Back and biking!

Hello my friends! Sorry for the lack of blog entries since our return from the sun, sea and general lovliness of our holidays, real life got in the way with a bang! and suddenly we are half way through September.

So today I have a super biking entry for you all. Today we took part in a fabulous, once a year event in London called Skyride. All the main streets around many of the major tourist spots are completly closed to cars and the Bicycle rules!!! We were kings and queens of the road!! Cycling with our kids, along the Thames embankment, up the mall around Buckingham Palace. We had no worries about traffic, except the need to sometimes brake quickly for errant kids ;0) Instead of noisy cars and exhaust fumes, we had tinkling bells and lots of smiles. There was music, goody bags – very useful as the kids grazed all day on muesli bars ;0) games and we got to meet lots of cycling heros – Chris Hoy, Shanaze Reade and TV presenter Gethin Jones, who has just cycled 1000km around Britain. The Kids loved it all and so did I. The ride back was a bit tough on the “havnt been on a bike in a few weeks” legs, but hey you cant have everything!

Holiday blog

Hola dear readers. The biker chick has not given up blogging, but has been immersed in summer holiday activity. Firstly with small people i care for, and for the last two weeks, in the scorching sun of Gran Canaria. It averages 33 degrees celsius or therabouts most days and rain is un heard of in the summer months so suffice to say the nearest i have got to bike riding is watching the local die hards with awe! I did however take the 2 books written by Lance Armstrong for my holiday reading :0) All I can say about the guy having read them is – wow. For anyone who has never heard of him, he is a famous American Cyclist who beat the most tiny of odds to survive testicular cancer and not only survive, but return to cycling and winning the tour de france several times – google him, or read his books if you can and you will be in awe too, even if you have no cycling interest. And yes my local friends you can borrow my copies ,0).

This is a quick blog as on expensive hotel internet cafe, but normal service will be resumed shortly!

Adios!!

A Bicycle made for three!

Today, being the first day of school holidays, I had three children to entertain. So in the spirit of being healthy we trotted over to Dulwich Park and their fabulous bike hire shop. Tiddler remained loyal to her Islabike so with some careful arrangement of car seats we squeezed that in the boot.

Having a 4yo and a 1yo to transport I had the joy of trying out my first ever cargo bike – a shiny yellow Nihola. My fears that the children would be scared were unfounded, but my idea that it would be just like riding a normal bike just more cumbersome were sooo off the mark – imagine trying to ride a back to front tricycle and you have my experience of the first 10 minutes of the ride until i got used to this sensation!!

An hours  hire cost £12 which is cheaper than the soft play centres and infinatly alot more fun. Daughter and I had “races” (very slow,tame ones given the speed one cruises in the nihola) which were met with squeals of delight from my passengers,as were every Duck and Doggy spotted by the one year old :0)

Most amazingly, despite finding muscles that have obviously been dormant these last few weeks from lack of a good cycle out, I am still walking ok and felt good enough to continue childrens entertainment in the park for a couple more hours before we headed home.

Kids all want to go again, like tomorrow. I, naturally referred them to their parents – in tiddlers case,her Dad ;0)

We are the Champions! Well almost..

yesterday was completly mad and stressy,running around to 3 events from morning till late. But it WAS great fun :0) I was hoping to sleep in this morning but having woken at 6.30am i could not get back to sleep -arrgh! Instead I have uploaded all my photos of the bike championship and our friends anniversary do. I managed to assemble a dressing up outfit in less than 10 mins once i remembered a Jelabeah bought on a trip to Eygpt in 97 and paired it with shiny make up, lots of beads and a hair scarf – voila instant hippy! I won the prize for best womans fancy dress! Tiddler was a cat but by the time this photo was taken she had managed to break her ears!

The cat and the Hippie!

We had a great time at the Bike championships, it was lovely to see so many cycling kids having fun in one place. We even met someone i had been at ante natal group with when expecting Tiddler! her daughter was competing in one of the other teams and poetically, Tiddler, her friend Hannah and this other child were in the same heats, often finishing alongside each other! heres the reunion

The reunion!

Tiddler’s team narrowly missed winning the trophy, but Tiddler was amazed to have her name called out as coming second in the skills test. I missed the shot of her looking shocked, but heres one of her and her trophy. Ok so all the kids got one but its still pride of place on our mantlepiece – although the chocolates I won at the party are well hidden!

My Lil Champion

Pedal to the Metal

C”mon everyone I need all your good luck vibes!  School broke up for the 6 week summer holidays today – so I need your luck to survive 6 weeks of entertaining tiddler and tinys and their assorted friends! Then tomorrow sees the culmination of our efforts with the kids at the school cycling club, as we take on other local groups for the first ever championships – fingers crossed the kids remember to turn up and we do ourselves proud, and as there is a picnic after that the weather is OK, its been heavy showers alot of today eeek!

Oh and finally I have a fancy dress party in the evening and still NO IDEA what to wear – I may be reduced to rummaging through the kids stuff to see if I can adapt something – although if i look in my normal wardrobe i suspect a large portion of that would be considered “retro” nowadays……….

A message from tiddler

Sorting through some photos on picassa tonight i came across a video that tiddler and i did a few weeks back, when she was still in a cast. She asked me to post it on here so “all your friends around the world can get some advice on cycling from me” So take a look and in amongst the chat she has a serious message – enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNbjutfW3QQ

Fit for free this summer

A quick plug tonight for a new initiative starting this coming Monday by my local cycling group. If you are a woman new or returning to cycling. Unsure of where to ride or looking to find other women to ride with, THIS IS FOR YOU!

Details are in the link below. If you are in the area do give it a go, nobody will get left behind and it should be great fun!

http://www.bromleycyclists.org/womancyclist.html

A cycling Mums confession

I have a confession to make. Figured this was a safe place to do it as tiddler does not read this unless with me. Today we had our Friday school run by Bicycle, a treat for both of us – some mother daughter bonding, no other children to worry about (much as i love my job, its a day off!) and lovely exercise on a warm summers day.

It was a lovely ride, through our local park. Met with school headteacher and discussed the cycling club I have become involved in. It was all peachy and i was looking forward to returning at home time for a ride back with her.

Then I got a phone call about an hour prior to this stating tiddler had an earache and could I collect her – she told me to bring the car as she could not ride the bike.

I have to confess I was really disappointed that i could not ride my bike…………

(Tiddler was fine BTW, it was one of those “once i am home and had some cuddles i am back to my bouncy self earaches….)

 Bad bad mummy………

The Yurt of loveliness

I know this was 2 weeks ago but that work life balance got buggered up again!!
So as mentioned in my previous posting, unbikerchick and family trotted off to the countryside for a weekend in a Yurt. Having never “yurted” before (is it just me or does that sound like some bodily function….) we were unsure what to take, aside from the obvious food and wine so ended up taking almost as much as a nomal camping trip, minus the tent!

Imagine our delight therefore when we found we were spending our weekend in this

No sleeping bags required…

 

The yurt came equipped with a wood burning stove which kept us toasty warm at night and was great for warming bread, keeping kettle hot etc after boiled on the burner. We also had an outside decked area with bench and barbeque so quickly became a social hub for the friends we were meeting with and the 11- yes 11 children that we had between us! That was lovely most of the time but did lead to some comical moments like one morning when I brushed my teeth accompanied by 5 adults and 3 kids all keen to see inside our luxurious abode – although 10 mins earlier and we were having a strip wash!!!

It was a fabulous place and to be amongst so many friends in one place at the same time felt really good and very healing – it was over far too quickly. Hubby found he was tired early in the evening and we did have a scare when he overstretched himself and had to use his GTN spray for the first time ever, but the good news is that he has decided he is now a Yurt camper and has booked another weekend in September. woo hoo!!

Back in the saddle again

Well here we are again. Thank you to everyone who has sent messages of love and support, we have had a interesting few weeks since my last post. As if a husband having a heart attack and a child with a limb in plaster was not enough to keep one on their toes, darling daughter also managed to get a rubber (thats an eraser in case you were wondering..) stuck in her ear so bad she had to be admitted to hospital for removal under anasthetic!

Of course, being this was at the end of our first week of daily hospital trips, I was by then a complete expert In multi tasking and the geography of the sprawling hospital complex, so was able t negotiate daughters day surgery admission with husbands discharge from the coronary care unit, thuis ensuring that day i was only visitng the hospital once to care for all my family!!

So hubby is safely home and recovering. daughter has since visited another hospital, the one which dealt with her cycling accident and had her cast removed so hence this photo of her venturing out to her first ACTIVE participation in her Saturday cycling club in 5 weeks :0)

Hubbys recovery will take alot longer – he has a lifetime of medication, although this will be reviewed after 1 year, and has had angioplasty. Weirdly though he has never appeared healthier as the medication and enforced lifestyle changes mean he is probebly looking after himself better than he has for most of his adult life – early nights, quitting his evening cigar and wine in front of the PC habit and daily walks to collect daughter from school are all new things to his routine- fingers crossed he keeps up the good work….

We are off camping this weekend – luxurious camping by my standards in a fully fitted out Yurt sited in a vineyard but hey give a girl a break – oops mybe i shouldn’t say that after daughters escapades!!!