kestrel – Page 4

at the sign of the Broken Drum

We found ourselves in the vicinity of Shipley on 16 May, and it’s only down the road from Saltaire, the home of the Early Music Shop, a highly dangerous emporium. I only went in for a look, honest, but I wanted a drum to bang with the Morris side and …

We had a small bash of pretty much every drum in the place, and this seemed the best – nice tone, manageable size. I bought a case, and the chap threw in a pair of small drumsticks, as he said the ones supplied with it would be too big, and away we went.

It went to two practices, and one dance out (in Doncaster, last Saturday), and on what was probably its eleventh tune, the hide split. I wasn’t playing it at the time, someone else was, so perhaps it hadn’t been treated with the respect that I had; but anyway, broken it was, and it seemed to me that it should have lasted slightly longer than two weeks’ worth of very light use.

So yesterday Pete and I hopped on a train to Saltaire, via Leeds (at £45 I reckon it was cheaper than paying diesel and parking, and it’s also far nicer to sit on a train then swelter in a car). I took the drum into EMS, and they went “crikey” (yes, really – I didn’t think anyone said things like that, except in a post modern, ironic way), and said that they could replace the skin, but “not today”. And I said that would be fine, take as long as they like, but I want another drum to take away, given that I’d come 70-odd miles with it. So they quite happily gave me another, and apologised a lot, and it was all good.

We then went and had lunch in Don’t Tell Titus (what sort of poncey name is that, FFS? – one, presumably, that might just possibly justify the price of *£4.30* for a bottle of locally brewed beer. And there was artisan bread too). Still the food was nice.

We had about 90 minutes to kill before the train from Leeds, and I really didn’t fancy walking along the main road to Shipley, but we discovered a really nice walk along the canal, part of the Airedale Way, so we ambled down that to Shipley station, and got on a Leeds train. We had about half an hour to kill there, and we foolishly bought – and ate – a large bag of Minstrels. Horrible sweet stuff, don’t know why we did it. And then we got the train back to Hull, and walked home. I clocked up 16.5k steps through the course of the day. Lovely weather too – sunny, but not too hot.

And now I have a new drum; lets see how long this one survives 🙂

iFit – possibly the worst web site in the world

I bought a new treadmill, as regular readers will know. I chose a model with iFit technology, because it seemed like a really nice idea to plot runs on Google maps and then let the treadmill deal with the ups and downs – more like outdoor running, but without the weather, and the mad people.

The iFit on my Proform came in the form of a wireless module; I plugged it into a USB port, told it which of the wireless routers in the house to use (why yes – we have two), created an account on iFit.com and off we went.

I do honestly think it is the worse web site implementation I have ever seen. Firstly, you cannot stay logged in. WTF? And the way they have implemented the login procedure means that you cannot save the login details, so every day, I have to type in my e-mail address and password.

Secondly, the treadmill is not uploading workouts I have done. I would search the FAQs, but they are useless. I could search what is laughingly called the “Community” section, which seems, as far as I can see, to mix up every single user’s individual workouts with support queries, complaints, etc, has no search facility, and is on one of those tedious “get to the bottom and I’ll load some more of this stuff for you” type pages. So there seems to be no easy way to find answers to any questions you might have.

It took me a while to work out how to enter a workout manually (see above – I thought it would upload it) – and when you do, the data entry form is in a popover window, which closes and throws away your content if you move away from the browser tab.

One of the things you’re supposed to be able to do is to track your progress on an iPad or laptop while you’re running a route. I have no idea how to do this – can find no way. There’s an iPhone app, which has an option to “view workout in progress”. However, I was unsurprised to find that this opens Safari, which attempts (and fails) to load a malformed URL – http://api.ifit.comundefinedliveworkout/51430c3f62ab173c0f00012e. Also, on the subject of the iPhone app, it picks up the data you have on the web site, but interestingly, the stats are all out by 24 hours; everything is shown a day earlier than it took place. Even though the History on the same app is on the right day.

Thankfully, I got a year’s subscription thrown in with the treadmill – if I’d paid for this service, I’d be even more enraged than I am now. I do web development for a living, and I have often advised clients not to put the shiny Web 2 (or 3, or whatever we’re up to) in front of the functionality of a site; iFit have a massive fail here, and it’s a real shame.

“But what about the treadmill itself”, you ask. And it’s fine, apart from two maddening things: firstly, it has a nice slowdown feature which, over five minutes, takes the incline back to 0, and the speed down to about 3km per hour. But in so doing it, it replaces the time elapsed with the countdown time, so you need to make a note of when you started (of course if the workout upload worked, this would be less of an issue). And it is all in km – except the ascent, which is in feet. So if I want to add that to the iFit site manually (yes, I know), then I have to convert it to metres, which is what they use. And in whizzing across to another browser window, I lost all my data.

I despair, really – can’t they afford a UI person?

general update

Health improving, weight going down. Today am 65.9kgs. eBay treadmill died after only two months, but nothing to be done. It would work only at either 3.2kmph (manageable, but boring), or 16kmph (not manageable at all), and no incline, so I waiting till BigClient paid BigInvoice and bought a new one. Old one was Freegled, to a chap who really looked as though he wouldn’t be able to get it out of the car, never mind use it, but there you go.

Running at 6.5kmph was quite a shock to my system! and I’ve decided to return now to proper C25K – I’m on week 5, and and managed the 8 minutes OK, but I don’t want to overdo it.

We have been to see Show of Hands in Batley, Bill Bailey in Hull, and are seeing Julian Clary in Hull on Thursday. Yesterday was “sort out the back yard” day, but the sun shone and you know .. so we hopped a train to Bempton and walked along the cliffs. Absolutely lovely. Route here.

Last weekend we went down to Norfolk to visit Daughter and GrandToad. Unfortunately her new chap was struck by a lurgy, and got worse and worse as the Eurovision party proceeded, culminating in firstly a paramedic, and then an ambulance which bore them both away to the hospital. Thankfully it turned out to be a chest infection rather than a cardiac wossname, but still – worrying, and meant nobody really slept, as they didn’t get back until 5.45 a.m. On the Sunday, Clare had a gig in Sheringham, so we all poled up there – we Toadsat while the band did their thing, mooched around the town, Pete got new slippers, Toad got Hotbox toys, all good. Lovely time. On the Monday we had a hike round Blakeney Point (one of my favourite places *in the world), then a wander round Hunstanton, where a lovely shiny red satchel bag was obtained (who’d have thought it? In Hunstanton!?).

So that’s it for that, really. Posts about cars and Morrising coming up. Soon, I promise.

1km!

I bought a treadmill in February – just a cheap and cheerful one from eBay, to see if I’d use it. And I used it so much that I bought a much better one in March. The Proform 900 weighs a ton, and was originally bought in 1996; it did programs and incline and so forth, and I loved it to bits, and it has assisted me in getting to my lowest weight in *years*.

But now it is almost dead, and we cannot work out why. Only two buttons on its console work – one of them sets the speed to 3.2km per hour, and the other to 16km (so I don’t press that). No incline, no other speed adjustments. I shall buy another next week, because it is making me really so much fitter, apart from the weight thing.

Anyhoo, I normally try to do 5km on it, at a fairly high incline, as that burns a lot of calories. But no incline, remember? So I fired up the Get Running app on my phone, and thought I’d restart it. Week 4 was 16 minutes of running, broken into 3 / 5 / 3 / 5 with walking intervals in between. And I wasn’t really even out of breath (although, to be fair, it was at 3.2km per hour). So I thought I’d see what I could do, and I ran a whole additional kilometre without stopping!

Well, *I* was impressed 🙂

a weekend in Scarborough

We currently have no car, for reasons I won’t go into here – that’s the subject of another post. So with the bank holiday weekend looming, and both Pete and myself desperately in need of a break, I did a bit of Googling and a bit of organising, and we took ourselves to Scarborough on the train. It’s dead easy from Hull – no changes, and £18 odd for a 5 day open return. So we picked up the 9.47 on Saturday morning, having collected coffee from the station shop to accompany the scones I’d brought for breakfast, and chugged our way north.

When we arrived, we checked into the Admiral guest house in West Square, just opposite the station. The proprietor put us in a room on the top floor – a long way up, with pigeons scuttling and scrabbling; quite Hitchcockian. But clean, comfortable, and £49 a night B’n’B. And an excellent breakfast to boot, and free wifi.

Then we caught a bus to Whitby – £6.90 return each. The double decker struggled with some of the hills, to the point where we wondered whether we might all have to get out and push, but we made it. We wandered all over the town (but not up to the Abbey because of my Knees), had a toasted sandwich in the George, while we wanted the last half of the Hull promotion excitement, had (well, *I* had), gin and lavender ice cream (yes, it was; it was sublime), and generally a good time. Then we caught the bus back, had Greek food in the George Michael in Scarborough (I kid you not) and a bottle of red, and then wandered down to the harbour, and had quite a lot more to drink in the Golden Ball. Which meant that I floated back up all the steps on a cloud of red wine 🙂

On Sunday, we had planned to take the train to Filey and walk back, but my stomach threw one of it’s very occasional wobbles (down to medication, I think), and decided that being too far from a loo was less than optimal. And that walk is 10 miles … So we ambled around Filey, had coffee in the Bronte Vinery, ate a Trek flapjack for lunch, and then I felt a bit better, so we decided to try the walk. But I only managed about 4km before exhaustion overcame me, so we walked across Blue Dolphin caravan park and called a taxi. Which took ages, but arrived eventually.

Went back to the hotel and had a couple of hours kip, then we went to the Hong Kong chinese restaurant, which looked like a throw back to the 80s, but whose food was surprisingly nice. Lamb in yellow bean sauce, salt and pepper pork, and 8 way duck. And then a very early night, as we were both exhausted.

Monday was Scarborough day – we walked about 8 miles, and my Fitbit says we climbed 60 flights. All the way from the station to North Bay, up the hill to the castle, and round said castle (well worth a fiver, believe me), then down through old town, fish and chips on the sea front (which was *heaving*, then down to South Bay about as far as you can go before you leave the town and back up the hill again.

4.30 train home, which was busy from Scarborough, but Bridlington station was awash with travellers – cannot understand why Northern Rail didn’t put another carriage on, as lots of people had to stand. And a taxi back to the house, because we could. Absolutely lovely weekend.

So a few days without the car were, in fact, better than with, given where we were. Scarborough parking is difficult to find, and expensive, and public transport round there is reasonably plentiful and not too expensive. But I wouldn’t like to be without a car all the time – roll on next week.

However, we will be investigating various rail options for future weekends away, because, to be honest, I’d rather sit on a train than in a car these days, and it makes you think about what to do and where to go.

More photos here at Flickr.

a brisk walk

The weather here has been very cold, but we have been spared most of the snow that has fallen on a lot of the rest of the country; we had some flurries on Thursday, but nothing was laying for long. So we decided to go up to Flamborough on Saturday, and do the cliff top walk between North and South Landings.

“You’re mad”, they cried, ‘It’s blowing a gale” and one friend informed us that the wind was at 38 mph, but it was blowing onshore, so that was alright. We were undaunted.

I vaguely recalled that I had bought some thinsulate trousers ages ago and had a rummage for them. They’d never been worn, and bore a label stating them to be a 12/14, so I wasn’t hopeful, but I got them on. I did them up! I added thinsulate gloves and hat, thick socks, walking boots, a ski polo neck, a fleece, a 3-in-1 jacket, and a snood. I was ready. Pete donned a similar amount of clothing and off we went.

We parked in Flamborough village, opened the car doors, and … oof. The wind was amazingly strong, and so so cold. We battled towards the headland, but as soon as we got out of the relative shelter of the houses, it got worse. We battled back to the car and went to South Landing. Walked down to the beach (tide was in, of course), then up the steps to the cliff top. As soon as we got out into the open there, it was hopeless; it didn’t feel safe to walk at all. And I had to keep clutching my hat, because I thought it was going to blow off. So I suppose we did about 2.5km bimbling about there. Then we went to North Landing and had a bacon buttie, because otherwise the day might have been considered a failure.

And then we thought we’d go into Bridlington – got to be better there, we thought. It wasn’t. We got a nice ex-foliation thanks to the sand particles in the air, the spume was blowing everywhere, and the waves were very high. So we battled down the sea front for ¼ mile or so and back again, and then came home, lit a fire and drank tea. I’d had the foresight to put a chicken in the slow cooker (yes, a whole one – it really works), so dinner was done when we got in too.

Nice to get out, really.

In passing, I’d done 6.5km on the treadmill before breakfast, and apparently I climbed the Seattle Space Needle (you think I’d have noticed, really).

a wheel at each corner

The gas struts in the Saab’s tailgate failed, oh, in December, I think. Or possibly November. It was mildly inconvenient, but not hugely so, and after a bit we got round to buying some replacements online. Then we realised we didn’t actually know how to fit them, so we bought a Haynes book of lies. And then we were a bit nervous of doing it, and kept putting it off.

When I put the old treadmill up for sale, I blithely said “will deliver within 20 miles for petrol money”. And then we realised that it would be well nigh impossible to get the treadmill into the car without a third person (or a prehensile tail, or a trunk), as the tailgate had to be held up. So I phoned the local garage and asked if they could do it, and they said “of course, pop it round – it’ll only take a couple of minutes”. So we decided to pop it round late morning today, and have lunch on Newland Ave. We got in the car, drove 25 yards up the road and realised it was making a sound it shouldn’t, and not driving as it should. Pulled in, and front off side tyre flat as a pancake. And as it had been filled less than 2 weeks before, that was a bit of a worry.

Pete footpumped enough air into it to get us to the garage on Prinny Ave, then he filled it with their airline, and checked all the others too. One was OK, but two others weren’t great. So we trundled down Springbank to the tyre man, who took them all off, and pronounced three out of four knackered. £207. thankyouverymuch. And when they’d fitted them, the car wouldn’t start. Dead as the proverbial dodo. Seems that the battery was pretty flat, and the five starts in ¼ mile was too much for it (outside the house, further up our street, garage for airline, parking at the tyre shop, and then (not) coming out of the workshop). The battery was completely dead. They jumpstarted it, and suggested we took the car for a long run, but I felt safer buying a new battery. Another £76. Sigh.

Then we drove to Richmond Street, where they realised that they couldn’t do the gas struts, because they had to take the roof lining out (I could have told them that), so it has to be booked in, and they couldn’t tell me how much because the boss wasn’t in, so I’ll have to phone them tomorrow.

We did finally get to Newland for lunch at about 2.15. Bacon sandwich and coffee, not really what I was hoping for 🙂

Treading the mill

About six weeks ago, I bought a treadmill on eBay; we had to go to *Scunthorpe* to collect it. It’s a fairly basic affair, motorised, Fitness Pro, and I used it religiously. In the past two weeks, I’ve done an hour every morning on it, averaging 8,000 steps before breakfast, and starting on the Couch to 5K program. Incidentally, I can now run for 8 minutes in succession without dying, and I’m starting to have visible muscles!

But the treadmill has no incline, and no programs, and I wanted something better. Yesterday I won an eBay auction for a Proform 900, which sold at £1,500 originally. I paid £300 for it, and it’s costing £65 to get it couriered here to Hull from Hunstanton, which is cheaper than actually driving there and back (never mind the issue of whether it would fit in the car). It arrives tomorrow afternoon.

Once I’d won the auction yesterday, I photographed the old one, and stuck it on Gumtree and eBay. It was sold within 2 hours via Gumtree, and I got within a fiver of what I paid for it, with the added bonus of no eBay fees. But, this morning, there was no! treadmill! Wah.

So I went out. *Outside*. In a long sleeved running top, and a fleece, and a warm hat, and fingerless gloves (and leggings, of course). The sun was shining, but it was -2C, and the pavements were frosty. I walked up to the local park, which is about 7 minutes away, and attempted to do my C25K there, but it didn’t go well. Took me ages to warm up, so I really only managed three of the six runs, and the pavements are very hard compared to the treadmill, and my knees didn’t like it. I walked for another half an hour over that, so I got the steps in, but I think I’ll stick to indoors after tomorrow, thank you!

Here’s the route, should you be interested; we’re lucky to have this virtually on the doorstep.

a trip to Sheffield

We took ourselves off to Sheffield for the first weekend in March; we had tickets to see the splendid Richard Thompson, so I booked a hotel room. Sadly, I booked the hotel room (non-refundable, non-cancellable) while I was recovering from flu, and booked it for the wrong bloody night; Friday instead of Saturday. So we said “soddit”, and booked Saturday as well, meaning we could have a wander around Sheffield.

Serendipitously, there was a stack of Morris dancing going on during Saturday, so we wandered around watching that, pausing only for me to have my iPhone nicked in a cafe bar at lunchtime. I’m always so careful with it, but it was on the table, someone came over with a stack of leaflets, trying to sell me something, and he nabbed the phone under cover of the literature. I was displeased, and had to spend the afternoon talking to Sheffield plod and changing passwords (thankfully I actually had my iPad with me, which I usually don’t).

Anyhoo, Richard was wonderful, we had supper first with Tim and Ali Biller (not seen Tim for about 11 years, we think, and had never met Ali), and on Sunday we went to meet KITTINS! at Fran’s, and also ate far too much brunch there, and had a lovely time with Doug, Julia, Jim and Carrie.

While on giggage, we also went to see Martin Simpson this week at our local folk bar. I have no idea how I’ve never encountered him before, but he was absolutely splendid.

Incidentally, I’d never had flu before, and it it’s all the same to you, I don’t want it again, thanks. Pete had it too, and was about two days behind me, so we had a week off work, then a second week at half strength, as it took some getting over. And this damn snow can sod off too.

walking

As part of my new and absolute determination to get my weight under some sort of control, I have bought a treadmill from eBay. It wasn’t easy to shoehorn it into the house, but we’ve done it; it helps that it folds up. I’ve made a little nest on one of the bookshelves where my iPad keyboard/stand can sit, and am embarking on The Sopranos while I run.

Early on Saturday morning, I gave it its first real go – and did 4.1 miles in 58 minutes. Not, I think, to be sniffed at. And then, because it was such a gorgeous day, Pete and I decided to go up and have a yomp at Flamborough. In fact, we turned off to the car park at Danes Dyke, and did the circular walk there. I managed the *exceedingly* steep steps down to the beach, and actually sprang up some of the ups, so I’m definitely getting fitter. There were snowdrops, and primroses, and even a handful of early daffodils; spring is definitely on the way. And there was mud. The bridle path was impassible if you didn’t have hooves and long legs, or at least proper boots, which I didn’t – I was wearing my wonderful Easy Walker boots, which are the most comfortable thing I own. But their grip is not as good as a proper walking boot. Sadly and painfully) I have plantar fascitis in my left foot, and these give me brilliant support, but I cannot get orthotic insoles into my leather hiking boots, so they’re a no go at the moment.

We also walked down to Flamborough village, and had a very nice bacon and brie baguette; well, I did – Pete had a tuna and cheese confection. All in all about 5.5 miles, I think. Map should be embedded below, but is here for those whose browsers are being difficult.

On the way home, we stopped at Hornsea Freeport, which was once a factory producing the glorious Hornsea pottery, and is now a raft of outlet shops, and had a look at walking boots for me that would both accommodate the necessary insole, and allow mud traversal. Bought a pair of Egret boots from Mountainwarehouse, and wore them all round the house yesterday (after I’d returned from a 3m round trip to Aldi, long way via Pearson Park :), and they seem perfect. There are loads of lovely walks round here, so I’ll get the use out of them.

And we watched Submarine, which is utterly wonderful. I commend it to you.