Full Metal Wheelbarrow

It was the last BHPC race of the year yesterday.

Rob came home clutching the trophy [*] for the Faired Multitrack class, having clinched the needed points on the day.

He is Rather Pleased.





[*] It's actually a "hairnet" cycle helmet for some reason...

Just got back from the garage.

Plan was for them to keep Gloria overnight so they could listen to her first-thing-in-the-morning noise.

Rob, being clever made a recording of it and put it on his tablet, which I took in with me and played for the garage man.

On the basis of this he identified it as a known issue with the Transit Custom - water dripping on the engine - for which there is a modification.

This was just as well, as they didn't have a loan vehicle for me which I would have been able to drive - none of their loan vans have rear-view mirrors and I can't cope with just side ones.

In any case, they need to order the parts ans will call us when they arrive and arrange to collect the van, fix it and return it to us. When I asked, the chap told me that the engine isn't being damaged in the meantime.

This has made me much happier.

Also, because Rob is clever, I was able to come home and Do Stuff instead of hanging about all day while Gloria was poked and prodded. I approve.

This is my shiny new cast iron ceramic lined wok.




'Twas bought as a surprise by HImself after I'd casually remarked that I liked the wok-wivva-handle at the holiday cottage we stayed in. And he bought me a Jamie Oliver "Love YOU Loads" mug as well. Awww :)

 I think I may have mentioned previously that Rob is rather brill?

As planned, we tootled off to the zoo today. Rob (have I mentioned recently that he's brilliant?) bought me a ticket that lets me go back unlimited times for the next year, as it's only half an hour away and I can go on my own while he's at work if I want to!
( Many many pictures! )

Back safely from Rob's parents now - the roads were clear but it kept trying to snow on us on the way back, plus they're doing something long-winded and annoying at the A52/A46 interchange which caused large tailbacks there.

And just for giggles, someone had parked an oil tanker on one side of the road from Nottingham to the M1 roundabout, so a bit of a queue there too.

I had a lovely surprise yesterday. Rob had sent my present (which I wasn't expecting anyway, as he'd already got me a new camera) to his parents' place so I wouldn't see it, expecting to pick it up last weekend, but was prevented by the weather. So when we arrived, I found he'd bought me a canvas print of the sunrise picture I posted a couple of weeks ago - wasn't that a splendid thing to do?

Now I just have to find a spare bit of wall to hang it on :-)

( Watch the Birdie! )It seems to have thawed quite a lot here - Rob is justifiably smug because the bits where he swept the snow away thawed much faster :-)

They're threatening more snow tommorrow. We shall see.

We don't have a huge amount of snow here compared to the more beleaguered parts of the country, but we seem to have grown some decent sized icicles on our porch today :-

( Icy pictures )

Have I mentioned previously that Rob is  huge hero?

My camera having failed to turn up, he has very kindly procured me a new one, which arrived today.

Sad as I am to have lost the old one, the new one (a Canon SX200 IS) appears to have even more in the bells and whistles department. I suspected that the old one was cleverer than I am, but I'm pretty much sure that this one is.

I haven't had much chance to play with it yet, but I did get to try out the Supermacro mode on a spider in the back garden :-

( Cut for spider )

I wasn't expecting a great deal from today's racing as Rob was so tired and poorly yesterday. In fact I wouldn't have been all that surprised, if, when the alarm went off this morning, he'd told me to turn it off and gone back to sleep. But he didn't - we got up and set off for Hayes, where the track is with his newly completed fairing on his trike in the back of the van.
( Trike pictures )

Today we had to trundle out to Wolverhampton to drop off a trike - a local group for disabled cyclists has ordered a trike, but theirs won't arrive in time for their planned launch date, so we're lending them ours until the new one gets here.

On the way home we stopped off at a rather quirky little shopping centre off the A38 (literally a couple of yards off it) in order to visit the Rohan shop. And Rob, who is, as I may have mentioned before, brill, bought me two splendid comfy technical wicking fabric T-shirts, which will be perfect for the walking we'll be doing on our hols.

Not only that, but there was a creperie on the premises, so we decided to have lunch therein. They were utterly busting a gut to make the place look French, which Rob found amusing, since crepes are much more of a Breton thing - and if you called the average Breton French, you'd likely get a reaction similar to calling a Welshman English...

Unfortunately they seemed to have invested far more effort into the decor than into the food, which was edible, but uninspiring.

I did learn though that Galettes, the savoury pancakes they serve, are made with buckwheat flour and are thus gluten-free. I daresay them on my flist wot are gluten-intolerant probably knew this already, but I thought it might be useful also for those who aren't, in case of ever needing to feed a gluten intolerant person whilst out and about. If there happens to be a creperie handy, at least.