Biking is dangerous

I got to work this morning, took my helmet off and tried to put my sunglasses back on but I was still holding my keys in my hand and managed to stab myself in the eye with them :(

Ouch ouch ouch ouch

Crikey, that was a wet one

This weekend was the Ramblers camping and walking weekend in the Peak District.

I decided to go to the camping bit despite it meaning that I had to hire a car because I don't trust my bike not to break down on long journeys at the moment. I ended up with a Peugeot 1007 (the one with the sliding doors).

I tried to book into the Edale Kinder Scout Camping site but they couldn't take any more cars so after some umming and arring I decided to go to a different campsite from all the other campers (grr). Later in the evening we were all going to meet in Castleton but I couldn't find anyone and I couldn't get hold of Gordon to find out which pub they were all at so after 30 minutes or so I gave up and went back to the campsite (grr grr).

Still, I did get read all the magazines I had brought with me.

On the sunday everyone met up in Hayfield to start the walk up to the top of Kinder Scout, and it chucked it down; we all decided that the rain was better than being boiled alive in rain coats while trying to climb the hill and so everyone stripped down to t-shirts to continue the climb - unfortunately no one was wearing a white cotton t-shirt and so there were no wet t-shirt competitions. It was while we were eating lunch in t-shirts and heavy rain that I hit upon the idea of an inflatble rainshelter which you could unpack, pull a cord and it would self inflate into a giant tent, position a ramble at each corner to stop it blowing away and hey presto a perfect shelter.

The walk was great, very picturesque and the rain just made the walk more enjoyable as far as I'm concerned.

2 thumbs up for Diane who lead the walk.

I am a short arse :(

Yesterday I went over Pure Triumph again, this time I was going to try the Tiger on for size.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get my feet down when I was on it which would have meant I would have to fling the bike over to one side everytime I stopped, I need to get leg extensions.

I may need to change my plans for my next bike, all the Big Trailie Bikes I have been looking at have similar seat heights.

In other news. Today is my last day at Plasmon. I'm going in this afternoon to hand in my door key and say goodbye to people.

Gardening Leave Is Hell

How am I suppose to enjoy myself if I don't have anything to do today?

I guess I could go for a walk but I'd much rather rather be at the office with poor air conditioning slaving over of clunking mechanical libraries, who wants to put up with noisy birds and bees humming and rivers chuggling away to themselves.












This message goes out to all those poor souls who have to work today :)

Good News & Slime Go Hand in Hand

This morning, I went down to St Neots Motorcycles to get some Tyre Weld to fix the puncture in my Rear Tyre and while I was down there I was told that the Garage had been authorised to carry out the insurance repair work.

The garage are ordering the bits and will then need to take an existing body panel away so that the colour can be matched at the spray shop.

Hopefully, the bike will be going in for the work towards the end of this week or maybe beginning of next week but at the moment the mechnical can't be more accurate than that the moment.

Also, the bike shop didn't have any Tyre Weld foam but did have the Green Slime stuff so I used that instead.

Hooray for Hastings Direct finally getting the claim sorted out.

T-Mobile Direct Debit Update

For those who were wondering about my whether my T-Mobile Direct Debit form ever turned up (I know you're all on the edge of your seats with anticipation).

It's not shown up yet which means that anyone who was betting on the first 2 possible arrival dates have lost.

Stay tuned for more exciting updates to this ongoing story.

Sussex

I'm back in Sussex this weekend since it's Fathers Day and because of the state of the motorbike at the moment I decided to come down by train instead of riding down.

Yesterday, we all went to a school fete with Anni where I eat a Roast Pork with Apple Sauce roll (yummy) and got a couple more tattoo (and I didn't even cry when they had to hold that cold wet rag against my arms to make the tattoo stick ;) )

Then we had a BBQ and watched Casino Royale; Isn't Bond a violent chap.#

I'm heading back to Cambridgeshire today, train leaves Horsham at about 16:00

Kellogg's Robbed Me

14 June 2007 07:50

I had Cocopops for breakfast this morning but one Cocopop didn't have any chocolate on it :(

It was a naked Cocopop, an Albino Cocopop; it was a Rice Crispy.

I shall buy a bar of Dairy Milk to melt over any other naked Cocopop's I find in order to keep Recommended Daily Amount of Chocolate.

Ocean's 13

13 June 2007 06:16

Last night Matt, Martina & I went to see Ocean's 13 at Cineworld in Huntingdon after our usual prefilm meal at Pizza Express.

I remember seeing Ocean's 11 and loving it but Ocean's 12 was so bad that I had actually blocked it's existence from my memory. It was only when I looked the film up on IMDB that I remembered any of the plot so I was nervous about whether seeing this film would be a better use of my time than spending an evening dropping food near an Ants Nest and timing how long it took the colony to recover all the food (actually I have done that in the past and it's very interesting to watch).

Luckily Ocean's 13 was much better than 12 and I really enjoyed it. The heist plot had lot's of twists but without losing the overal direction which seemed to be the problem with Ocean's 12.

Plus there were no pointless love interest side stories this time around.

T-Mobile Direct Debit

11 June 2007 14:45

The saga continues.

I got my usual monthly phone call from T-Mobile today reminding me that I haven't paid my bill again only this one was different because the lady asked why the payment was late.

So I told her about how I had repeatedly requested the direct debit mandate which T-Mobile had repeatedly failed to send out and the 1 time the mandate reached me, I filled it in and sent it back only for the direct debit to still not be setup and so now I deliberately wait until I get a phone call before paying the bill as a way of maximising T-Mobiles cost for collecting the payment.

The corvesation ended with her saying she would send me the mandate again.

So ladies and gents, l'm accepting bets on when the form arrives.

* Tomorrow mornings post
* Before the end of the week
* Before the next bill (due on 6th July)
* 1 week before the contract ends in September
* 1 week after the contract ends
* 1 month before society evolves beyond the use of money

Geddington Walk

Today's walk with the Ramblers was a 9 mile circular from Geddington.

It was a relatively small group this week, only 10 of us which was a shame because it was a really nice walk.

There were a number of stings from Nettles on the walk and it was very humid all day which sapped our strength so it felt like more than a 9 miles walk.

On the way around, we bumped in the main Peterborough Ramblers group but the wrinklers were doing a longer walk than us and so still had a fair way to go even though we were on the home stretch.

Weeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!

09 June 2007 15:00

This morning I took the Motorbike to my usual garage so that they could give me a quote for the insurance claim. He found more problems with the bike than the original garage which makes me doubt the bike will be repaired so this afternoon I went over to Pure Triumph based in Wellingborough to have a test ride on a Triumph Sprint.

http://www.triumph.co.uk/uk/Motorcycle_Sprint_ST.aspx

And a lot of fun it was too; fast, nimble, comfortable and it looks great. I came back with a great big smile on my face. I have no doubt it would be a great touring/weekend ride bike.

I only have 2 concerns about the bike;
* Price: At £8000 new, it's the most expensive of the 3 bikes that I'm considering buying and although great fun, I not sure it's £8000 worth of fun.
* Commuting: the exhaust pipe on the Sprint runs under the seat, no problem while you are flying along a road but I got stuck in traffic for 10 minutes on the test ride and I was beginning to cook bits of me which shouldn't be cooked.

eBay Sale Item

08 June 2007 09:10

Last month, I tried to sell a spare SD Card that I had lying around the house on eBay, this was the first thing I had ever tried to sell on eBay.

The auction ended and I sent the SD Card off to the winner but it never arrived. After increasingly angry emails from the winner who was effectively accusing me of never sending the item because he had won the auctions at a really low price I just got fed up of waiting on the item and gave him a full refund despite my suspicions that he probably had received the item.

Well, that item arrived back at my house this morning saying that I had underpaid the postage by 6p and that the person I had sent the item to had not come into the sorting office to collect it.

That means the guy sent me a torrent of bad vibes (like, heavy man) my way for the sake of walking to his local post office.

My first thought was, I'll get in contact with the bloke and explain whats happened and that if he wants it at the original price he can have it - then I realised that I really am too nice when dealing with stuff like this and have decided to keep it for myself.

Then I realised that after I had given the bloke his £7 refund, he could just walked down the post office paid the £1.06 (*1) and got the SD Card for a 1/4 of what he paid for it. ha

*1 - there is a £1 handling fee if you under pay the postage which I think is the real reason for making the postage system so complicated these days

Ouch!

07 June 2007 18:45

I just stubbed my toe while chopping up a pepper. It really, really hurts. :-(