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Welcome. The following are the last 5 or so pictures to be uploaded. To view more pictures click on Photos to see more.
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Todays trip ended up at Teggs Nose but it started out by going to the Cat and Fiddle to have a look at the climb up to the pub because it's one of the climbs in the Macc Monster which I won't be competing in but it did look interesting what with my first flush of success (as far as I'm concerned). Mind you there's a slight difference in the severity and amount of feet required this time, still you never know whether you can do something until you try. Anyway there seemed to be an event on up to the Cat and Fiddle but to be honest it didn't look like the day for it to me, it was wet and a little cold, not really the day for climbing up to the Cat and Fiddle dicing with cars on the way but then again I was in the safety of warm car.
So to Teggs Nose. It's a country park with views across to Liverpool, Manchester, North Wales and Alderly Edge to name but a few. In this picture you can even see Jodrell Bank which is easier to see when you're there than on this picture but if you can see a white spot just down from the horizon and off right of the centre, the radio telescope was turning around whilst we were there making it easier to see but it was pretty unmistakable.
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Today's fun has mainly consisted of cycling the fifty one and a half miles to Blackpool in support of the British Heart Foundation. I started at 1:40am alone and in the dark which wasn't the plan but when I got to the start line I found them all packing up. When I asked what had happened I was told that they let my group go early. Thanks guys, so as a back marker already and no company to speak of I set off pretty fast hitting 20mph on the flat early on. Realising that it was best not to keep that sort of pace up being a casual cyclist I did try and slow a little, still I was catching people and passing them even up hill... what was going on?
The main problem with the whole ride was the rain. It was stop start but mainly start and then near Preston it really came down making my wonder why the heck I was doing this, it was hammering it down, dark, my shoes we filling up and my gloves were soaked through. The rain stopped and the thought was forgotten and off we go again.
The final stop in Warton was grim, in fact I felt fine until I stopped then started feeling cold for the first time. Luckily I had a long sleeved jersey that was dry to add to my other layers which help off the cold a little bit but by this time my arse and arms were already in a bit of pain and there was nothing I could do about that.
Despite the rain nothing mechanical or flesh based actually failed which was good and I was pleased by my strong start and constant speed throughout despite a feeling of weakness in my legs towards the end, and despite it all I would do it again.
By the way the picture isn't of the tower right after I finished. After finishing I found my Wife and got a McDonalds (one way to bridge the 3460 missing cals) and walked about a bit then took the picture. When I finished it was still pitch black owing to the fact that it was 5:17am.
For those interested, you can look at the stats of the whole trip at my Garmin Connect page.
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...and that's right (Well what do you expect from a Zamyatin article title?). Initially I thought it was a Cricket but apparently they are nocturnal so this must be a Grasshopper and what a clear pic we have. It must have been a very patient Grasshopper because I did hang about quite a bit trying to take the picture after it hopped onto my Wife's trousers. In fact once done it didn't want to go so she had to pick it up and drop it somewhere safe because beige trousers aren't exactly the best place to hide from the birds if you're a nice and tasty green insect. Anyway for those who care this was snapped on a long walk around Tatton Park on a supposedly rainy day that ended up being rather nice and overcast in patches. Of course the fact that it was overcast did make it really difficult to take good pictures as the light is just awful but every so often you get a lucky break like this one.
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Now I know what they mean about it being an open farm because it's open to visitors but the word open just makes me think of the word open in Open Prison. Are the animals allowed out for weekends or in the case of famous inmates are they allowed to write books on their lives etc. Either way if they are allowed out then they were all present and correct for this overcast Bank Holiday Monday.
It's not a bad place and it's right next door to Smithills Hall which I wouldn't have minded going to have a look at but we never had time. There are lots of animals to see and as a sub-venture which is Smithills Open Farm Birds of Prey which even has it's own waste of time website and of course birds of prey which all looked a little dejected as they all sat tethered and soaked. Still there were quite a few animals to stroke and avoid and look a little scared at or frighten off depending on who was more frightened. They had the usual, cute little pigs -which I refused to take pictures of because I have far too many, pictures that is- goats, sheep, snakes and the like. They also had some deer or antelope that made a squeaking sound which sounded like they needed oiling which was just weird, initially I thought the sound was coming from some birds until sure enough it was the deer.
Anyway just down from the rusty deer were some goats as pictured, they also looked cute and I spied two baby goats sat together, I tried getting a good picture of the two sat together but it didn't work out too well so you'll just have to be happy with the one.
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Ah one of the dreaded stop signs, not the most horrible ones that are 4 way stops but a 3 way... just as bad for a Brit in Canada or the US for that matter for no matter how separate a Canadian will tell you they are from the Americans, there are one heck of a load of similarities, even the massive mountains (not in this pic) that people were so proud of were actually 300 miles away in the US. But apparently everything -I was told- could be improved by the view. We were sat in a traffic jam and I was asked to note the fantastic view inferring the traffic jam was better because of mountains... I didn't agree, sat nose to tail in traffic is not great anywhere whether you have mountains or flying hippos to see. Of course in this instance the dreaded stop sign will definitely not be improved my nice scenery because as a non-native driver they filled me with dread and taking my eyes off the road for a second was not my plan as it's give way to the first person who got to the stop line. It's a bit like a queue... but with 4 or three different queues feeding in... where all of them are cars... and they're all trying to cross each other's path... and they might have guns. Yes exactly like a queue. Hey hold on I'm from the UK, we invented queuing, you can't fool me with this, "it's like a queue" business.
Needless to say, I applied my own rules to this predicament which was less like queuing and more like a logic puzzle:
If there is no around traffic then stop, pause as little as possible just in case traffic arrives and gun it. If there is traffic, possibly gun it or not dependant on how sprightly/large/quick/police-like the others are, of course try and observe the queue thing which might mean hesitate and wait for others to hesitate which might mean it was my turn in the first place in which case gun it. If this starts looking all too tricky, park on side of road as if this was out intended destination, announce to the passengers in a loud voice something to the effect of “Well I'm glad we finally got here”, get out and wait for no traffic, hurriedly pack bemused passengers back into the car and... gun it.
See it's simple.
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