The adults here were more excited than the kids! But it did help get them to bed far more easily than normal when we told them he hadn’t stopped because they were still awake…

I always go to my sisters house. The gathering grows each year. This year we have

Sister, brother in law and two nephews.
My mum, dad, uncle, dad’s mum and mum’s dad.
My godmother.
My other half and his parents.

This could be interesting.

I got in from a ride earlier and couldn’t decide between a cheese sandwich or a peanut butter sandwich. I thought for a while, realised that cheese and nuts can work together nicely and filled my bread roll with peanut butter and stilton. Just what I needed.

I went for a job interview yesterday. My friends asked whether it would be more money. I answered smugly no, it’s part time. I really hope I get it – my hobbies need time rather than money and it pays enough to cover the bills.

Sadly I won’t find out til after christmas. But handing in my notice would be a good way to start the new year.

No to the party (last week), yes to the team meal (in about 20 minutes)

I used Bikeline. It was under the old costs rules though. They still do no win no fee but I think it works slightly differently now.

I have to admit to being surprised at how much better Birmingham is now than when I grew up nearby in the 80s/early 90s. I have memories of the annual christmas shopping trip to Birmingham and the horror that was the old Bullring. We avoided the place most of the time.

Roll on about 18 years and we started having 6 monthly team away days in Birmingham through work. We usually stay near the canal (Mailbox/Brindley Place) and it’s far more pleasant than I expected. I do remember even the locals struggling to think of somewhere decent for us to go after our meal though.

My expectations were VERY low though!

My 5 year old nephew loves the stuff and has no problems with the easier sets. He is on his second year of having a lego advent calendar and went to the Lego discovery Centre for his birthday 😀

My OH tells me that his christmas hamper from work has arrived today. It’s usually pretty good – absolutely stuffed full of food and a bottle or two of something alcoholic.

The joys of a grammar school education.

Painful memories of ecce romani

Not for us. We get paid before Christmas rather than at the end of the month so there’s a bit more money in the bank account than normal at that point in the month but it’s then a long wait til January pay day.

There is sometimes a bonus after the end of the financial year (April) but eligibility and the calculation are far from transparent.

Tricolore? I can’t remember what the boy was called, and this was the 90s rather than the 80s although judging by how dogeared the books were they may have been that old.

I have been impressed with amazon lately. Ordered something yesterday afternoon, supersaver delivery, and it was on my desk by lunchtime today. My boss pays for prime and her orders often take longer than mine for some reason.

I used to have Sora and now have bikes with Tiagra (winter bike), 10 speed 105 (holiday bike) and 11 speed ultegra (summer bike). I can definitely tell the difference between the Ultegra and the others, less so Tiagra and 105. There is a difference but not as much. I ride the 105 and the Tiagra in completely different conditions/terrain so it might not be a fair comparison (the Tiagra goes out in winter in Yorkshire, the 105 rides up Spanish mountains in the sunshine and has never got wet in its life).

I didn’t like the sora because it had the little thumb lever but that has changed now anyway I think.

The office party is next Friday and I’m not going this year. I usually leave shortly after the meal anyway so am never around when the gossipworthy stuff happens, and just can’t be bothered with it this year. We’ve just had a redundancy round anyway in a different area of the business so I can’t imagine the atmosphere will be great.

I am doing the team christmas meal though. I quite enjoy these. The only problem is that I’m out the night before at a boozy client thing, then we go out at lunchtime for the team meal, then I’m out in the evening at my running club’s christmas meal.

It may take me a while to sober up from that…

I don’t really race when cycling. My bike is too heavy for that. Except the time I overtook an electric bike. Proud moment.

Bizarrely most of my recent notable overtakes have been when I’m running and overtake pavement cyclists 😯

Yes – I hold it with my thumb on the button then press down on it to turn.

I have one. Never had a paper white so don’t know how much better it is – way better than my old style kindle though! I got it mainly for the page turn buttons as I much prefer those to using a touch screen when reading.

Drove down last night. Parkrun done, time for a quick shower then over to the park 🙂

I got the notification on my N4 last night but am holding off for now I think.

The worry is more that pieces go missing while I’m over there or everyhing gets jumbled into a big pile of lego and has to be sorted out.

I’ve got a job interview on Thursday (this is going somewhere relevant, promise) and was having a chat with the recruiter who set it up today. We got onto the personality of the interviewer, and apparently “she likes cycling and talks about this equation…”

“you mean N+1?”

“that’s the one”

“I think we might get on”…

I have Benny’s spaceship 🙂

Trying to decide whether to let my 6 year old nephew play with it at christmas or whether to keep it safe at home.

Planet X road bike (carbon, ultegra)
Trek road bike – winter bike with mudguards and slightly wider tyres
Pompetamine – alfine and a rack for commuting
Revolution track – fixie
Kona hardtail
Cannondale CAAD10 at my parents house in Spain

I thought I had more than that. I know I got rid of one recently, but I didn’t realise I was down to 6 now…

I’ve barely driven my car this month and have no urgent desire to remove it. I’ll do it when I get round to it.

I once took a photo of a wiggle delivery to text to my other half. Including the haribo.

Several months later my 2 year old nephew is flicking through the photos on my phone and saying the names of people he knows (and “bike!” for pictures of bikes).

It took me a while to realize why he was getting so excited about the bike bits photo til i spotted the haribo!

Yes, which reminds me that I need to get myself a bigger cowbell.

Well it was in the T&Cs the couple signed when they arrived, so it’s a contract law matter.

Can’t see it being enforceable against consumers though

Absolutely agree – indeed much of today’s run commute to work and cycle commute home involved a rant in my head about how hard it was to spot indicators. Some horrible, barely visible designs.

I rarely have issues on my commute. I tend to go by the rule “if it’s moving don’t filter unless you have your own lane” (and that tends to be a bus lane rather than a cycle lane, which gives me more room to swerve if necessary). I use different routes to and from work because I know where the hotspots are and that some roads are much worse in one direction than the other.

In a queue I’ll often nip past a few cars while they are stationary and then slot back in when they start to move even if that means slowing down. If I get to a queue at traffic lights and know I’ll get through in the next change anyway I don’t bother filtering. And if a queue is absolutely impossible to filter past safely I’ll get off and push the bike along the pavement. The part of my commute where I’m likely to be delayed is so short, and the total delay so minimal that it’s just not worth it. I’ve been over a car bonnet before now and I’d rather not repeat it.

Not in the UK, but on a couple of stretches of motorway near where my parents live in Spain cyclists are (apparently*) allowed to use the motorway because there is no alternative route.

The most bizarre incident was when we came across two cyclist (riding side by side) in lane 1 as a dog ran around in lane 2, then darted across and nearly took them out as it tried to get back to the footpath on the other side of the barrier 😯

Regardless of the legality of it, I refuse to do routes that would require using those stretches of motorway!

*This is second hand information originating from someone who told my mother. I was initially dubious, but can’t deny that the levels of use by cyclists do seem to back it up.

Lurking with interest. I have been tasked with buying my nephew a scooter for Christmas. He’s 5 (6 in March) and says he would like a 2 wheel one – so something like the Micro Sprite looks about right?

The new Chambers is out today *runs off to update her LinkedIn profile with this year’s quotes*

There’s a bit of law firm self-promotion involved – you have to put together a submission which includes the sexiest sounding stuff if you can think of even if it was far less complex than the submission might make it appear. They do speak to clients – but only the ones who you give them contact details for, so for some reason negative stuff rarely finds its way to the researchers :wink:. They also do interviews with each firm to try to get them to dish the dirt on their competitors. I’m not sure whether you actually pay (I know that once you get a ranking they try to flog you plaques certificates and other stuff to put in reception etc but we never buy ours) because I don’t get involved in that side of the submission process.

Anyway, that was a bit of an aside.

For no win no fee stuff I’m not sure there’s any way of assessing overall success rates. I’d also be a little wary of some of the complaints stats that get published. Our compliance department used to whinge regularly that the stats gave no context – e.g. a sole practitioner with 3 complaints is much, much worse than a large firm with 10. I’m not sure if that has changed as they I haven’t heard them kick off about it so much recently. Or maybe I just avoid getting into conversation with them.

Mine is in a locked bike cage to which only I have the key so I leave all my stuff on the bike (including my Garmin when I use it). Definitely turned my lights off though 🙂

Myself and my OH both wimped out. I drove in and he is planning to run. He needs the car this evening so plans to run to my office and pick it up – depending on what it looks like I’ll either sit in the car and read while he does his jobs or run home.

I really think that every cyclist who owns and pays for their car, should for one day a year (preferably a busy week day), all ditch their bikes and take to the roads in our cars. Gridlock here we come.
That’ll teach them.

Interestingly on Monday the weather was crap. I spoke to several people who normally get to work by other means but used their cars because it was so wet. I rather suspect that the fact that the traffic was so much worse than normal had some connection to that fact. (The amusing thing was that one of the worst complainers was someone who usually commutes by motorbike and used the car instead…)

No evidence to prove that, but it didn’t stop this woman spouting off 😉

This is more something I didn’t see, but on Tuesday evening I cycled down the cyclepath on the top pictue no more than two minutes before flames were spotted and the fire brigade was called (I checked my Garmin log to confirm the timing…)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-29442712

😯

When I got knocked off I didn’t go to A&E (or indeed anywhere else) on the day of the accident but did go to the Walk in Centre the next day once the aches and pains had time to show themselves…

I’ve been cycling to work pretty much every day for the last 4 months or so. For several years I’ve been doing it once per week but using the car on the other days. I only live 5 miles from work so don’t really have any good reason as to why I didn’t ride more, other than the fact that I have a parking pass at work as one of my benefits so it’s “free”. Interestingly I used to cycle to work a lot more regularly until I became entitled to that particular “benefit”.

The strange thing is that the more I cycle, the more I come to dislike using my car. To the point where I’m now disappointed if I have to take the car to work because it means I can’t cycle. And it’s not just my commute – I seem to be driving less at the weekends too. I would have a wider choice of stuff if I drove to the supermarket (or indeed ordered online) but instead I walk to the smaller shop at the end of the road. I don’t like the feeling of detachment from my surroundings, and I notice far more stuff (such as new shops and bars) on the bike. I can stop where I want or mix my routes up in a way I just don’t do in the car. So now I try to work out if I can get somewhere without the car (cycling, running, walking or public transport) and only use the car if I have to. We have one car between us and it sits on the drive for the majority of the week. I like that.