The photo

Not bad, eh. Not a nose ring or tattoo in sight!

:-)

Last minute rush!

Why do I do it??? We are leaving at 4.30 a.m. tomorrow morning and I intended to tidy up the -very messy - house. I haven't even finished packing, nor have I made a list of addresses for the people I am going to send cards to (I did printed out labels when I went to Oz, but that was because I was going for longer).

Last week I got in a panic about not having done anything about getting my business set up for September and contrary to what people seem to think (either I've got a massive pension, or that Paul is keeping me - neither of which are the case) I do need to earn some money. i also need to make some kind of investment so that when I do retire I have enough to live on. Anyway, the upshot of this was that I finally wrote my entry for the WorcNet directory last Friday and sent it in. Today I have emailed them a photo to use - Paul took it just now, with me kneeling on the bed (there is a nice plain background behind it) going through a series of poses and expressions, most of which looked like someone you wouldn't want to employ at all!

Yesterday I emailed all of my Bradford council contacts, which took eight hours as I wanted to write to each one individually. Paul tutted over this rather a lot and remarked that 'I thought you were going to spend this 6 weeks with me,' in a 'bah humbug' kind of tone. 'I will, I will,' I said 'I'll just do this ...' Then today of course I had some replies (a lot of replies) so I responded to those. I've been bowled over by the response. I've had several offers of work and have put a few dates in my diary.

People do care! More than that, people obviously do respect and value me. One person who I worked with nearly 20 years ago and who I had a little contact with in my last job, though not for a couple of years, wrote in response to my email header of 'Anna who?', 'Anna who we all know and love.' I was really touched by that. He told me to get in touch and arrange a meeting when I get back. Wow!

Becki's first birthday!

Becki is one year old today. I can't believe it's a whole year since she was born! Paul and I gave her a pink tricycle for her birthday, which Gris wanted for her. It arrived on Friday and Gris said she loves it; she sits on it and smiles. She can't pedal it yet of course - her feet don't even reach the pedals - but it has a handle so that she can be pushed on it. This afternoon she was having a party of sorts. Some of Peter's family were coming over, along with Natasha, Becki's half-sister. It saddens me that I couldn't be there and that she is growing up without knowing me. I know she's only one now, but time passes.

Yesterday evening Paul and I went to a great party, celebrating the 30th wedding anniversary of a couple of friends. They had asked us to bring musical instruments and there was an opportunity for people to perform. There were a few members of Bang On! there so we did a 15-minute slot,playing three numbers. Later on P and T (members of Bang On!) did an Appalachian clog dance, then after an interlude of entertainment from other guests, T did some belly dancing - the first time she had ever performed it alone. It was brilliant; the dancing was good, but what really made it was the long wig (she has very short hair) that she wore and the way she used it to efffect.

After the entertainment slot was over, there was a ceilidh band. It was so warm yesterday evening though that few people wanted to dance. We sat out in the foyer and some impromptu musical performances started up out there. Paul did a few numbers. We left around midnight as the party was ending. There were a number of members of Silsden Singers (a local community choir) present, including Janet Russell, who leads them. Just before we left they did a beautiful rendition of Plovi Barko, a Croation song - one of my favourites from the time I was in Bradford Voices, a few years ago. I miss singing. I stopped going to Bradford Voices back in 2003 because I just didn't have time for it when I was doing all my coaching training. I meant to start attending Silsden Singers once my courses had ended. It's time to do that I think.

This afternoon we loaded up our cycle panniers and went for a practice ride to Ilkley and back. It was a lot easier than we had thought it would be and the trip took no longer than usual. Paul has never ridden with loaded panniers before and I have never ridden with both rear and front panniers. It's over 10 years since I did any cycle-touring at all. The bike feels very stable with both front and rear panniers and goes at one hell of a pace on the flat and downhill.

I am so glad that I made the decision to get rid of the drop handlebars and replace them with flats. It was worth spending all of that money in order to be able to enjoy cycling again.

We had another change of plan last weekend. Paul spent some time trying to book accommodation for our first two nights and discovered that July is very busy in Northern Spain - no vacancies. We have now bought a tent - a Vaude Taurus Lite, a surprisingly room y tent weighing only 1.9 kg. We also bought lightweight down sleeping bags.

We leave on Wednesday morning, very early. We have to be at the pick up point for around 6 a.m.

Soya destroyer

I heard a news item yesterday about the growing of soya as a cash crop in the Amazon. As we already know, an area of Amazonian rainforest the size of Wales disappears every year, cut down to provide land for cash crops. Well, apparently the primary crop now is soya beans. And where do these soya beans end up? They are shipped to Liverpool and turned into animal feed. Most of the chicken we buy in the UK is apparently reared on soy-based animal feed. Oh no! I've only recently started eating chicken, after years of not eating meat. What I want to know too is what about all the other soya products that I use? Soya milk, tofu, soya mince, soy isoflavone tablets (natural oestrogen for the menopause)? Where do these come from???

This is one for you Grump.

Lebanon

It looks like a visit to the Lebanon next year, to look into the family history, may not be such a good idea. It seems that Lebanon is seldom at peace - ever.

43 Things

Reading the latest entry for 'Three Beautiful Things' (which I have a link feed to) I found Clare's link to '43 Things'. I'll look at it more thoroughly when I've got time. It's a serendipitious find as I need to set goals. One of the ones that jumps off the screen on the Home Page is 'write a book'. I've just finished the second day of the Bill O'Hanlon seminar on writing and publishing. He is a brilliant presenter and I'm enjoying the workshop. There are some great people on it too. Perhaps I can write a book after all ... I'm certainly going to have a go at another piece for Mslexia. I'm going to aim for incremental writing - 10 minutes a day on a theme. At first I'll freewrite, then as ideas come up I'll focus in.

Decluttering or tidying away

I am trying to 'clear the space' for my business. This is a challenge as my 'office' room is barely 6'x8' and I have most of my book collection in here. The book overflow is in the front bedroom (that's just my books. Paul's books are downstairs in two tall bookcases.

I threw away a wheelie-bin full of paper last year, before I moved, and got rid of some books then too, so what I'm doing now is more of a tidy-up. So, I'm trying to declutter, but there is little I want to throw out at the moment, so it's more of a tidy up and trying to find spaces to put things. The problem is that there aren't any spaces that are not already filled with stuff.

Red kite

Today is wet, temperature around 16C, 94% humidity and a south-westerly wind. We cycled to Ilkley with the wind against us. Between Weston and Askwith I saw two birds of prey cruising above the treetops over to the north, too far to tell what they were. Then a red kite appeared up ahead and was in view for quite a while, mainly on the south side of the road, but crossing overhead once or twice. I could see how it uses its tail as a rudder. The red on its underside was clearly visible when it caught the light. This was before the rain started in earnest.

We went to JDs cycles in Ilkley and I've committed to having my bars converted from drops to flats. I'm taking the bike in next Wednesday and it'll be ready for the weekend - which is ideal as I'm busy on the writing course from Thursday to Saturday, so I can pick the bike up on Sunday, first thing. We came back from Ilkley on the main road (A65) for a change.

I've also ordered some rear panniers for our trip and some cycling shorts - not lycra. I ordered these over the internet - much cheaper.

I meant to say yesterday, the top speed I did was 34mph - not bad, eh!

Overheard

Overheard yesterday, whilst having lunch at an outside table of a cafe in the Shambles, Wetherby: 'Can you take tea to Australia?' 'Oh yes, take Yorkshire Tea!' (This one's for you Mark.)

Bike ride to Wetherby

We've cycled over to Wetherby today - see map in title link. It was just over 40 miles in all. We set off after 1.00 p.m., stopped in Wetherby for something to eat, then back. We went out on back roads: from Otley via Pool, Castley, Weeton, Kearby with Netherby (and up 'Kearby cliff') and Sicklinghall to Wetherby - where the marker is on the map. We came back via Pannal and Brackenthwaite, down through Leathley and back to Pool, then home. I almost got knocked off my bike at Pool, when some idiot overtook me, on a bridge, when I was already halfway across the lane to turn right and was still moving right. And yes I had signalled, and I was wearing a bright yellow fluorescent jacket, and there wasn't any rain or fog. It gave me a nasty shock and caused me to jerk sharply back to the left, which didn't do my shoulder much good.

It's been raining on and off all evening, quite heavily at times - though we're nottalking sub-tropical downpour (yet). There were just a few drops of rain while we were out, near Pannal on the way home. It's been cooler today - about 17C - mainly overcast, with 'bright spells' and there is a breeze. It was a beautiful ride without too many steep hills and largely on quiet roads. I was surprised at how arable and pastoral the countryside is in that part of North Yorkshire, just a few miles away from here. I've seldom cycled out that way before and certainly not for years. all my bike rides used to start from Bradford. We passed fields of yellow corn, green barley and maize, another cereal - perhaps oats - fields of brown stubble and fields full of flowering potato plants.

At this time of the year the banks, verges and hedgerows are thick with plants and wild flowers. The roads are bordered with thick hedges containing hawthorn, blackthorn, holly, honeysuckle, brambles and elder. There was a lot of gorse at one point on the way back. I saw a large bunch of sloes at one point although it seems a bit early for sloes (do they grow in bunches?) The hedges are festooned with cleavers and flowering bindweed and ferns are growing up through them in places. The banks and verges are a mass of colour too. Apart from all the greenery, the wild flowers and blossoms are abundant at the moment:

• White: bindweed, cow parsnip, yarrow, dandelion clocks, the down of the sow thistle, bramble flowers, the last of the elder flowers.
• Yellow: vetch, buttercup, groundsel.
• Pinks and reds: red clover, rose bay willowherb, comfrey ( near rivers and ditches), foxglove, poppies.
• Purple: thistle, vetch.
• Blue: cranesbill.

The meadows were thick with wild grasses and sprinkled with pink-brown clover flowers.

Saw the red kite again - twice! Once near Pool, then again near Kearby. I'm sure it is following us around. At first we only saw it up near Almscliff Crags, but then last week I saw one on the back road to Ilkley (well, above it actually, not on it). There was a pair released at Harewood a few years ago. I'd not seen any round here until a couple of months ago. Paul says he saw a pair of them up near Almscliff in the winter snow and ice (when I was in warmer climes).

My first Postcrossing card!

I received my first Postcrossing card today! Whoopee! It's from Finland. I have sent out four cards now myself: one to Germany; two to Finland and one to Kansas, USA. Unfortunately I have realised today (on receiving my card) that I forgot to put the identity numbers on the last three cards I sent. Duuuh! This means that the people receiving them have no means of logging them on the site, which means I can't get more addresses because it'll look like I've still got cards 'travelling! I will have to send them each another postcard.

Lazy week

I sent my first Postcrossing card last week and got an email yesterday from the correspondent to say that it had arrived at its destination - Berlin - and that she liked it. This reminds me that I got another name and address last weekend, in Finland this time. I meant to send a card on Monday, but I've had a lazy week and just haven't got around to doing much at all. I am intending to release my first Bookcrossing book soon, when I remember to take it out somewhere with me. I could take it to the WorcNet session in Skipton tomorrow and leave it there in the hotel lobby. Or would it just be picked up by the hotel staff and put into lost property. Where is a good place to leave a book? A library perhaps? No, too obvious.

Yesterday I booked a place on a 3-day writing seminar with Bill O'Hanlon, which is being run at the Northern School of NLP from 13th-15th. I am drawn to it and it has cropped up at the right time.

Paul and I got some cycling in at the weekend. We only did about 14 miles on Saturday, firstly because I wasn't feeling up to doing more, and secondly because I had booked on an EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) taster session at the Lotus Therapy Centre in Otley, which was having an open day. I volunteered to be a guinea pig in the session, working on the pain in my neck. I'm afraid to say that the session made no difference to the pain at all, or only at the time. The technique itself induced relaxation and some degree of 'altered state' whilst I was performing it, which did of course reduce the pain and headache which I had at the time. It did not last though.

On Sunday we set off on a longer ride. I still didn't feel up to it, but we need to get the practice in. I came to realise in the course of this that it isn't my fitness level that is the problem; my lungs and legs are perfectly up to coping with the distances, albeit at a slower pace than I used to be accustomed to. The problem is the discomfort in my neck and arms that cycling causes. My physiotherapist says that this is positional and I agree. I've decided to give up on the drop handlebars and have flat bars fitted. This feels a little like defeat, although Paul has been telling me that various men he knows have done the same because they can no longer physically cope with riding on drops.

We did almost 40 miles on Sunday, up and down hills. As usual (for me) the downhills were the difficult bit. I actually had to stop and rest on one downhill stretch - ridiculous! We went to Ilkley, then along Beamsley Lane. Beamsley Lane was busy with cyclists and quite a few irritable car drivers too. One car sat on my tail for about half a mile, aggressively revving and trying to overtake on blind bends. We cycled out to Storiths and the Buffers cafe at Back o' the Hill Farm again (see earlier post), then continued on alongside the River Wharfe to Barden. At that point we decided to carry on to Burnsall. It was a beautiful day - one of the many sunny days we have had recently - and we rode along narrow lanes bordered with dog roses (some delicately tinged with pink) elderflowers and cow parsley. Burnsall was thronging with river-side picnickers and the cafes, pubs and shops were doing a roaring trade. The sky clouded over whilst we were there and we expected rain, but - apart from a few isolated drops - it held off until we got home, although there were distant rumbles of thunder. The storm came later in the evening.

Talking of clouds, I ordered the Cloud Spotting book (see earlier post) for Paul from Amazon. When it arrived last week he found that 2 pages were blank, unprinted. I mailed it back to Amazon, explaining what the problem was via email and suggesting that they check their stock before sending out a replacement. A replacement book came earlier this week and was identical! So now that has to go back too.

We have now altered our holiday plans because realistically I know I that the 700 or so miles coast to coast trip that we were going to do is too much of a challenge for me at the moment. It doesn't allow for me having days when I get thumping headaches and dizziness (radiating from my neck) and am not able to get on the bike, or not safely anyway. We will still be dropped off in Bayonne, as in the original plan, and we will be picked up in the same place two weeks later. This has meant that the holiday is 10 days shorter too, because of the bus schedules for pick-ups and drop-offs (European Bike Express). We will cycle from Bayonne down into Spain and tour around the Basque country and neighbouring places.

Grumpy old Dog

In response to my raving about the Three Beautiful Things blog, Mark has created a new blog, called Grumpy old Dog. I gather that the aim is to write three grumpy things a day. It must be his age! Actually it's brilliant - well, so far anyway (based on three days worth). When I tell Paul I bet he'll wish he thought of it first