Aidan took 4 unassisted steps yesterday!!!
He hasn’t got the confidence to let go and walk on his own yet, but he’s got the balance now for sure. Chris tricked him into thinking he had her finger when he was really holding onto his toy instead.
Very sly, mummy…
Anyway, we are going to work with him this weekend and see if we can get him to let go on his own. We’ll try to video the process as well, although I’m sure due to Sod’s Law we won’t get his actual first steps on film.
Well, it was certainly an interesting weekend from a weather perspective. Waking to find almost an inch of snow on Easter Sunday certainly wasn’t expected, nor was sleet, freezing rain and snow for most of the rest of the weekend.
Thursday
The holiday weekend didn’t start off well beginning on Thursday afternoon. I was on my way home from Tunbridge Wells when I found the M25 was completely closed due to a major accident where a semi-truck had overturned onto a VW Polo.
The accident caused the motorway to be closed for at least 2.5 hours and I was stuck sitting in the freezing rain for about 90 minutes of that before they started letting a single-file trickle of cars through. It’s times like this that I’m really glad to be on the bike. I was able to get to the front of the queue so when they let people through I was able to go immediately.
Friday
Friday was pretty uneventful. I spend most of the morning puttering around working on my bikes.
I was able to get the TM all back together and pretty much ready to go race now except for the clutch. I also managed to break the fuel tap that controls the flow of gas from the tank to the engine by dropping the tank awkwardly, so another £10 down the drain. (After buying it, I found out that “TM” really stands for “Time & Money”)
Here it is with everything back together.
I didn’t do too much with my road bike other than put the baffles back in the exhaust. It’s now back to being a bit quieter and easier to ride.
Saturday
Even though the weather forecast was ominous, Chris and I decided to go to an enduro race around mid-day. The trip there was easy and the venue wasn’t hard to find. The road to get to the ‘parc ferme’ was entertaining to say the least. (I later found out that the reason the road is in such bad repair is that repairs are not allowed since it is an ancient Roman road and thus protected.)
Once we got there and got settled, we tried to put Aidan in his backpack and walk around a bit so I could take some pictures, but he wasn’t having any of it. It was freezing cold and he was NOT happy about being out in the wind. He doesn’t like strong winds on the best of days so it wasn’t any real surprise that he was pissed off.
We took him back to the car after about 15 minutes and Chris ended up staying there with him for the next hour while I wandered around taking pictures.
Here are a couple.
After we got home and had a chance to thaw out a bit, we decided to go to Aylesbury to see Chris’s parents. Originally we were going to wait and go up on Sunday morning and just stay the day, but in hind-sight I’m glad we didn’t.
Easter Sunday
Sunday was a nice day in at Chris’s parents’ house. Aidan slept in until almost 9am – which never happens. When we finally woke up, there was almost an inch of snow on the ground! (I’ll post a picture later.)
Some of her family came over for Easter lunch and it ended up being quite a nice day. We left late in the afternoon, but all the snow had melted by then.
Monday
The weather didn’t get any better on Monday and we stayed in the house as long as we could before going out to meet some friends at the White Horse Pub in Richmond.
Right, there’s a bit of back story that I should explain before getting to the point of this post.
When I started riding last August, I didn’t have any proper motorcycle gloves. One of the guys at work (who rides) had an old pair of leather gloves he let me borrow until I got my own pair. Since it was in the summer and still warm I didn’t think too much about it and just kept wearing his since he wasn’t in any hurry to get them back.
As it started getting cooler, I switched to my Windstopper gloves. I know they don’t offer any real crash protection, but they are warm and comfortable so I wore them. Again, telling myself that when it got ‘really cold’ I’d get some proper gloves.
Well, it got even colder and instead of getting new motorcycle gloves, I went and bought some thin wool inner gloves to wear under the Windstoppers.
This was perfectly fine when commuting back and forth from Richmond to London. I never got above 50mph and the wind wasn’t really a problem – until I started riding to Tunbridge Wells (TW).
The ride to TW is much longer and at motorway speeds. Combine this with 1-6C temperatures and it doesn’t take a great deal of imagination to see that even the Windstopper gloves have a hard time keeping my fingers warm.
I’ve looked into some ‘winter’ gloves, but everything I’ve tried is too bulky. I was almost sold on a pair of Gerbing gloves, but since it is almost the end of the cold season, I thought I would hold off until next winter.
So in the man time, I’ve soldiered on with the old gloves.
I bought myself some Racer Sting ’summer’ gloves the other day that I’ve been wearing on my commute back and forth to London, but I hadn’t tried them on the longer ride until today. I thought I’d try it as an experiment since my hands haven’t really been too cold with just the gloves and no liners so far. Maybe I’m just getting used to it, but they seem a lot warmer than they should be for summer gloves, but hey, I’m not arguing.
Anyway, they did about as well as I expected. My hands were freezing about half-way into the trip. However, I noticed something a bit weird today. My right hand, and particularly my right index finger, was much colder than my left. So much so that I was finding it quite distracting.
The only theory I have is that maybe there was a slight cross-wind coming from my right side so my right hand was getting more wind, but I didn’t notice it if there was. Anyway, it will be interesting to see what happens on the way home tonight. I brought my Windstopper gloves with me ‘just in case’. If my hands get too cold I might pull over and try to get them on over my summer gloves. That should be interesting… more later.
I can’t stand it. The amount of crap we get sent in the post these days is mad. Bills, statements, menus, etc… We’re getting buried under it all!
SO…
We’ve decided to get a scanner and scan everything as it comes in so we don’t have to keep all the paper in the house.
Scan it – Shred it. That’s going to be the new mantra.
It should also give us plenty of packing material /recycling to boot.
Not only are we getting shod of all the random paper, but we are working on getting rid of all the other clutter as well. Loads of unused stuff is going on eBay.
I’ve already sold a couple of cameras, Chris is selling her amp at the moment, and I’m working on getting rid of my old American football kit.
I’d like to get some boxes and pack up a load of old books and shove them in the attic. That would visually clean up a lot and give us more space for new books when we get them.
Aidan had another big adventure last weekend in going to Skipton to see Chris’s friend Emma and her baby Jasmine (Jazza).
Here’s Aidan at the start of the trip.
He’s very happy to be in his new car seat since it means he can now see out of the car like a ‘big’ boy.
We left around 10:15 in the morning and didn’t make it to Emma’s house until 3:50 in the afternoon. This was mostly due to the fact that there was quite a bit of construction with average 50 mph sections. We were even stuck not moving at all for about 15 minutes at one point. Not what you want when trying to escape on holiday.
The first night was fairly calm. Aidan had trouble getting to sleep in the travel cot even though we brought an extra pad for the bottom of it. Can’t blame him really, I’d probably cry if I had to sleep in it.
On Saturday, we got up and went into town and went to check out Skipton Castle. The website says, “Over 900 years old, Skipton Castle is one of the most complete and best preserved medieval castles in England.” You can read more about it here.
We had a good time in Skipton over the weekend and I’ll write a full blog entry about it tonight or tomorrow.
Nothing else to report really.
So I finally sold something on eBay. I’ve been buying stuff for ages, but haven’t ever sold anything.
Since the bikes are costing more money than my wife is probably comfortable with – and – since we are running out of space in our flat, I thought it was about time I got rid of some stuff I hadn’t used in ages.
The first things to go were my old cameras. I had a Nikon F80 SLR film camera (remember those?) and lens combination that cost me around £300 when I bought it new, but that I haven’t used in ages. It’s been sitting packed up in its box on my shelf gathering dust, so it was time to go.
I sold it last night for £80, which is about what I thought I’d get for it. I would like to have made £100, but “C’est la vie”.
I also put my Mamiya medium format camera kit up, but it hasn’t met the reserve price yet, so I’m leaving it up there for now. You can bid on it here if you so desire.
Anyway, the first sale was a nightmare. The buyer wrote me to say he was trying to pay, but the system was blocking his payment. It took me absolutely ages to work out that my default currency on PayPal was still set to USD instead of GBP. Once I changed that, it was ok.
So I emailed him back and asked him to try it again. No dice. It was now trying to charge him VAT (sales tax) but there’s no VAT on this type of sale. So it was back into the depths of the help systems on eBay and PayPal.
I finally found the setting that controls VAT charges and was able to disable it. Email the buyer again and ask him to try again. SUCCESS! WOOHOO!
Sad, I know. Oh well, it should be better next time. Isn’t that what we always tell ourselves?
Well, the tow bar (trailer hitch in US-speak) has finally been installed on the car, so I can go pick up the new trailer when we get back from Yorkshire on Monday.
I know that probably isn’t terribly exciting for most of you, but it is a major step in my getting the TM up and running so I can go do some off-road riding. I’ve had that bike for several months now, but haven’t been able to ride it ‘in anger’ yet, so the prospect of actually being able to get out there is very exciting for me.
Chris, Aidan and I are all going to see a lady named Emma who lives in Skipton, North Yorkshire.
You can see from the push-pin that it’s pretty far away as far as the UK is concerned.
I’ve only ever been to Leeds ‘up norf’ before, so it should be interesting. I’ll try to take loads of pictures and maybe some video if I get the chance.
Ever since I got a pure off-road bike, I’ve needed a a trailer to tow it around with. I have been bidding for them on eBlag for absolutely ages and haven’t ever managed to get one for a decent price – until now! I had to get some of that last-minute bidding software to do it, but it worked.
So here’s my new trailer.
I’m really excited about it. Not only will I be able to tow the off-road bike, but I’ll be able to tow the Fazer as well. Track day here I come!
