Where is the time going?

The days and weeks are just vanishing at the moment, along with my bike saddle.

Yes, after doing my temporary saddle fix, as I was riding in yesterday morning there was an ominous CLICK, and the saddle was no longer attached to the bike.

Thankfully I was going slowly and was able to stop without everything falling into the road and nasty things happening to me!

Not  being a kid who likes to ride with no saddle, I walked the rest of the way to work, reading my Kindle as I went.  Book 4 of Game of Thrones...

I managed to get another bolt to fix things for a couple of days until we can get the real thing from the bike shop.  Hope it olds, I am trying to be gentle with it!


Saturday is Number One Son's 20th birthday, and he is coming home for a few days to celebrate. He is not staying home for the whole holiday as he wants to focus on revising for his exams, and knows he can only really do that properly at Uni.  Sensible kid, if only more students were like that!

Sunday is Mothers Day, so we will be giving Mrs RC a bit of pampering too - although it might include a trip out to buy some wood for her to build a new shed in the garden.  Yes, she wants wood for Mothers Day.  Hands up, how many of you girls would be happy with a few planks of wood for a special day?   No?  Didn't think so!


Another thing that is approaching fast is my trip to Lundy - we leave a week tomorrow...

Will I survive a week on Craggy Island?

Really wondering about the weather, it changes so often at the moment you really don't know what to expect!

More soon, I hope!

Almost!

 Had a lucky escape yesterday.  I got my bike out to ride to work but the saddle was a bit loose.  Grabbing my trusty allen key I tightened it up...

and the bold (make that BOLT!) sheered off!

Could have been nasty - I had visions of it all coming off when I was half way down the rather steep hill into Canterbury.

Number One Son had been catching up on South Park had an even nastier vision of what would have happened.  If you are a South Park fan you will know what he said.  If not, I will spare you the description.

With the sun coming out, I got a few opportunities to take some photos...

 

 

 

My first butterfly of the year!

 

 

Plants in my mum's garden.

 

 

 

A challenger to Grumpy Cat?  I hope he has a name like Tyson and isn't called something like Mr Tibbles...

A long weekend...

Before I get onto the weekend, I guess I should clarify what "bibbed" meant.  He "sounded his horn".  Guess it goes back to the old days when a car horn went BIB BIB.

Anyway, to the weekend.

Bryn, our oldie, who we now believe to be about 14 years old, had to be put down on Saturday.  A couple more small strokes had taken their toll, and she just wasn't "there" most of the time.  She had also started to get a fluid build up around her neck which the vet said was probably protien leaking from her system.  Old age was just catching up so we went for the kinder option before she suffered or had a major stroke which would not have been good for any of us.

Here she is, having fun unwrapping presents at Christmas. She was a real sweetie, and we all miss her a lot.

Custard has accepted that she has gone, having a nose around her bed etc.  Frou Frou actually seems happy to see the back of her, being able to reclaim her position of Top Dog.  They were never great friends, those two!  You can still see the pack instinct at work with a small group of dogs, can't you?


On Sunday, we woke up feeling rather battered, so Mrs RC said we should go to my Mum's and do a few jobs that we had promised to do months ago but the weather had prevented it.

So, there followed a restful day of tree trimming, fence moving and fixing 2 gates.  At one point I had to take a walk to the nearby hardware store to get some hinges and stuff.  When I got back, I found that we also needed some more screws.  The store closed in 10 minutes, so I had to run. Not something I do that often these days, but it was quite enjoyable!  No I will not be doing any half marathons anytime soon.

When we finished, my mum was really pleased with it all, and we staggered back home.

Still feeling achy today, and it is proving to be a very busy day here too!  Ah well, term is almost over...

The Fog

We have had about 3 days of constant fog, now.  It clears a bit during the day - today might be the exception, though, as it looks thicker than ever at the moment - but comes right back as the sun retreats.

It is beautiful, IMO.  I love it.

I love cycling in it too - the routes I take are winding so reduced visibility is not that big a deal really.  Of course there is always one idiot, in this case a guy in a huge white van who seemed to think that my luminous yellow jacket and flashing red LED lights were not enough to make me visible.

He bibbed.

I stuck up a finger.

He drove off.

I went back to enjoying the ride.

One thing that did amaze me was the number of people driving along with no lights on.  Silver cars are practically invisible in these conditions.  Does not affect me, of course, but I will be wondering when the accident reports start turning up on the news later.  Rather like the helicopter crash last night - flying low over Norfolk in dense fog....

Have a great weekend!
Remember, Spring is coming...

Trees and Stuff

Hah, I am enjoying my rides to work at the moment - the road has been closed to traffic while overhanging trees are chopped.  This one was taken before they closed it.

 

 

Here the trees are being held up by a telephone wire...

 

 

Talking about trees, Mrs RC has used up the branches from our wedding tree (which had to be chopped due to wind and rain) to make this nice rustic archway.

 

 

I love it - she is going to train the lilac (on the left) over the top.  The tree lives on!

 

 

 I had to take this pic this morning - how many parking rules can you break at once?

 

I make it parking on a double yellow line, parking on a pavement, parking on a cycle path and blocking a driveway.

 

Have a great day!  We have another of our pub quizes tonight - looking forward to it!

The Guinea Pig with No Name

 

Painted this little guy this morning.  Can't go out because the fence between us and next door is being replaced.  

Oh sunny day!

Yes, we have some sun today!

We had sun yesterday too, but it turned into a monsoon when I headed for home.  I squelched nicely as I can in the door, dripping water everywhere....

The weekend was very good - Mrs RC's birthday was great.  Number One Son was home from Uni for the weelend, and out daughter baked a wonderful coffee and walnut cake (Mrs RC's favourite).

OK, when I say it was wonderful, it LOOKED wonderful and everyone said it tasted amazing, but as I do not like coffee I gave it a miss.  Instead I helped demolish a raspberry pavlova that Number One Son made.

Dinner was a home made Mexicanish mashup - slow roasted chickens, beef, ribs, wraps, salad, sauces, nachos, etc.  Splendid stuff!

We had intended to go out on the Sunday, but Frou Frou had been on the receiving end of too many scraps (she is a chicken junky) and needed constant access to the garden for most of the day.  Still, we had a nice day, slobbing around chatting and eating.  In place of dinner out I managed to cobble together a rather good lasagne with home made pasta and fresh baked bread rolls.  Not quite the feast we had on Saturday, but still good.

And then it was Monday, and Number One Son headed home for a few more weeks, when he is returning for his own birthday and Mothers Day, which falls on the same weekend.

Life is very good right now.

Except for the rain, but you can't have everything can you?

OK, I guess that people who get to holiday in Florida (you know who you are...) might have everything, for a while at least  ;-)