Month: December 2013

Back to the old form of posting, hopefully it will be little and often.
Sunday 01 Dec 2013.  Picked the van up and collected the grandkids to take them to the ICF.  Past a group of the CTC near Newton Lane and parked up in the car park. We were met by a queue that seemed to stretch around the block. Santa,s grotto was open and they had baby reindeer to boot.

Managed to get into the playbarn at the right time and settled down to read the Sunday Times. At the food counter who should I meet but Brian and Roy from the CTC. I did mention it’s called Crazy Daisey,s for a reason, it can get pretty crazy in there.

Things settled down later and after an Ice Cream the kids got to stroke the baby reindeers nose. +1 to Cheshire Ice Cream Farm.
I’d bought some Christmas lights for the van from Maplin on the Friday so they got a try out to amuse the kids and me. Spent hours trying to get things sorted out on ChromeBook with mixed results. It was a long day.
Monday 02 Dec 2013  Had booked into Tex,s spin class at the Oval only to find it being taken by Angie.  Sweated a bucket, finished the class as headed for the showers only to find no change from 2011, a disgrace. Spotlights don’t work and are hanging out of the fibreboard.
A trip to Aldi for noodles for lunch and some fruit then home.
Washed the car and booked another spin class at the Oval.

It gets busy in the evening but this class was one spinning class too far, I promptly blew up about half way through it as a bowl of noodles isnt enough for two classes like these. Coasted to the end, headed home for  a shower where I wont pick up an infectous disease.

Netflix is the new Blockbusters in this household and ouce you have it you can see why BlockBusters had no chance. Work in the morning.

The Garmin needs an update so it’s back to Windows in the near future.
Tuesday 03 Dec 2013 First day back in work.
Wednesday 04 Dec 2013 Caravan Club site is now taking bookings for 2014. this means Crystal Palace Caravan club site will take bookings for the Tour de France dates.
The golden hour approached and nothing happened, repeatedly. When I finally got in to the booking site I was logged out so had to go through the whole process again. I’ve booked three nights as the logistics of getting down there in good time meant I wouldn’t see much of a stage on Saturday even if I could find somewhere to park the van.

The recent WRC round in Wales showed me just how narrow our roads are. Next thing is to book Eurotunel , It was a huge relief to get the London booking now to try and plan the rest of the route.

Saturday 07 Dec 2013

 

Rode out to see how the van coped with the tidal surge.  Called in at the Bike Factory and Cheshire Oaks Cycles on the way back and gave the MagicShines a decent trial after the repair.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I gave the MagicShine 808 a trial run during the week and it got that hot I cooled it down under the tap. Unfortunatley the waterproofing wasnt 100% and the clicky switch failed with it stuck in whatever mode it felt like on powerup. Maplin supplied a new switch for £1.39, it meant cutting the legs down do size but the result was a working light again.
These lights are £18 on ebay these days and give enough light to actually see where you are going. 

The Dee cycle crossing shows just how much the storm surge travelled up the river Dee.
I was surprised how much plastic it washed up along with large CalorGas bottles.

This is the cycle path just by the racecourse. Cycling along the path from Queensferry the tide mark was about a foot from the top of the path. If the bank had burst a lot of people would be under a few feet of water.