Its been a while but I've actually got round to putting something on here!

The Holiday

This year I am planning on doing a bit more cycling than I did last year, and part of this is going to be another cycling holiday in July (I've also got a contingency plan for a weekend in September, if I get enough Brownie points ;) ).

I've decided to

Yes this is a repeat of a post I made last year in Facebook. This was obviously the better place to put it, but I didn't. Which was stupid.

Photo gallary is available here

Day 1

Packing done and the bike loaded and ready to go at 10am, but I set off on Friday a little later than planned as we had Ellie’s Teacher of the Deaf around (and for some reason that title always makes me think of Thirteenth Warrior) so I

On Friday night I did my second Taunton to Exeter ride, again with Andy Watson from work. We used the same route as last time with the goal of trying to do it faster.

The ride started off well, the skies were threatening rain and the whole of the south west was under a yellow alert for heavy showers but we decided to go ahead regardless. the first section to Wellington started well but we encountered the rain half way there. I had my panniers with water proofs etc. so was ok, Andy decided to brave

Amy has Ellie down at her parents today, so I was able to get up early without having to help out with her morning routine and get out on the bike. I set of just after 7am and went for a bit of a run around the flatter areas of the local countryside. This means I was able to do a bit more distance and keep my average speed up a bit higher as I had no huge hills to climb.

It may sound odd with the Somerset levels being so close, but its actually quite hard to find a route out of Taunton that doesn't

Another lovely day today so set off a little early and did a bigger cycle to work. Basically it was the same route as last time I did this with a little extra added on the top making it just under 15 miles.

Setting off today was ok, it was really cold to start with and I was glad I'd decided to wear my thermals. Going through Taunton at that time is fine, there's basically no traffic on the road at all. Getting out towards Hestercombe gardens and I was going ok, I'm still getting over another bout

On Friday myself and a work colleague (Andy Watson) decided to cycle from work to Exeter. This was the first big ride I've done for a while so I was interested to see how I stood up to it, and how well all the weights work I've been doing over the last few years translates into any type of cardio fitness levels. I'd also finally got my clip in shoes so could use the new pedals on my bike fully, and these really helped. It was surprising to see how much of a help they were actually. Apart from me and the

First longish cycle ride before work. I was not pushing hard, this was more an equipment shakedown than anything else. I fitted my new pedals to the bike last night, unfortunately my shoes haven't turned up yet so just had to do this in trainers which was not optimal. On the bike I had 2 water bottles and my panniers attached with work clothes and waterproofs in them for added weight.

Firstly, I wish I'd had my camera with me this morning. I took a route up past Hestercombe gardens, to Fyne Court,

Yep, a new category on my blog. The reason for this being that I'm trying to get ready for a bit of a charity event we're organising at work. The plan is a long distance (100 miles +) cycle ride on 1 day around the August bank holiday to raise money for the work charity. at work every year we vote for a charity and the company do all their charitable events for that one. This year we actually voted for 2, MacMillan Cancer Support and the Somerset branch

I realise I haven't put anything up about Ellie for ages, so here's an update.

Ellie has been going to nursery now since the start of the year, and it's really beginning to show. She's walking fine now, even running when she gets too excited, and she's babbling at everything. She also does things that she has obviously picked up from nursery, like handing you her bowl when she's full, which is brilliant to see. Every time I pick her up from there I seem to get a new story about her. This week it wa

This week we had Ellie's cochlear implant operation. It was a bit of a marathon!

The operation was some time on Tuesday, we didn't know anything more detailed than that, and the possibility that we may have to stay overnight. So we dutifully rocked up at 7:30am at Bristol Children's Hospital with a starved baby. Surprisingly, given that she's definitely an Onesti when it comes to food, this didn't seem to bother Ellie. We were quite lucky in that we didn't have to wait around for long, they took El