The Wettest June on Record

It's raining, it's pouring, the old man in snoring.... It's been raining. Every day. Heavily. For months. The last time we had any sun was the end of May for a few days. I am mega fed up of doing Bikeability in the rain. Last week the alpha male I was working with refused to let the kids stand under the group of trees during a downpour so heavy, it appeared on the news that evening. Roads had been flooded, a school had been evacuated, an accident and emergency centre had been temporarily shut, and me and alpha male had been soaked to the skin. I mean totally soaked. I wrung my bra out, for crying out loud. 

I do appreciate alpha male's point of view, that you shouldn't stand under a tree in a thunder storm, but I think that applies to lone trees in fields. It isn't applicable to three trees in a housing estate full of satellite dishes and TV aerials, when the alternative is to stand in the open with a group of wringing wet kids clutching their metal bicycles and screaming after each flash of lightning. Is it me?

All hail Ra.

Anyway, we managed an afternoon of relative dryness for the summer solstice celebration at the Rollrights. The pictures are of the dancers, paying homage to Ra, the Egyptian sun-god. I took the photos on my phone, as my camera had gone off to be repaired. The screen had broken while I was on trek and the insurance had eventually payed out, so I was without camera. My phone takes good pictures, but getting the pictures off the phone and onto the computer is a complicated business. I really missed my camera. I am pleased to announce, it came back all well and better this week, so I feel I can blog again. It's funny how I seem to use pictures I've taken for writing inspiration.

Winged Dancers.

The rest of my family have been off on their travels. I suppose it is only fair, as I had my big trip this spring. Donny and Mel spent a week in Barcelona with their school. They went to see Gaudi's famous buildings and park, the football stadium, the beach, a craft village and a chocolate factory. I think they had a great time, although they came back totally pooped. 


Nick, Saskia and Eartha have gone off to Canada to visit the relatives, courtesy of some financial help from both grandmothers. They have had some stonkingly hot weather and I think the little ones have spent the week in the pool with their cousins. Jealous, much! I'm looking forward to seeing them when they come back in a few days time. It's very quiet here without them... and surprisingly tidy too!

I Want to Ride My Bycicle

It's Bank Holiday. Everyone is being festive. It's the one day of the four-day weekend that doesn't have rain forecast. Sunday had been spent in a mire of couch-potato-ness, thanks to the incessant drizzle, so Monday was going to be active. We dragged out the bikes and did a maintenance check on them all. One needs a new brake cable, another brake blocks, but we found enough roadworthy bikes to do for the day.


I took the kids and we followed as many small roads as I could find to head for the forest. The road through Buckerage was like the waves of the sea - we would sail down one hill, then have to push up the next. The kids needed plenty of breaks and had scoffed their snack food before we got anywhere near the visitor's centre.

I don't think I have a picture of Eartha looking normal.

Naturally, the centre was like a zoo, it being bank holiday. We bought some lunch and Nick met us with the dog and his bike. We followed the red route, which is about 3 miles, with Pal bounding along beside us. He loved having humans that went at his speed for once.


Back at the centre, there was some debate about what to do next. Home was unremittingly uphill, but Grandma's, although further, was downhill. We plumped for Grandma's. Nick dropped the dog off and got a lift back, then we wove our way through the trees to the back of Uncllys Farm. The bridleway was muddy and uneven and Nick's brakes squeaked like he was trying to kill a ferret with his bare hands. There was one exciting moment, when a rutted path crossed our route and I thought all the children would sail into orbit as their wheels hit the deep indentations. In fact, it was a little later that Nick suddenly stopped killing his ferret and landed with a grunt in a soft pile of brambles. We were sympathetic once we'd stopped laughing.

No, I don't know which gang symbol they are sporting.

We pushed the bikes over a cattle grid and followed the lanes and a steep hill into Bewdley. Somehow we made it through the town centre without losing any children and ended up at Mum's, where the kids were surprisingly quiet. We'd cycled about 15 miles, at a guess. I wanna do it again!

Olympic Jubilee Birthday Parties

My Birthday Cake

I got 'another year older and deeper in debt', as the song goes. I am pleased to say I am now the answer to Life the Universe and Everything. In my new capacity as The Answer, I ate a lot of Chinese food, first with my friends and then the next day with my family. Nick got me a birthday cake. My brother bought me a (3rd world gift) donkey harness, which he thought would suit me following the ravages of my trek to K2. I told him I would wear it on special occasions (if I can ever find the donkey that is currently borrowing it somewhere in the 3rd world).

Cheerleaders on a lorry

Anyway, the Olympic Torch is being carted around Britain by a selection of randomly chosen people. I raced down to Leominster to see it and just got there in time. There was a cavalcade of lorries with waving cheerleaders on them, numerous police motorcyclists and an old bloke carrying the replica golden light. I was surprisingly emotional with national pride. I didn't expect that. 

More Olympic Parade Lorries

My youngest twins saw the flame as it passed by their school. Eartha, being the cheekiest child in the universe, asked if she could hold the flame and amazingly got permission. How cool is that?! 

The Press Corps

Some other friends had to go to a funeral at the time that the flame passed through Hereford. The route to the crematorium clashed with the route that the flame was taking. Those flag-waving crowds that were watching the parade there would have seen lorries with cheerleaders, a carnival of police motorbikes and the Olympic Torch followed by a hearse. I couldn't make it up. What a send off.

Local Man Carrying the Olympic Flame

The national celebrations don't stop with the Olympics. Our Queen Liz has been on the throne for 60 years, which is quite a feat, however you look at it. Every school, village hall, town and city has organised an event, from a barbecue to a flotilla of boats on the Thames. 

Jubilee Garden Party

Nick looking like he's had enough of flag waving.

There are a lot of street parties happening this weekend and we get an extra day bank holiday. Friday we went to the Jubilee celebrations at the village hall. There was plenty of food, a quiz (we did terribly), a tree planting and a balloon release. It was really quite good fun, although I did realise half way through the evening that I'd turned up in a t-shirt that said Kyrgyzstan on it, which probably confused all the people wearing Union Jack print clothing.

Balloon Release

I think the rest of our long weekend will be spent trying to kill off the rampaging ground elder, which is trying to take over my garden. I'm on a mission. The stuff just won't give up. We're trying to stop it growing by smothering it with black bin bags, pinned down with house bricks. We've spread them all over the paths and beds where the unstoppable weed keeps coming up. My back garden currently looks like a mafia kill site.

Why'd You Put Your Backpack On?

Bluebells

Guarding the Gatepost

"Why'd you put your backpack on, if you won't just take a hike?" The words from the Barenaked Ladies song have come back to me regularly since I got back from China. For those that don't read my travel blog, I have been away for a month trekking to the base of K2 and having a mostly awesome time. I have learn an enormous amount about Uigur history and culture, a surprising amount about how difficult it is to trek at altitude and a fair amount about myself.

Pal in the Wheat Field

The trek was the hardest thing I have ever done. Not physically, maybe, but mentally I was not up to the job. Physically, well, I struggled and I needed to be a lot tougher. I could have walked it all, but I didn't go fast enough and this was more of a problem for other people than it was for me. Consequently, I sepnt a lot of time on donkeys/camels/motorbikes and by myself walking at a slower pace. The mule riding was not, generally, my idea. I was coerced into it by people who wanted me to go faster. 

Wild Garlic Trail

So, given the problem of speed, I decided, once I got back home to try to improve on my pace. Every year there is a walk called Pound the Bounds organised. The walks (pick your favourite length) are around the boundary of the parish of Rock. I decided to go for the 12 mile walk with my favourite mutt, Pal. And I was going to do it as fast as I could walk.

Mad Sheep

I have an app on my phone that tracks a walk. It talks to me every five minutes, giving an average. I wanted to average 3 miles/hour, but in the end I only managed 2.5 miles/hour, over fences and streams and stiles and getting lost. I did 13 miles (I told you I got lost) in 5hrs 30mins, with one five minute sit down. It was tough, and the tendon at the back of one knee hurt for a day afterwards, but it wasn't dreadful. I was reasonably proud of myself.

Big Girls' Sleep-over.

"Wow! You're going to stay at Kate's all night!" said Donny. "It'll be a big girls' sleep-over! How cool!"

And indeed it was. I went over to Kate's for mushroom risotto, wine and The King's Speech. Nick had refused to get out the video as it was a load of Royalist Rubbish, apparently. This is coming from the man that obsessively reads about the Tudor period and knows the details of Elizabeth I's love life. Am I missing something? Anyway, the King's Speech was an excellent movie, superbly acted by Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush.



In the morning, we went and fed the ducks and a whopping great swan over at the wildlife reserve behind her house.

Arley, Areley and Helpful People (Not)

Despite just getting over the cold from hell, I decided I needed to do a bit of a walk. The trek to K2 is coming up really soon and I'm starting to freak out about my lack of fitness. Nick had given me a book of local walks for Christmas, so I picked one out of there. It starts off in Arley near the Severn Valley Railway station and heads through the forest, across the road at Button Oak, further through the forest, across the road at Callow Hill, then loops back past the golf course and Mum's house to the SVR station in Bewdley. I reckoned if I followed the route as far as Mum's, then it would be about a six mile jaunt.
Nick dropped Pal and me off. It was a lovely day. As before, there were a few points in the guide that were not exactly clear unless you knew the route, but somehow I didn't make a mistake. I saw a few people, but mostly these were at the Button Oak car-park. The rest of the forest was empty. Pal ran up and down, doing at least three times the distance I did.


Somewhere near the back of Uncllys Farm, Pal flushed out a magnificent stag, which bounded unhurriedly away through the oak trees. Pal bounded after him and I didn't see him again for twenty minutes... but he came back, as always. He can follow my trail for miles and find me again.

Not long after that, I stopped for lunch. Pal lay down by my feet for most of it, only wandering off just before I was ready to leave. I packed up, thinking he couldn't have gone far. I whistled and whistled, but he didn't come. Eventually, I carried on, thinking he would catch me up when he was ready. This usually works, but today it didn't. When I got to the main road I realised I had a problem. Pal couldn't follow my trail across the main road.

There was nothing for it. I called Nick to come and get me in the car so we could go and look for the dog. We drove up and down that track with no luck and then went to the visitor's centre at Callow Hill. Yup, there was Pal tied up. Someone had helpfully caught my dog and taken him to the centre (which wasn't on my route at all). They must have grabbed him when I was eating my sandwiches. I know they were trying to be a good citizen and all that, but it was a right pain in the backside. That was the end of that walk, but hey, there's always another one.

Close to Mum's is a place called Areley (yes, it is spelt differently but said the same). Dave has his workshop in the woods down there. A couple of days after the Arley walk, I went on a walk round Areley. Dave wanted me to sort out the NVC status for each compartment in the woods, so I wandered round with the dog looking at the different trees. I took a few photos to share with you. The woods are really peaceful - a lime pollard and a walk up through the conifers.

Snot

The Chinese for a runny nose translates literally as "running nose bogies". My entire head is attempting to dribble out through my nasal passages. I had a bit of a cold - not much, just a gravelly voice - and then I went to the travel clinic. They gave me a vaccination against rabies ready for my trip to China next month.

"You may get a few flu-like symptoms," she said. Oh joy. Now I know it isn't flu, because I had the jab for that too, back in the autumn, but it sure feels like it. I am bunged up and sneezing, with skin that crawls when I touch it. I can't breathe so I can't sleep. My watery eyes are half shut and bleary. If this is what the vaccine is like, I'm sure glad I'm not going to get the disease.

Whilst feeling like my head was in the process of melting, we had a new boiler installed. Random blokes wandered through my house all half term. The old boiler was condemned last year, so we've done well to get it to limp on for a further 12 months. There comes a time when you just have to get things done, even if you don't know how to pay for them really. Somehow it will all work out, I hope. Anyway, now we have a new boiler and a radiator in Mel's room, which means he will have direct warmth for the first time in seven years. It's all very posh and even has a remote controlled timer system. This is a far cry from the archaic beast we've been living with. I kind of miss having to top the pressure up manually every two hours.

On a positive note, (Anne, if you're reading this) we have finally eaten all the green beans out of our freezer. Hurray! It's only taken four months. I wonder what we will eat now?

The trek is coming up soon and I am starting to get stressed out about it. I should be doing lots of training, and I have done a few long walks, but I feel it is not enough. This week has been impossible anyway, what with having the kids at home and having the team of boiler dudes strolling around my abode. Next week is looking more possible. Lucky Pal... lots of long walks for you!