This year we had another holiday in the Isles of Scilly, one of my most favourite places to be. I have been going there for a few years now but I often meet people who have been going there for decades. In the Guardian recently Michael Morpurgo wrote that Rushy Bay on Bryher was his favourite beach of all and it is mine too, its a lovely place to swim and relax and often deserted. In June the flowers on the islands are simply amazing a blast of colour everywhere, I know nothing about plants other than grass that I mow but my wife continually oohs and aahs at the Geraniums, Succulents, Foxgloves, etc. If you want to switch off for a few days and enjoy nature in all its glory then I recommend adding these Islands to your bucket list.
Recently I have got hold of a Beeline Velo 2 GPS navigation system for my gravel bike. I have been looking for a navigation system for ages as I have started rediscovering some routes that I have not been on for many years and I have spent quite a bit of time backtracking after missing turns.
I have been using my old Garmin Etrex 10 with a bike attachment and in its been great and keeps me on the general route I need to go but it is easy to take the wrong track when they are close together and it is pretty basic.
So I did look at either a better Garmin Etrex or a dedicated bike GPS with Maps. The Etrex is relatively affordable and that is what I would have gone for, the dedicated bike ones with maps were much more expensive and difficult for me to justify.
I did get a bike mount for my mobile so that I could use navigation directly from my mobile but this is very bulky and I am a bit of a minimalist on my bike I don't like cluttered handlebars etc. and this was also the problem to some extent with the bigger sat nav devices.
I had been looking at the Beeline for some time and when the Velo 2 came out, I looked more seriously. The reviews were pretty mixed, people complained that it was tied to your phone but I did not see that as a problem as it means the bulk is tucked away in your bag and all you have is a watch sized screen on your bars. Some said it was cheap but I don't agree, its very light and the rocker switch mechanism is easier to use and far better than a touch screen when you have gloves on.
Its extremely easy to use and navigation is easy whether you let the app do your route or you add your own route.
It's definitely only for those who just want basic navigation and simple statistics, not for those who want cadence, heart rate etc. I am 68 and as long as my heart is going at any rate I am happy and my legs will spin at a speed that my dodgy knees and hips allow so I just need navigation and stats on how far I went and how long it took me and the Velo 2 does this perfectly.
So I am glad I chose the Velo 2, it wont suit everyone but I think it should suit people like me who are active riders who spent most of their early cycling with a small Cateye Mity 2 cycle computer and this is what the Velo 2 feels like to me, small, simple and it just works.
I have titled this as Happy Life using a Bullet Journal to be more attractive to potential readers than by calling it 'Time Management' or 'To-do Lists on steroids' or 'Managing your Life' etc. or just 'Bullet Journals'
This post is about how my life and in particular my previous five working years were absolutely made happier and easier by using a Bullet Journal.
There are plenty of tutorials about how to use Bullet Journals and I will not try to teach you how to use them here at this point, happy to later if you want!
This post contains some of my observations and I will list them here:
Why have they made me happier, well mostly because I have not missed a deadline, missed an appointment, forgotten to do something on time etc. The bullet journal works better than anything else for this, yes you can use an online calendar or physical diary, the online diary may fail as it generally only contains partial appointments i.e. your work commitments and a paper diary only contains personal appointments usually and combining all this together is a nightmare as well as reviewing everything to decide what you are doing today, what you did not do yesterday, what you would like to focus on today etc. Bullet journals manage this all fine.
Why not use an App? well experience has shown me that where such apps do exist, we tend to use them in a way that allows us easily to type things in and then forget them and rely on the App to remind us what/when to do something, whereas in my journal its me that reviews what needs to be done in my case every morning while I am eating breakfast, this works so better as no other person or 'thing' is involved!
Now I won't argue with those of you who say they do all this with Outlook or one of the many other Apps that exist such as Trello etc. I just know Bullet journals are better at controling all of these things in life and as someone who has been trained and has used Online Calendars, Time management solutions, various project management applications, I am Prince2 trained, Agile trained etc. and whereas Bullet journals do NOT replace all of these they do ensure that you do not miss key moments in your life, ensure that you focus on what you need to and allow you to re plan things you cannot do at this point, it really makes all aspects of your life easier and can take the stress out of chasing your tail in terms of trying to remember/do everything you think needs to be done.
Give a bullet journal a go, just get a simple dotted journal (I use a 13x21cm journal), watch a couple of online videos particularly the ones by Ryder Carroll and give it a try.
I have finally have bought an ebike I have been riding a bike for well over 60 years and I am still reasonably fit but age is starting to catch up with me and more importantly I am finding it hard to keep up with all my friends who now have ebikes.
When looking for a bike I wanted it to satisfy the following:
I looked at mountain bikes with powerful but heavy power units, I also looked at rear hub powered bikes and finally I settled on a Fazua powered gravel bike the Cairn e-Adventure.
So all good not cheap but lovely frame and components so nothing to upgrade.
Range is surprisingly impressive I often ride with no assistance and just turn it on when on hills and so it will easily do 110km on a single battery averaging around 22kmh If I used assistance more I would expect around 60km which is still pretty good.
I have had it for a few weeks now and truly love it.
This weekend I went on a trip with my club which was supposed to be on the river Wye starting from Hay-on-Wye which is a beautiful little town famous for its book festival! Unfortunately the river was very low, so on Saturday we went to Brecon and paddled a there and back trip for a few hours along the Brecon canal, a lovely quiet waterway and an enjoyable paddle.
We camped at Bycross Farm campsite, a super site right on the river Wye. However on Sunday the levels were still very low so we decided to go further down stream to Ross-on-Wye we were going to paddle from there a relatively short paddle to Kerne bridge and we shuttled the cars there so we had vehicles both ends. Kerne bridge is a nice place to park, nice Cafe and you can lauunch from there if you wish.
The paddle from Ross was fun, the water was low but one of our leaders guided us though most of the low water spots.
It was a lovely day lots of people on the river and I had a lovely time.
At the end of the paddle at Kerne bridge about 5 minutes before the exit point there is some bubbly water that can take you into some trees if you are not careful. We decided to make this a training spot and we were shown by the experienced paddlers how to go through this water safely either by paddling or by lining using ropes to guide the boat though while you are on shore.
I decided to paddle it, and was doing very well paddling towards the spot I wanted to exit the bubbly water, I was pretty much through it when I ended up in an eddy which stopped my boat and started to turn it, at which point I was still leaning and over I went, splash! swim! a bit embarrassed but fine, apparently I should have done a low brace to push myself back up, something new to learn and practice this week!
It was a lovely weekend cant wait for the next trip!
In the next UK general election which will be held no later than 24 January 2025 it is likely that Labour will win as things stand now, the country is in a mess, cost of living going up, can't get a GP or Hospital appointment, industrial action in all our major services and people generally fed up
The Conservatives know this and with that in mind how will their strategy be set be to get back in power on the following election
How can they do that, I expect only by labour screwing up, so how can they ensure that happens?
It's quite a gamble, if they work hard now and achieve some form of recovery if it's too slow and people are not yet feeling the benefits and cannot see it working yet then they would loose to Labour who would then gain from any hard work from the Conservatives.
All political party's obviously want to remain in power, they have to try to stay in power long enough so as to ensure their goals are completed and are successful which often means doing things that will inflict pain on the country on the path to achieve those goals.
So what should the conservatives do? will they plan to put in a ticking time bomb to go off part way through labour's first term. Sounds unbelievable but is it possible?
There are many wealthy and powerful conservative supporters in this country who may have to accept the conservative defeat and would want the conservatives back in power ASAP and would be able to weather any storm to achieve that maybe at the expense of the general public of the UK.
We saw in the US the departing Trump administration trying to sabotage Bidens incoming administration by locking down funds that should have been used to stimulate the economy.
Could something like this happen in the UK I hope not, if it does then it will be time to change how our government is elected and ran.
Well actually my theory on how to travel back and forth in time.
Some caveats first, obviously I don't know what I am talking about. I struggle to understand how to build an Ikea bookcase let alone how the universe and all things work.
So feel free to laugh at the following as a piece of nonsense
The one thing I can say is that science does not fully understand how the universe got here, how the expansion is contained, what's at the edge of the universe, how quantum physics allows particles to be in multiple places at once, black holes, is there a multiverse etc.
And even if scientists could explain all that I am sure that I would not understand it.
But that does not stop me from wondering though.
So what is time, my theory is that time is movement. Everything in the universe is moving constantly, even when we are sat still, all the particles that make our form as well as everything around us are constantly moving.
If they all stopped then I believe there would be no time, i.e. nothing would ever change it would always be the same.
Now if that is true then if we speeded up the movement of these particles then effectively things would change more quickly and therefore time would go forward more quickly. If we slowed these particles down then things would change more slowly and effectively slow down time. Now what if we could reverse those particles, would that mean that time would go backwards?
If that is true and we had a machine that could achieve that then we would effectively be able to go back and forth in time.
Now of course we don't have such a machine and we would have to move the universe as a whole back and forth at the same time so not much use for nipping forward getting the horse racing results and then nipping back to make a big win. Or leaping back 63 million years to see what really happened to the dinosaurs. Additionally our bodies would also change back and forth at the same time and therefore not exist 63 million years ago so we would have to isolate ourselves from this change.
But I think its an interesting although maybe stupid concept. Scientists tell us that the singularity that forms a black hole will warp space and time so who knows, I obviously don't!
Last night at the theatre we had T-Rextasy, this was a band booked originally before Covid and they have only just managed to get going on their tour now.
They were brilliant, the theatre was only half full which is quite common with these Covid rebooked shows which have been rescheduled a couple of times, people drop off because they cannot make the new dates.
However the theatre really rocked and the audience were out of their seats early in the first half and were dancing for much of the show.
All the favourites were included, Debora, Ride a White Swan, Children of the Revolution, Jeepster, Lifes a Gas, Metal Guru, Mystic Lady, Telegram Sam etc. and it finished with Hot Love brilliant!
Getting ready for Paddle Boarding.
Decided to clean my Paddleboard and get it ready as hopefully the weather improves.
All good, there was a bit of dirt on the board which came off with a bit of elbow grease but it all looks good, pretty much like new which considering I used it a lot last year is good.
Pumped it up fully and its holding air fine, all bungies fine, fin boxes are fine, put some vaseline on the paddle catch button.
The only issue I had was the bag which was kept in the shed had a bit of mould on it, considering the number of times it has spent outside in all weathers when I have been on camping trips its pretty good.
I used white vinegar to kill off the mould, everyone is now complaining why the house smells of vinegar, but at least the bag looks better.
I want to take a trip on the Wye as soon as weather looks enjoyable, have just bought a river fin as the Wye is quite shallow in places.
My board is a Blackfin board from iRocker, unfortunately they seem to have stopped trading in the UK so I could not purchase a river fin from them at this time, their customer service said they were looking into how they can support international customers, but for now no luck. So I purchased a fin from a German company based in Munich via Amazon UK, the company is Eisback Riders named after the man made surfing river in the English Garden in Munich. The fin arrived after a week and fits my board perfectly. Next time I am in Munich (We have close family friends there) I will visit the Eisbach, I suspect looking at the images that it will be beyond my skills but will take a look.
Brilliant band at the theatre last night Voodoo Room, they played Hendrix, Clapton and Cream numbers, they were so good, the theatre was packed out.
Definitely recommend them, check them out on voodoo-room.com
They overran by 30 minutes but no one complained as they finished with some classics including playing Hey Joe with guitar behind the head and All along the watchtower brilliant
I am a volunteer usher at our local theatre and this week there was a Pink Floyd tribute band who were excellent.
It is some time since I last listened to Pink Floyd and I was never really into them. I think they were a type of music that either the psychedelic nature of their sound or the message in their songs appealed to you and when I was young at that time none of that did. However at this concert I found the messages in their lyrics really interesting.
They had a fantastic stage set, with an 8 ft wide circular screen at the back showing incredible images from original artwork to modern day relevant material and it was this modern day material that hit home.
The tracks that were particularly thought provoking were:
For the Dogs of War they showed various war related videos and included more recent items showing the war in Ukraine.
In Brain Damage they showed the political "Lunatics in our heads" including Trump, Putin and various UK prime ministers.
Have commited to spend some more time listening to their tracks.
Yay! went for my first bike ride today, I have just recovered from a really nasty cough over Christmas, I have been on my turbo inside but have been aching to get out.
Just went for a short ride on my gravel bike, split between road and off road, quite muddy ...
A bit cold but soon warmed up, the sun was shining, a little wind but just so lovely to be out!
Have really enjoyed my Paddleboard last year as well as the small amount of Kayaking in my new Perception
This year I have some plans to Paddleboard and Kayak on some faster moving rivers up to grade 2 which are pretty safe generally but as there is always the chance I will fall off my board or tip my kayak on these rivers which will feature rocky obstacles then I felt I should really ware a helmet, I would on my bikes so I don't see this as any different.
I was prompted by a good price of 28 pounds including postage for a Gul Evo Watersports Helmet which is aimed at any watersport where there is a possibility to bump your head, including kayaking and sailing.
I was a little skeptical as to the quality at that price but all the reviews I looked at were very favorable and indeed it seems really solid.
I was also confused about the size as my head is around 59cm and the two sizes sm/m 57-59cm and l/xl 59-61cm obviously split at that size. In the end I got the l/xl size and it fitted perfectly using the adjuster knob at the back.
The helmet is very comfortable, it has removable ear inserts which feel very snug, it remains in place despite me shaking my head vigorously hanging upside down without feeling too tight.
I hope to try it out on the river in the next few weeks and will post an update.
I do not dislike the winter, but I do dislike it when you are ill, I have had a bad chest infection for the past 3 weeks or more and have not been able to get out in any form other than short dog walks.
I was very jealous when I saw some of my family having a new year dip in the sea in Devon.
But it is what it is and I am hopefully getting better and determined to get our as soon as I can.
Meanwhile while I have been stuck in I have been watching on BBC iPlayer the excellent Scottish TV Adventure show series, there are just two seasons with four shows each but I would recommend them to anyone who likes doing outdoors stuff at any level.
I retired March 2022 after working as a software developer at the National Trust for the previous five years.
I loved working for the Trust and indeed now volunteer for it as a guide at Avebury manor.
My last project for them was to create a temporary CMS for their marketing systems while they found and implemented a more permanent solution. It was only supposed to be used for a few months but due to delays in the main CRM replacement project all of the other sub projects were delayed meaning that it was still in use when I retired for which I was a bit worried about as it was my last piece of work for them and I wanted it to be good. It turns out the CMS was still in use in December this year and I have been told that there have been no problems with it so I do feel a little proud that I left on a success.
I started my retirement with a rush of things I wanted to do, intending to do everything I had always been wanting to do.
I wanted to spend more time with my family and indeed have to some extent but not always easy to see them as its a fact that I may have plenty of spare time, my family does not have loads of spare time as they have work, school etc. But I have seen more of my youngest grandchildren as I pick them up from nursery on Fridays which is great fun but more tiring than a 40 mile bike ride!
I joined the National Trust as a volunteer room guide at Avebury manor, working usually one day a week. Initially I spent my time as a room guide but more recently have become a guide on their 'Lost' tour which explores a couple of rooms in the attic of the manor and we talk about the items found when doing some restoration to the ceiling below where we found 6 inches of dust dating back almost 400 years. We also talk about lost stories and also lost beliefs that have been part of the manor since it was built in the 16th century. The tour is in a couple of basically empty and dilapidated rooms and yet we still keep the visitors engaged for a full hour.
I also volunteer as an Usher at two local theaters, usually just a couple of times a month and I really enjoy it, again its a bit like tour guiding, lots of mostly enjoyable interaction with people. I also get to see some great shows, particularly music shows which I love.
I also volunteer helping an incredible naturalist Colin who for the past 20 years has put up, recorded and maintained over 600 bird boxes in the local Parks and Council spaces in the area. The Boxes attract Blue Tits, Great Tits as well as Nut Hatches. The year started with putting up 30 new boxes in Queens Park, then at the end of the year we spent our time, cleaning and recording data from the bird boxes ready for the coming Spring. When we clean the boxes we find all sorts of things including lots of spiders, bee nests, leopard slugs, hornets. We even find some roosting bats which we leave undisturbed
I have continued to cycle regularly, mostly using my gravel bike which I find is a perfect bike for almost everything I do. I do have a Mountain bike and also a Touring bike which I restored a couple of years ago and its quite nice to ride these occasionally but I find myself always returning to the gravel bike. No major rides this year, quite a few 40-80 mile rides on the Gower, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire hoping next year to do the King Alfred Way with a friend, I have done most of it in parts already so it will be nice to put it all together.
I have also been doing some water sports, swimming, paddleboarding, kayaking, body boarding.
I gave my swimming a boost when I went again to the Scilly Isles for a week in the summer, the previous year I took my paddleboard and really had a great time in the waves. This year I did not take it as I decided to concentrate on swimming and swam everyday which improved my swimming greatly, I also met a swimming club who were there for a long weekend and they encouraged me hugely. I have also swam in the Thames a few times where I have found some nice places to get in easily.
I bought a new Kayak, perception 11, which is the perfect kayak for doing everything I want to do, lakes, rivers, coastal etc. In truth I wanted a sea kayak but living in the middle of the country my use of it would be very limited. The Perception is perfect and have had some good paddles in it but not as many as I would have liked and indeed will try to use it more in 2023.
Paddleboarding has been my main water sport and I have really enjoyed it much more than I thought I would, I tried it as an alternative to kayaking as it is easier to transport and have loved it. I have taken it on choppy seas, rivers, lakes etc. and I get so much enjoyment out of it, its so relaxing and yet when on the sea it can be quite challenging. One of my best memories was in the summer during the heat wave I was down in Studland I paddled out on a sea that was a perfect millpond, when I was well clear of the beach and on my own, I just sat on my board, eating my lunch, perfectly at peace with the world. I hope to do a lot more paddleboarding in 2023, I would quite like a lighter board to make it easier to transport in a pack but will see.
Another sport I wanted to have a go at was body boarding. So I got a decent board and some fins and gave it a go, have had a great time so far and look forward to improving more next year. I have just bought a new wetsuit to replace my very cheap 20 year old wetsuit that I have been using as I found in October the constant flushing of water through the suit as I went through the waves to the rollers, then lying on top of the board waiting for a wave I just got so cold that I got hypothermia and started to go delirious, fortunately I caught a wave and ended up tumbling onto the beach shivering and unable to stand up, fortunately someone saw I was in trouble and helped me out and walked me to my van where after an hour I recovered. An interesting but hopefully not to be repeated experience.
I had planned to rest from sport in December and on key I caught a real bad cough that turned into bronchitis and laid me up through Christmas, over most of it now and indeed feel quite well and eager to get outside again in the new year.