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Hi there everyone,

The last week has brought home to us the fickleness of the English weather. Spring is over and we have regressed back to winter, completely missing out on the much awaited glorious English summer. The central heating went back on and we even has the fireplace going for most of the weekend.

Our biking and walking activities have been curtailed a little by the impending ballet exams which have required extra lessons over the weekend. What we have been doing though is stocking up on books, magazines and ordinance survey maps for all the routes that we would like to do. According to my reckoning we should have enough weekend walks planned to keep us out of mischief for the next century or so. I guess the environment will have changed so much by the time we get to do some of them that the maps will be a bit dodgy.

Last week was not a very eventful one for my bike. Monday was OK, and I rode to and back home. On Tuesday I rode to work and arrived with very sore frozen fingers. By the afternoon it was no warmer and had started to rain so Maggie and the kids came to the rescue. The bike has been propped up in the garage since then, but I hope to be able to abuse it a bit more this week. I have found a slightly longer route to Hursley (actually Maggie found it) which avoids the hill and so actually turns out to be a bit quicker. If I am feeling particularly masochistic though, I go on the old route up “Sainsbury Hill” and then back along Old Sarum Road.

Work is work and is fairly busy at the moment but still lacks any excitement or real motivation. The Data Dictionary which I wrote in my spare time to try and make sense of the mishmash of information from various source has turned out to be the best thing since slice bread as far as IBM is concerned and it is now in use throughout the project, at the various electricity companies around Britain and even in India.

Another week has slid by and this letter has still not been sent. This is a bank holiday weekend, so I will...

Well yes, some more time has slipped by, and this letter still remains hidden amongst the magnetic dust on the spinning bit of plastic that is my computers c: drive. More weekends have passed by and apart from cycling to and from work - a little bit of recreational cycling and walking over the weekends, not much has happened here.

The walking was done in Avebury which is the site of loads of stone circles and barrows (ancient burial and worship sites), which rival Stonehenge in all except the tourism stakes. We got the walk from a magazine that we regularly purchase now called “Country Walking” It had a small scratch little map as part of the article for the walk, so we invested in an ordinance survey map (1:25000) of the area. This turned out to be totally unnecessary as the scratch little map was excellent and served the purpose. The walk took us over countryside and through the towns of West and East Kennet, which are on the Kennet river (funny that), which we must have crossed 20 times. It was 9 miles in total with no real hills and pretty easy walking apart from some cross field walking in the beginning. England’s view on property rights and right of ways is excellent and the criss cross of walking and riding paths offer an excellent variety of trails.

We did some off road cycling during the week after work at Alderbury (Alresford! M) which was quite good fun although the girls both fell off their bikes and needed a bit of consoling. Tarryn was great - crying “ow ow ow” as she flew through the air, before hitting the dirt. The track was quite soft earth - the main reason for the difficulty - so no real damage was done. With the sun only disappearing at about 9:45, this gives us bags of time for after work cycles.

I went to buy some Look pedals and shoes for my road bike this weekend, and came away disappointed - they wanted to charge 90 pounds for the pedals. The kids new bikes cost 125 for the whole damn bike including Shimano gear sets and saddles !!! Then the cleats were 14.50 and the shoes 65. So I am still cycling using my woman’s Patrick cycling shoes bought for R14 at a sale in Cape Town and using my old pedals. I guess when we are in France I might look into buying the pedals again.

I have found a new route to work, along Old Sarum way (which is the way that I sometimes come home - for the hill training). I nickname it the Sarum Switchback - there is a section of downhill twists and turns along a narrow hedged road which is excellent fun. I hit 63.7 Km/hr (haven’t figured how to reset my trip computer to mph) this morning. The big pain is catching up to a car going along the road which really hold you up - or meeting an oncoming car which could be painful in the literal sense. The way home is normally a fairly flat route through Otterbourne which although quite long, is a nice relaxing 45km/hr flat ride most of the way.

As you can probably tell from the above, we have gone completely cycle mad at the moment and the BMW is growing cobwebs in the garage.

They have had a real neat program on the beeb (BBC) the past few weeks. They have 4 hidden cameras at/in bird nests, Owls, Woodpeckers, Falcons and Starlings with live crossings at regular times in the evenings at 4:00, 8:20 after the news and 11:00 for the Owls. Also the squirrels are back in our garden (properly a lot to do with us filling the bird feeders with peanuts).

Thats about all,

Lots of love, Richard

A letter from Tarryn

Hi Kathy,

Thank-you for your present it was lovly. I have only dun one. It turned out to be a dasaster. You know, I can not wait to see you in August. Granny in Durban phoned me at 7:36 and she said that it was pich Black there and I said it is light here. So she said it is unfair. We are all well so no need to wory obout us. Tell me how are you and the rest of the family? How is the flat going then and please try and see if you have a phoutograf. I have for goton how you look.

Give my love to the family,

From Tarryn

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