Finished

Absolutley brilliant, a little short for my liking, (but i think they could have made it 10 times longer and I'd still have complained) definitley the funniest game I've ever played. There is a co-op mode which would drag out the playtime but I'd need some geek friends and/or a decent internet connection for that. Get it, it's awesome.
"I'm going to attempt a manual over ride on this wall, could get a bit technical. hang on!"

Quickies

Managed to sneak out for a couple of night rides, no word from johnnie so went on my own tuesday, I was dressed up for monsoon weather and it actually wasn't bad so I overheated plenty :-( Up winterhill where I noticed my brand new chaintug had fallen apart, the threaded bar had unthreaded and dropped off! Useless, wheel had shifted in dropouts. Turns out shimano QRs done up well bastard tight will hold the wheel in place OK. Down 2lads, wildes, pike, hole in't wall were my lack of fitness showed, I was broken, ended up pushing! Then back home slowly the way I came looking for the missing chaintug parts, no luck.
Tonight was a bit better, certainly faster and felt stronger, sun was doing it's best impression of a balmy summer evening despite the chill in the air and water on the ground, sneaky bugger! Up winterhill (bloke parked up getting some very close attention to his lap from his passenger) down san marino, was riding through belmont after only 60mins of riding, cool. Along WW and upto Darwen tower, along the backs to whitehall and home via roller coaster, turton tower and finally the chicken run along the railway. 28miles in 2.5hours, some road miles perked the average up but I'm happy with that, finally a quick(ish) ride - remember that getting quick plan? Well it's not going too well so far.
Oh and both rides were done without lowering the saddle (worried about delaminating my carbon seatpost possibly an unwise purchase that), how the hell do people manage to go quick like that? dunno how much slower I actually am on the downhills but it feels like lots. When I'm stood up and I want to bend my knees I can only drop a couple of inches before my arse hits the saddle how do you soak up drops/impacts with that much travel/movement? If only dropper seatposts weren't so expensive, heavy and shonky.

Well I never knew that

Wilderswood , my favourite local downhill, didn't used to be a wood and it used to have a gert big castle (well a big hoose anyway) on top, Rockhaven Castle right next to georges lane. Saw a book at my dads about old horwich, some interesting stuff in there, I'd never even heard the name rockhaven before. Down at the bottom of the downhill there used to big a whopping great textile factory aswell. The mill was knocked down early last century, the castle was knocked down during WW2 cos it was feared it would be a useful navigation/fixing point for german bombers aiming for the locomotive works and apparently "some stone travelled to America in the form of ballast in the grain ships". Area was then forested over later, for which I am quite appreciative :-)

Home at last

Happy now :-)

Downside

Now the not so good stuff. When Mrs woke me at 1:30am to tell me she was in labour we called the hospital and they said the 2 community midwives on call had just finished a delivery but had to go back to base and do paperwork and it would be "dangerous" to send them out to us, we had to sit and hold tight til 8am, they suggested the mrs go back to bed to slow things down a bit! Big black mark there then. Fortunatley mother in law has done significant midwife training, she came round and said it was early days yet (she was still as pissed off as us at the treatment tho) and as it turned out things didn't progress too quick and 8 was a reasonable time for the midwifes to show (and they were good)
When he was born alex was breathing very hard very quick and his oxygen levels were low so after some umming and arring an ambulance was called (again) and mum and baby went to hospital. Looks like it was probably just fluid inhaled during labour so hopefully they'll be back tomorrow, fingers crossed.
Cleaning up after a homebirth is grim. My mrs would recommend a water birth, I would recommend a waterbirth at a hospital, I'm pretty sure fathers don't have to strain (bleurgh) drain and scrub down the pools at hospital post partem.
In hospital last night mrs was feeling dizzy, prob low blood sugar, wanted a drink so I went to get a coke or another tasty sugary beverage. Nope the hospital has a veto on sugary drinks, not allowed, not even the perennial hospital visitors favourite lucozade. Not a thing. Kind of a health trip, promoting healthiersweetener addled drinks so I'm half with them on this, but seeing as how you can buy as many creme eggs/marsbars/doubledeckers as you can stuff down your fat hole to go with your "healthy" drink I'm left feeling a bit pissed off that I can't have a full fat coke despite foregoing a calorific chocolate feast. Proper health policy or none at all please.

That was wierd

Mrs giving birth to our second child in our front room, she always wanted a "home confinement" but last time it wasn't to be, complications. This time she wanted a home thingy with added wet. This is Charlies inflatable pool at his grandpas

and this is the behemoth his mum bought for his lil' siblings water birth.

Thats a hell of an upgrade for charlie's paddling pool next summer! Easily fit 2 adults in there, 3 or 4 if you're good friends ;-) Took 10minutes to inflate with leccy pump but an hour to fill. Helped a lot with pain relief apparently altho it was a bit dark inside the pool for the midwives (3 of them!) to see what they were doing so I broke out the hope 4. "Ooh that's bright isn't it?" money well spent! Mrs started flagging after 10 hours of contractions so I pepped her up with some caffeine power gels, sickly sweet temporary recovery food stuff of champions. It was getting on, things didn't seem to be progressing so an ambulance was called. As we heard the sirens the mother in law pulled the gas&air out of mr good wife's mouth and said "MTFU and push" (I may be paraphrasing). And lo with some mighty heaving and a fair bit of screaming Alex* was born.


Awesome and the bike geek in me is proud to know the lighting and nutritional needs of this home confinement were supplied by my hobby :-)

For those who care about such things weight was an eye watering 10lb 6oz, it has to be said he looks the double of charlie, well actually more of a 1.5 scale replica than a double.

*provisionally, we both like alex but his full name sounds bloody stupid, especially in a bolton accent (we only realised this when the midwife asked us for his name for the notes). Hmm.

Boltons burning!

Glorious weather all weekend, I managed to avoid most of the royal wedding tho we went to my mums in the afternoon and saw the last 5 mins of the 8 HOURS of coverage on the BBC. The news came on straight after, number one story "there's been a wedding today" FFS! Anyway monday afternoon I finally made it out for a short ride. Took the heckler decided to do some downhills, up wildes to san marino, new brakes to bed in so thought this would be the place, nope. Horrendous headwind meant I only braked twice all the way down and even had to pedal in plases to keep above walking pace! Back up and then down the shoulder, lots of brake dragging there, bedded in nicely now :-). The view was unusual to say the least. Johnnie hasd text on saturday to say rivi was ablaze, I didn't notice much round rivi but great hill was black. Headed over to spitlers edge, a couple of fire engines at the top of rivi road. Thought they might stop me but no I headed off across the moor, when I got to the slabs the fire had spread up there but was just smoking now.




Hmm. Carried on to the top of great hill and the devastation was even more widespread and swtill a lot of smoking.


It was hellish windy on top but it was a tailwind all the way to white coppice, the downhill was excellent, the best it's been riding for about 10years, the middle section is completely dry now and I barely had to pedal. I flew down it, speed speed speed. Brilliant. Over to rivi via lead mines, up to pigeon tower and back down ICR then back up to the pike, did that, 2 lads and wildeswood, brilliant ride. Was battered next day.
Anyway I better cut this short, looks like wife definitley is in labour after all.

April roundup

Best XC month ever, while I've manged a 500 mile month a few times before this is the first time I've done over 400 miles offroad. I'm quite proud of that, pity I haven't had the opportunity to go further afield, would have loved to do some lakes/peaks/dales trips but not had chance. Hope to make it up to bowderdale and swaledale to do some green carpet riding before the trails turn to mush again, fingers crossed. Lots of offroad commutes have been fun,  no rants and moans about idiot drivers, just peaceful, picturesque stillness and a good start/finish to the working day.