Too busy to blog

It’s a sad state of affairs when you get too busy to blog. Considering we haven’t been away this summer, it’s been pretty hectic.

Obviously, having a new(ish) baby about the place is a good reason to keep my fingers off the keyboard in non-work time, but it also seems to have just been a bit of a packed time. Loads of things have happened that I’d usually go into great detail reporting, but the reporting time itself is at a premium, so instead, in the ultimate compromise, a list-view of recent goings-on:

• Two fell races (and one more coming up this Wednesday) – in the Rossendale mid-week series – finished just about where I wanted to in the Golf Balls fell race and let myself down a bit in the Pilgrim’s Cross fell race. Google Earth maps of the fell races here
• Two smashing days out on a long weekend:
  Morecambe: – had a trip to the seaside in some pretty decent weather at last – and a great chance to play with Lily on the beach (although she lost Ariel’s arm!) and visit the recently renovated Midland Hotel – an art deco landmark. A fully restored Gill relief sculpture of the Morecambe Bay area was a lovely highlight, as was getting a snap of Mum on the steps of the Hotel holding her wedding photo from the same spot. I also managed to sneak in a nice ride back from Morecambe via the gorgeous Trough of Bowland and long climb of Waddington Fell.
  Great Hucklow: – an annual trip to catch up with some old friends from Gloucestershire – Will and Juliet – and their fun family. A grand day out including some climbing wall fun and Will being part of the Doris Dancing team..
• Some good momentum in the Three Peaks training, with some great 6:20am starts now three Sundays in a row (albeit with some appallingly bad mechanical incidents, the training still happened!).
• The Olympics have been a time to be proud as a cyclist. We should make the most of times like these and it won’t be long before the Telegraph and Mail bits of the country start hating pesky lycra louts again. The Olympics in general have been a great reminder of how utterly rubbish the ‘normal’ sport on TV is in this country. So, so so so so so so badly skewed in favour of footballers pretending to be fowled. Some dodgy tattoos though.
• I’ve relaunched the UKCyclocross.com website. It’s now a fully functional ‘ning’ – a cyclocross social network with some stunning functionality – I really hope people start using it to upload their own reports and images.

I’ll hopefully gather some time in the near future to start writing ‘properly’ some time soon. When things calm down. That distant, lovely day that never comes.

Photo moblogging at last

I’ve finally got round to getting to post photos directly to my Flickr account from my mobile in one very easy click. There’s something of a compromise here though. Shiny, feature-packed and lovely though my Nokia E71 may be, its piccies are clearly those of a phone, not a camera. It’s still worth it though. I love the feeling of live reportage when I can post on the spot, even though the subject matter to date has been mainly family snaps.

A long overdue meet-up with Biggers

It’s been seven years since we saw my old and lovely school mate John Bigland, and we finally got together on Sunday for a BBQ in Helmshore’s finest July weather. Or the finest it could muster up, which means just freezing northerly wind.

It was so great to catch up and it’s nice to have these reminders from time to time about how simple it is to get on straight away with people you grew up with. Good mates, a shade of reminiscing but not too much. No need… life’s still fun for all of us without any need to recall the past. Still nice to have a quick chat about whether he still has Tears for Fears posters up on his wall. Sadly, he doesn’t and neither do I. I prefer to think of it as a phase, and I’ll put some up again soon.

Out with the old, in with the new… tooth

Lily lost her first baby tooth today and was well compensated by fairy Abigail (who watches over her). Regrettably, she was so excited about the compensation that she awoke especially early and came to tell Katie and I in bed an hour or so before she should have done.

The new tooth is pushing its way through very quickly anyhow – another sign of growing up very quickly!

A very English Bank Holiday

Although we had two lovely days of fine weather this long weekend, we chose the wet day to go to the seaside…

We did have a grand day out though – on the Lancashire coast – at Southport (along with its huge pier) and another quick trip to Crosby. Lily’s bike riding’s really coming along and she took full advantage of the soft sand to build her confidence in turning safely (well, relatively).

Katie managed to manoeuvre her large abdomen very well in the circumstances and enjoyed the fresh air and fun.
Photos here