There isn’t one… alas :-(

Considered the photographic society, but I just get the feeling they are all old folk set in their ways (they have slide competitions… which kind of says it all).

Other thoughts are Tai Chi, but that may be a bit of an old folk magnet, unless they are doing it properly… or there is an Akido club that I could look into, but can’t do their Monday sessions just yet as I have to travel upto Scotland that day on a weekly basis for a bit longer yet.

Petrol driven pressure washer feeding from it – job done ;-)

Mind you, they can be a bit savage so watch the bearings!

Pumps and solar don’t go very well btw – they need a fairly big power draw to start up. Since you don’t need much pressure though you probably could get away with using a pond pump, run off a solar cell/battery – it may just about do the job.

I have the lurgy… which is annoying as I was looking forward to getting out with Mr Foxychick over the weekend. Goddammit :-( Next weekend is being scheduled for grade A liver abuse of the finest kind too… which rules out that one.

Looking forward to life becoming straightforward again.

Ned Kelly for me too – was okay, and I do like a good shite western every now and again ;-)

Couple of nights before that – Bloodryne courtesy of Lovefilm… man that was crap!

I am renting at the mo – nice having a garage again… and suspect that when I buy back into the market I still won’t be able to afford something so palacious! I am thinking a mid-market house, with a bit spent on making it nicer… and a bigass shed to keep the bikes, tools, motorbike and anything else in ;-)

Depends what is on the market, and who is willing to take “sensible” offers though (ie downright insulting I should think)

I can see the south Lakes fells currently bathed under golden sunlight.

It was hailing a wee while ago.

And I can’t go out as I am waiting for UPS to deliver my laptop that has been away for repairs :-(

Forgot to add – the wind usually keeps the midges away during the day, and in the evenings in Kirkwall you aren’t bothered by them so much as if you took a rural property… where you probably would get eaten alive!

July… Orkney mate. June is usually a bit better… but there is loads to do anyway! Historic Scotland – well, the place has more archaeology per square km than anywhere else in the world. Walks – plenty, from clifftops to moors to beaches. Very holiday friendly kind of a place.

As for accomodation find somewhere in Kirkwall that suits your budget – that puts you nice and central to go and see a lot of the islands (though you would find enough on Mainland alone to keep you busy, it’s nice to get to another of the islands for a daytrip though). Check out Visit Orkney[/url] for accomodation and the like.

Oh aye – ace food too, loads of top local produce ;-)

I just picked up a load of 8Gb 266x ones (Kingston) from My Memory for £37.99 each. Seem to work pretty well… bit slower than the others menitoned, but not much, and a good bit cheaper! You only lose a couple of Mb/sec over the 300x cards…

http://www.mymemory.co.uk/Compact-Flash-Cards?&filter=#memFilter

They are listed under All Sizes, if you ask for the results to filter to 8Gb only they don’t show up, but they are under the drop down menu.

Think yourself lucky – just paid over 4.5k myself. Sold the house, got humped on redemtion… though we may get a proportion of it back if we port the loan to a new house within 6 months (currenlty renting on a 6 month lease). The interest rate isn’t great, but 4k in my pocket or so (it will be pro-rate depending how much we take out again, which will be less than the original loan) is bloody tempting!

I think they should have a project – make a lardy unfit bugger going through a hard time into a properly fit, svelt mountain biker type.

They could use me as their test subject ;-)

(Not that I am struggling with Fat Club – but hey, life through me a real blind sider shiteness episode that is just so wrong I won’t even bother trying to explain it).

Other than that – quite liking the mag at the moment. Less foriegn trips would be nice and more about getting out riding where we do – local. The odd trip abroad is interesting, but there have been a few too many of late… and its getting a bit too “look what I did, I am so much better than you”.

That may be a bit harsh… but it’s getting a bit irrelavent to 90% of the readership (at a guess… probably).

Depends very much on the collie. A cross is certainly less work than a pure bred one. I have a farm collie myself, coming up for 5 and, yep, very clever (though still daft as a brush).

They do need a LOT of attention though – excercise… pretty demanding dogs. But he is utterly ace! They are crap on leads is another thing, I tend to put Jake on one only when absolutely necessary. They are dead easy to train though – well, except for road sense in Jake’s case.

Excellent dogs – working on building him up for mountain biking. He gets the idea, but tends to run across junctions even if there is a car coming, which is less than ideal.

The Palao diet thing is worth looking at – basically it makes you eat the stuff that we are designed to eat. Kind of done it years ago… by living with a tribe for 4 months in Amazonia and was in damn good shape when I got back. Have the book somewhere… but then I am an archaeologist (or was) and so should be able to work it out for myself!

Foxy – you will probably see me in one of those fine establishments at some stage, though I am enjoying my “local”, The Swan, at the moment.

Not expecting to do well this week, mid way through the worst week that it is possible to ever have. Feeling a bit down, resorted to a bag of prawn cocktail just now and debating a beer to follow up. Very down, very sad.

Tomorrow is a new day though, will try and sort myself back out again and start looking to the future. Can’t believe I have a wedding to photograph at the weekend too…

Yesterday I went out on my bike for the first time in…. sodding ages! I think it was the Yeti’s first outing in 12 months due to bits having stopped working on it ages ago and not having the motivation to fix it. I managed 4 or 5 rides last year, 2 of which barely count as rides due to the berevity of em.

Wasn’t a long route – about 9 miles I think. Took about an hour to get around as I was getting used to this wobbling and vulnerability of a mountain bike again (my other ride has a big ass engine in it). Loads of fun though, and today I am pretty sore! Going to build up slowly, but the loop I used seems a decent length to build some fitness and loose some lard on, then once I have knocked the rough edges off I shall go out and find some folk to play with on a weekend for a longer but more sociable jaunt.

Beside that going to try and move more towards a low-ish fat, high fibre diet as that worked wonders last time. Will try and keep the booze under control too, but having just moved to a new area I will probably find myself in the pub on occasion to try and get to know some folk. And the beer in the Lakes is divine nectar!

Right – out to walk the dog, then up to Falkirk for the day.

Aaaah – that would probably explain my problem too! I don’t do much sugar, but do destroy toothbrushes in pretty short order. Never realised it could cause receeding gums and had been wondering why I was having such problems.

Damn.

Got an eleccy toothbrush somewhere, will have to break it out and start using it again (didn’t have a charger point in the last house so stopped using it.)

I am going for 2 stone over 12 weeks (think that’s what I put in my email) – so not quite in the league of some of you! Trying to get down from 19 to 17 stone… few year back I went from 21 stone to 17 stone 10 in about 12 weeks, and was pretty lean at that weight, so I have no idea whether 17 stone is even a realistic goal for long term or not! Still… worth a try I suppose.

Decided that this year has got to get better, and if I can get fitter and loose some excess it will help lift my mood and make more things possible (like coping with the current loss and grief side of things). Here’s hoping anyway.

Arse – wish I had seen that… mine did the exact same thing you are describing a couple of months back – decided to replace it with a Sony hard disk/dvd recorder. Not a bad choice mind, but I did loose the second tuner option.

Kind of thinking of buying a second telly sometime anyway, so will follow the instructions and fire the Humax into that probably.

I should really get around to doing something like this – not quite managed to get myself sorted out yet this year (desktop PC needs set up, and need to find Lightroom to install back on the laptop too).

Probably just start trying to do that with ma blog like.

Death in June, Fall Apart

Happy New Year everyone.

The last one was properly shite.

I may be persuaded…

Foxy – if you need some moral support to get out drop me a line (addy is rob AT alpinist DOT co DOT uk). I am now ensconced in Ulverston, and could use both a good excuse to get fit and someone to talk to down here.

Life went really properly pear shaped a couple of weeks back so something to keep me occupied over the next few weeks would be a very, very good thing.

Going to be sitting in tonight, not going to be sorry to see the back of 2008 it really has been the worst year EVER.

Think I may crack open a bottle of Bock, see what’s on telly and perhaps cook up a curry. Here’s hoping for a considerably better 2009… once the fallout from December has all worked through.