Surprise from my daughter. She baked a bouquet of cup cakes.
[img] 
[/img]
A few photos worth from days out now we're allowed to travel for excercise
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49925767463_9f6748863c_z.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49925767463_9f6748863c_z.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2j4LBhc ]IMG_20200523_121855346_BURST006[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/stu-b/ ]multispeedstu[/url], on Flickr
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49925767198_c4f309a4a8_z.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49925767198_c4f309a4a8_z.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2j4LBcC ]IMG_20200523_121855346_BURST007[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/stu-b/ ]multispeedstu[/url], on Flickr
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49926287201_c953ac7fbe_z.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49926287201_c953ac7fbe_z.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2j4PgMc ]IMG_20200523_121855346_BURST008[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/stu-b/ ]multispeedstu[/url], on Flickr
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49925766908_e42dcd28d7_z.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49925766908_e42dcd28d7_z.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2j4LB7C ]IMG_20200523_121855346_BURST009[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/stu-b/ ]multispeedstu[/url], on Flickr
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49925759748_4d508ebdd3_z.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49925759748_4d508ebdd3_z.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2j4LyZb ]20200523_144718-ANIMATION[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/stu-b/ ]multispeedstu[/url], on Flickr
<img src="http://[url= https://i.postimg.cc/h4M5110f/020429-BF-045-F-4-A91-BA03-B458-E055-D043.jp g" target="_blank">https://i.postimg.cc/h4M5110f/020429-BF-045-F-4-A91-BA03-B458-E055-D043.jp g"/> [/img][/url]
Rode along the Pilgrims Way to the memorial cross at Lenham (in Kent). I’ve been travelling past this cross for many years but never been to it, so I thought I’d have a ride out on a lovely day.
He makes me look garbage.
Not one of my best, but you can only have the wife taking so many videos before she gets bored. I do notice that even though I thought I was working on my entry speed, it's still slower than his
Early blast on Cutgate for us.
[img] 
[/img]
[img] 
[/img]
Not quite up to Weeksy Jnr's level but a lot of fund was had on a dad & son morning out:
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49925910163_effe1f7c66_z.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49925910163_effe1f7c66_z.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2j4MkGx ]20200523_101735[/url]
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49925913123_658ff7fd5b_z.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49925913123_658ff7fd5b_z.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2j4Mmzz ]20200523_105739[/url]
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49925908693_6a17816ba0_z.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49925908693_6a17816ba0_z.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2j4Mkgc ]20200523_104253[/url]
Kryton, your son looks SO happy in those shots. That kind of thing is why I started this thread.
Really windy here today so we took a v short drive to some woods. No photos of the biking, largely because I'm embarrased by the fact that my 2yo i already a better MTBer than me.
Anyway - trees:
Kryton, your son looks SO happy in those shots.
Ha, thanks. The complexities of parenthood. Yesterday I was hiding my own sadness from him as we had to dress him down over abusing his tablet allowance (i grew up as an unhappy child, and don’t want ours to be the same) and today he says this was one of favourite rides.
I was riding behind him mostly and he was swerving around singeletrack with an audible “wheee” and “woo hoo” at pace to the point I was nervously thinking “Christ, that’s going to wash out in the dust any minute...”
Fun times.
The top window has a special place in history.
Rapunzel's tower?
#beerienteering
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49930859336_71e054af94_c.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49930859336_71e054af94_c.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2j5dGV7 ]DSC_1145[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/druidh2000/ ]Colin Cadden[/url], on Flickr
Stunning day out there, sunny, dry, but damn it's bumpy at times.
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49934288242_bd53ca7f37_5k.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49934288242_bd53ca7f37_5k.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2j5whdb ]2020-05-25_12-55-17[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/152318156@N08/ ]Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49933464868_3216810a01_5k.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49933464868_3216810a01_5k.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2j5s4s5 ]2020-05-25_12-55-11[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/152318156@N08/ ]Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr
The top window has a special place in history.
Fox Talbot.
Early ride in Wharncliffe for us.
[img] 
[/img]
[img] 
[/img]
[img] 
[/img]
With a view like that I hope you had fish and chips😉
Took the summer beast...
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49934489651_c28dfe00ff_z.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49934489651_c28dfe00ff_z.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2j5xj5K ]20200525_122231[/url]
...out for my sprint session today.
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49934489451_81542b4c3e_z.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49934489451_81542b4c3e_z.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2j5xj2i ]20200525_114309[/url]
6 x up that 6% at max watts then 20k home. Was very beautiful and still with the whirring of the 50's, except going through Epping Forest cap park which was jammed with shouty people and cars.
Blissful.
Well 1 a day isn't needed anymore so I went for a second. Took a cold tinnie, a camera and a 100-400 lens to shoot some of the birds I've seen on my regular stops on the route home round the fields behind the house.
The last few days: loads of birds, several pairs of Red Kites especially including several low altitude low speed cruises up the field edge no more than 15ft from me.
Today: Nothing.
Have a bee and some daisies.
[img]
[/img]
[img]
[/img]
[img] 
[/img]
Dales was mentally busy today, so I went high and cheeky to try to lose the crowds.
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49935555977_1cd9d9f59c_c.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49935555977_1cd9d9f59c_c.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2j5CM4F ]IMG_20200525_144332-2[/url]
More #beerienteering today. 64km which pretty much killed me. It just feels like I've lost loads of fitness, likely the after-effects of CV19. Still, a lovely, if slightly breezy, day so no hurry.
Loads of insects around now
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49934997373_fc59245bc0_c.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49934997373_fc59245bc0_c.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2j5zV1z ]P1060524[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/druidh2000/ ]Colin Cadden[/url], on Flickr
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49935510416_b60bf4b30a_c.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49935510416_b60bf4b30a_c.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2j5Cxw9 ]P1060519[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/druidh2000/ ]Colin Cadden[/url], on Flickr
Huge swathes of bog cotton
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49934997133_7193136ffc_c.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49934997133_7193136ffc_c.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2j5zUWr ]P1060533[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/druidh2000/ ]Colin Cadden[/url], on Flickr
But the highlight came when I sat down to have some food and saw a bird flying over.
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49935509821_9c83c9fc6a_c.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49935509821_9c83c9fc6a_c.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2j5CxkT ]P1060523[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/druidh2000/ ]Colin Cadden[/url], on Flickr
Looked hawk-like, but too big. Too "fine" in features to be a buzzard or eagle. Then I saw it heading to its nest.
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49935813197_d27e04cd1d_c.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49935813197_d27e04cd1d_c.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2j5E6wv ]P1060522[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/druidh2000/ ]Colin Cadden[/url], on Flickr
Osprey!!
Managed to find some new (to me) gravel routes this morning
<img src="http://[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49934338441_6ff843b0b4_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49934338441_6ff843b0b4_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url]
The kids in the village still finding more ways to be creative. This is a 'rock caterpillar'.
@eddybaby - absolutely!
@scotroutes - well done with the Osprey! I have actually seen one, with a fish, a large chub it had caught; it flew close enough to be able to identify the fish from the size and colour as it went past the bridge I was standing on, then it perched on top of a utility pole munching on the fish. Sadly not close enough to get a decent photo with my phone. I was on a bridge carrying Sustrans Route 4 from Chippenham to Calne, couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing.
From my wander out to the post office and bird food shopping this afternoon...
These are just coming into flower, on a grass verge opposite where I used to work on a large industrial estate in Chippenham. I don’t know anywhere else where they grow, and there’s a lot of them there at the moment. Beautiful things.
[url= https://i.postimg.cc/hGhcFKgV/20200517-183602.jp g" target="_blank">https://i.postimg.cc/hGhcFKgV/20200517-183602.jp g"/> [/img][/url]
[url= https://i.postimg.cc/5ySZYrbx/20200526-113619.jp g" target="_blank">https://i.postimg.cc/5ySZYrbx/20200526-113619.jp g"/> [/img][/url]
Could have just ridden up the bedrock riverbed in Littondale today. Not a drop in it.
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49942589736_66710734fa_c.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49942589736_66710734fa_c.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2j6fPXo ]IMG_20200527_123637-2[/url]
Eldest daughter threw the teddy out of the cot when she missed our Cutgate ride on Saturday, we forgot to tell her about it. Decided to go back up with her tonight for a quick blast.
We were the only ones out riding and only passed a couple of walkers
[img] 
[/img]
[img] 
[/img]
[img] 
[/img]
[img] 
[/img]
These are just coming into flower, on a grass verge opposite where I used to work on a large industrial estate in Chippenham. I don’t know anywhere else where they grow, and there’s a lot of them there at the moment. Beautiful things.
Bee Orchids. I thought they were mainly in the South East, guess they're slowly moving West?
Cloudier today, but still bone dry and hot. Too dry really, some of the trails are like corrugated concrete.
Mostly flat XC and quiet lanes with a few steps & drops between the chalk cliffs. 3 secs over the existing 1:45 kom through a pea field. Gonna get that this lockdown.
Bee Orchids. I thought they were mainly in the South East, guess they’re slowly moving West?
Yes, there are a couple of places in the area where they used to grow, but this site is just so out of the ordinary, literally right in the middle of a big industrial estate, but it’s the only place on the whole estate where they grow. I can only think that topsoil for landscaping was brought from somewhere where they are more common. I haven’t seen them anywhere else in north Wiltshire in many years.
There’s another site about ten miles away on a nature reserve where Marsh Helleborines grow in their hundreds, AFAIK the only inland site in the country, they normally grow in dune slacks on the coast.
Magical evening ride - dust, sun and the call of golden plover.
Bloody lucky to have this on our doorstep.
@sandwich
Yes, Freston Folly. Apparently you can stay in it! When it's not lockdown, obvs..
