when I did 54 miles in one day (did I mention I'd once done 54 miles in a day? Did I?).

Anyway, highlights of the week, in headline form:
1. PI post-training party promotes pinot noir p-up
2. Take That thugs thwack tall type
3. Old friends indulge in New Tricks
4. Kids party shocker!

In detail:

1. Enjoyed the training last weekend. Met up with all the people who are running the other schools over the summer. Saw some great old mates, made some smiley new acquaintances. All good.

2. Seeing Take That was an experience: Went to see them on a night of rain. Rain, rain, rain, it poured down. Luckily Super Sis and I were blessed in that every time we left a building and headed out into the open air the rain ceased momentarily. That was until we got to the stadium, then the heavens opened. The first four songs were by a Take That free Robbie. They were from their new stuff and, truth be told, I got a bit bored. By the time Robbie strutted on by himself belting out 'Let me entertain you' I was thinking, 'yes please'. ....Yes, I know, how could I?

It got a bit better until my eagle eye spotted a gap in the crowd. A gap that hadn't been there before and which looked, suspiciously, like it had been caused by a fight. That's because it had. As I watched - experience drew me to watch the fight instead of the show - a man moved away from the gap and pushed forward towards the stage, glancing back and removing his coat. 'Shifty' I thought to myself. To cut a very long story short. I went to see the steward, pointed out the culprit and his mates, spoke to the police, located the pool of blood on the floor (with the help of Super Sis's energetic pointing from the stands) and missed most of the show.

3. Have spent a fab couple of days with my friend and super-hub where we have eaten, drank, played with the kids and watched many episodes of New Tricks. Yeah.....

4. Had a pizza party with my sister's kids. No real shocker, just a lorra lorra fun...
Heading off to the Isla Man this Tuesday or 'The Truman Show', as Super Sis calls it...

CHALLENGE...!

Ha! A challenge culture has developed! Despite the fact that Matt (lives in Hampshire, but insists he's Cornish) was disappointed I didn't 'include bolognaise sauce and a fork' on my recent spaghetti eating victory video the challenges have been rolling in.

My next one from Jeffers: 'How about for your next cycling challenge you make a proper sandwich!'

So I will. Eventually. Camera (wo)men are hard to find.

By the way, if you are ever wondering why I have chosen a particularly unusual phraseology to illustrate my text you may be interested to know they are challenges too....

Shank's pony

Hello, just a quick one.
Had a lovely weekend which consisted mostly of:
Meet friend for coffee.
Chat.
Meet friend for food.
Chat.
Stay at friend's house.
Chat.
Training.
Eat.
Chat.
Drink.
Chat.

You get the picture. Tmw I'm off to see Take That - Rock n Roll! Well, not literally, popular music from the 90's, to be more precise.

Bike is lovely and well, thank to Journo-Tom who slept with her for a few days. She is currently in a garage in Lichfield. And I'm picking her up on Tuesday when we're heading to the Isla Man so more news then.

In the meantime:

Read this link and weep (well, thinking about riding an old bone-shaker will bring tears to your eyes, if nothing else)

And back again!

Classy video for your delectation and delight...

Wednesday 1st June: Decided to try to cycle all the way back from Swansea to Cardiff in one day. This was a journey I'd previously completed in two days. A big, fat 54 miles, give or take. Wasn't sure if I'd be able do it. I remembered every hill I'd climbed/pushed the bike up on the way in and they'd felt big. However, I had two incentives:

1. To get back to Cardiff by Thurs am to leave my bike at Journo-Tom's so I could head to London for training with PI (summer job).

2. As a challenge to self. By my reckoning, anyone who can count eating spaghetti whilst cycling as one of their lifelong accomplishments should be able to cycle a paultry 54 miles.

So, taking into account two days 'rest' in Swansea and early-ish nights I set off at 9.15am - in freshly laundered clothes, I might add. The night before I'd taken most of my belongings to the launderette. I was spotless and ready to go.

Leaving Swansea was easy enough. I remembered the route the three musketeers had guided me along, it was ok to find. Got a bit stuck in Port Talbot (read 'P'tal-bert' if you want to pronounce it proper South Walian, like) and, due to a lack of Iphone, I had to resort to the old fashioned method of just plain old asking people.

P'tal-bert's a funny place. Looked a bit grim from the back streets I was travelling along, but then - as is frequently the case in the smaller places - people were just friendly and interested.

Anyone who has ever told you that nothing in life is free is, quite frankly, wrong. I saw this.

Gutted that my panniers were already full...

Headed back towards my nemesis, Parc Slip. If Parc Slip were a person it'd be stroking a white cat and rocking quietly in a chair whilst cackling softly to itself.

I took extra care on the paths, especially the wooden sleeper type bridges but Parc Slip had a few tricks up it's sleeve and was just biding its time. I decided to eat there. It was quiet and I was hungry, so it seemed the ideal place. Following a meal of soup, pear, brazil nuts and rock cake I was almost out of Parc Slip when I stopped to open a gate. Extending left leg out onto the grass I realised (all too late) that it wasn't solid grass, but a fairly deep ditch, which I was sinking into. My leg disappeared to above the knee, the bike went over as I exhaled with a definitely girly type squeal. More of a keel than a slip, but there it was.

I re-gained my composure, went through the gate and cycled off. Behind me Parc Slip tittered quietly to itself and stroked its cat.

The rest of the journey was pretty uneventful. As I knew I had extra miles to go I just got my head down and got on with it. I guess that's what serious cyclists do, don't allow themselves to be distracted. It was quite exhilarating, hairing along watching the miles clocking up - though admittedly, I was distraught to look at my mile-o-meter three hours in and see I'd only clocked up 12 miles. Luckily, the computer thing was wrong, map said I'd done 23! POW - Take that technology, you're rubbish.

The next event was a leisure centre in Thomastown. I suddenly found myself in desperate need of a public convenience, probably due to my enthusiastic fruit consumption over the previous two days. I couldn't find a loo but spotted a leisure centre. Cycling up to it, there was absolutely nowhere I could leave my bike securely tied, so I resorted to wheeling it into the centre, propping it against the counter and ordering the woman to 'tell me where the toilet is now please' luckily, she did. In fairness the sight of an unkempt, bedraggled, dirty coated woman with mud up her left leg probably acted as a good incentive.

The wildlife was out in force, as usual. Along the route a pair of jays, which was a treat and after Thomastown I happened across the Sickly Blackbird of Tonyrefail.

Sickly Blackbird.

Journo-Tom came to meet me en route, which was brilliant, as I needed an extra little boost and we cycled the last eight miles together. He was very keen to calculate calories used, how many did I get through in a day.

Following some wild guess work (and a quick squint on't t'internet) a conclusion was reached: A medium sized Welsh woman in a blue coat who cycles 54 (ish) miles in one day will most likely use 50-60 calories an hour...that's in addition to her usual daily usage. So, 55 x 8 = 445. We then had a discussion about bike/accessories weight calculating that:

bike = 14 kgs / lock = 2 kgs / panniers full = 20 kgs / camera + helmet + cycling shoes + clothes worn = 1.5 kgs / water carried = 1.5 kgs

Therefore total estimated weight of bike and bits is prob about 39 kgs. Add that to weight of medium sized woman and that will probably equate to a few extra calories burnt up.

Anyway, we celebrated by going out and stuffing our faces with a range of Brazilian style goodies. Despite the fact that the restaurant was sandwiched between a grubby old pub and a dodgy looking PRIVATE SHOP (it was capitalised), whose email address was www.privatexxx.com I mean, honestly....why not just come clean and just write 'a plethora of erotic decadence' or something equally silly over the door? Moving on, I had fish stew and rice and wine and stuff, so that was probably my calorie intake sorted. We ate well and meandered home with full bellies and a sense of humour fully intact, probably due to just having put the world to rights.

Headed back into London today - Thursday. It was a bizarre thing, the route I had just spent two and a half weeks wandering along was eaten up in two and a half hours by British Rail and I didn't see a thing. I actually felt a strange sadness for those lost miles, the people met, the sights seen, every single turn of the pedal which had got me to Swansea and back to Cardiff. I'd been robbed. Reaching London was a bit of a culture shock. The noise, the people, the smell, the dirty scratchy thing on the tube... I also forgot which train station I was heading to to get to my destination - how could I manage to forget a route I'd taken numerous times before, the last only three weeks earlier? 'That's it', I thought to myself, much as I love it, my time living in London is over.

So, plan:

-Training (this weekend with French-Demps and Portu-Guy)

- Back to Cardiff (collect lovely bike)

- Train up North (have tickets to Take That)

- Isle Of Man (see brother)

- Head South (in time to start work on the 9th July)

Aber (Estuary) + Tawe (River name) = Swansea.

Ok, so this is one of those places that doesn't have a name that's translatable from English to Welsh. For those of you who think that Swansea is an ex-industrial town with a lot of ugly concrete building and some poverty, it is. However, if you get in the car (or on your bike) and leave the town centre, heading west you will reach The Mumbles and The Gower Penninsula and IT'S BEAUTIFUL!

Early morning sea view from b&b.

A Swansea bin and some bollards.

Water feature...

Swansea crumpet.

Spent yesterday dodging that rain and today at the Eisteddfod. Great day as O's school group went through the prelims, got on the stage and won the recital. Yipee!

The winning team!

So we're off out to celebrate, hence very short post. More to come...