Pictures as promised

Well, that was a great day out. The atmosphere around central London was terrific yesterday. It seemed to be a marvellous advert for London and the what with the upcoming Olympics (is 2012 really that far away?) I reckon Ken must be feeling pretty pleased with himself. I found myself a good spot to watch from the inside of the park where I could also get to one of the big screens. I watched some of the warm-up laps and then settled down to watch the early riders on the screen.

The times of the UK riders were publicised well in advance so I trooped over to the roadside to see Millar and Wiggins flash past (see photos - Millar and Wiggins in that order) before running back to the screen to see Bradley miss out on second place by a fraction of a second. Minutes later the eventual winner slashed a full 10 seconds off the lead time to knock Wiggins off the podium. As I write, it transpires that Millar made it to 3rd place overall as the tour left Britain. Of course it won't last but it was fun and a great plug for the UK.

Warning - strange yellow thing in the sky ...

... the UK is on alert! Panic buying of lawnmowers in B&Q causes huge drain on the National Grid! Yes, it's true, I was in the big orange shop early this morning, came back with a new mini-hover and gave the bottom meadow it's first trim since being installed over month ago! See pic for end result. Note the strategically removed rotary drier (0;

Up b4 everyone else!

Morning peeps!
Just been doing a spot of research after having read through my son's business studies assignment which he intended to hand in on Tuesday............more work needed I fear!
I will be checking out the old velo's on sunday at the overcliff in Gravesend. Hope it isn't 50 deep.
Well at least the sun has finally arrived. I ate my breakfast in the garden thismorning and so did the slugs by the look of my strawberries and lilies!!!!!!!!!!! They must be superslugs to get passed the vast amount of very unorganic slug pellets I have resorted to this year!
In my next garden I will be doing all I can to encourage as many birds and frogs and toads to the garden as I can.
Simon - hope everything went well with Lauren's trip.
Everyone - Don't forget your suntan lotion today.....................Bye ....Ruth xxxxxxx

Tour de London

While we were up in town tomorrow (Sat) picking up Lauren from her week away I thought I'd take the opportunity to spend the afternoon in Hyde Park soaking up the atmosphere of the very *rare* occurrence of the Tour de France in England. Saturday is the prologue 'time trial' so it'll be a bit like the downhill skiing with all the riders on the course one at a time. There are some great maps of the course on the official TdF website. Ruth - you should check out the London > Canterbury Stage# 1 - it goes right by your place.

I might take the 'ole camera with me and see if I can't get back with some piccies. I did read somewhere on the web (uk.rec.cycling) that some one had calculated with and estimated attendance of between 1 and 1.5 million people lining a 7.9 km course, that came out at around 50 deep for the whole course. Oh well, let's hope that 10x zoom is up to the job!

A very belated happy birthday for the 27th Simon.
Can't get onto this site very well Im using a mac and it does'nt like internet explorer much. Which this site seems to pick. So thats my excuse for seeming to forget your birthday.
Anyway just been up to my usual thing. Writing and fiddling about with music on the computer. Going away to Majorca in september, might be the next bit of sun we see!
Hope everyone is well.
Mark x

Still no twins yet

That well-known technophobe, Paul, still hasn't set up an account yet - come on mate! Somebody tell him how easy it is! Just so that his contribution isn't lost to the world, I'll cut & paste his email to me from last week;
hello bruv - paul here not very good with computer its more Tina`s thing.
yes it was very good to see u all MUST do it more often !
What it lacks in content, it makes up in brevity.

Anyway, we're down to a 3-person family a.t.m. what with Lauren being off at Nottingham on a 1-week University taster session. What small contact we've had would seem to indicate that she's having a good time and getting a lot out of it. It's organised by the Sutton Trust via Lauren's school and I think it's a really great idea.


One other thing I thought I'd mention is that had set up an account with a web-tracking service (for another site I run) and it was no extra effort to get the system to track hits on this site as well. After an initial slow start, we seemed to be getting a flurry of activity over the last weekend - here is the graph they provide. What is interesting is that we had 10 visits on Sunday alone, 6 of them unique (i.e. from different computers!).

Hello. Great idea this. I signed on a few days ago about midnight after coming home from an evening out. Did'nt write anything then because there seemed to be at least 52 letters on the keyboard! Can see a bit clearly now.
Good to all catch up last week hope everyone is well. Will write some more soon, x