Friday night ride...

Perhaps having to cut back on paddling for a little while isn't quite as bad as I thought....

Ouch

This made two of my toes bleed;

and made a huge cracking noise. Boat is still stiff as a stiff thing though.

Strange...

...how you often find something you didn't know you were looking for, when you aren't looking for it, in a place you never thought to look.

Gears?

I've been thinking about it for a long time, and have finally bought a singlespeed bike.
I was a bit concerned I might get a kicking on it, but not having to think about gears makes riding such a sublime experience I'm about lost for words...

Driveside simplicity

:-)

Belgian Independence Day

Saturday July 21st is, according to my diary at least, Belgian Independence Day. In celebration of this, I took two days off work and we went walking in the Lake District.

This turned out to be quite remarkable for two main reasons. Firstly, I actually managed to get a Saturday off work, and secondly, our much abused natural world chose this weekend to unleash rainy fury on the Midlands.

Fortunately the closest we got to it was watching it on the news, drinking wine, while the sun set over the Lakes...
That brief interlude of tv aside, we spent the rest of the time walking and chilling. It was great.

It was windy...

It was cloudy...
It rained a bit...

Bethan bought some new waterproofs, so I bravely offered to test them by throwing her into the bracken...

I can('t) see my house from here...

One of us can't stand up straight...

In the process of making a walk into a scramble, which turned out to be quite off-putting for the group behind us, who then seemed to stop and spend a long time looking at maps :-)

Spot the person...

An awesome weekend. Makes going back to work a drag, but you're never more than a few days away from a day off.

Demo day...

After raising my blood pressure all week by its absence, the "Great British Summer" finally arrived on Friday afternoon in time for the demo day at Paddlesport.

I just want to say a huge thank-you to everyone who helped make it an awesome day!

Here's some photos;

Lots of cars...

Lots of people...

Lots of potential...

Lots of space...

Lots of cloud, but fortunately at the end of the day...

Hubris and Nemesis

New boat...


...busted paddles.