Family

Yep - I had a great Friday night: Home from work early, "because of the snow" Walk with Daughter & Huge Dalmatian Did my long run for the week with my DIY ice shoes on. This was a great run, including abourt 2 miles away from the roads along snowy footpaths. Cold, dark and silent, this was...
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Yesterday was just a perfect day. I was supposed to go up to Newbiggin By The Sea with Daughter for one of my client’s inaugrial Sunday bike rides. But at getting-up time for this, it was lashing down, so I had an extra hour in bed, and by the time we got up, the...
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If you’re in the UK (and pay your electromagnetic radiation tax that gives you exclusive rights to the airwaves over mere tax-dodging radio users), you might have seen Bang Goes The Theory on BBC1 last night. The plot of last night’s programme was to try generating the power required for a family home...
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Just a short post here - I started a new job this week, so things have been (& still are) rather hectic over the last ten days or so. But today I went down to That London for the Pickwick Bicycle Club’s President’s Luncheon, as a guest of Carlton Reid, author of the Family Cycling...
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Last weekend for Daughter’s birthday treat, we took her and her best friend to Edinburgh Zoo. We drove up on Saturday morning, spent the afternoon running from enclosure to enclosure, and stayed overnight at a nearby hotel. Driving back down the A1 on Sunday morning, the fuel warning light for the car came on, so...
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It’s taken me a week to get to write this post, as I was hoping to get CCTV footage of what happened. Unfortunately the response from my Freedom Of Information Request was that the camera overlooking the scene was not working. So you’ll have to take my word for this. Last Saturday afternoon, we all...
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I started riding again because I realised that doing the same thing, but expecting different results is a pretty workable definition of insanity. It suddenly struck me about four years ago that sitting inside a tin box going no-where fast, and expecting everyone else to get out of my way wasn’t working. And that expecting...
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No, I’m not talking about getting a second car, but wondering about the whole concept of a car at all. Here’s the problem. It’s time for us to part company with our current car. It’s a 2001 Renault Lagune (yes, I know) that’s done 108,000 miles or so, and is getting to an age where...
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By and large, cycle infrastructure in the UK is a mess. It’s not joined-up, doesn’t go where you need to get to, and always, always seems to play second fiddle to roads for motor vehicles or footpaths for pedestrians. Many local authorities do things that could only charitably be seen as making any effort, yet...
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I’ve been having a bit of bother with the back wheel on our tandem, Daisy. Basically, the bearing’s either loose, so that there’s some definite wobble in the wheel, and corresponding slack handling of the bike, or tight, so that the wheel doesn’t run free. Neither are good. So this morning before setting off to...
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