Me & sis walking in the Cotswolds. July15th

I Had'nt spent a weekend with just my sister for as long as I could remember so we arranged to meet halfway. With me in Devon & her up North near Manchester Cheltenham was a good midpoint with plenty of walks to do.

We spent Friday wondering town. My sister insisted on taking this picture of a obscure clothes chain shop. Surely its not called the "C" word......!


Next we headed to the park. There was this huge flowering tree which smelt gorgeous! Anyone know what its called?...

I was more interested in the swings...


The next day we walked around Guiting Power. Fitting as my sister is a "Power" walker ;-)

Past a wee stream...

After we visted some Roman ruins.

The next & last day we walked around Winchcombe...


and Sudeley Castle...


to the top of a hill..


ending the perfect weekend where else..but a pub garden!

Diving in UK, Dorset, Portland. July 8th.

Karen was looking for someone to fill a space diving in Portland. After exhausting all other options, she asked me to come along ;-)
We needed 7mm wetsuits with hoods!!!!

BRING OUT THE GIMP!!!


YOU KILLED MY MASTER - AAAARGH!!!



It was soon time to stop pissing about & kit up...


Durdle door, & the countess wreck were 2 of the sites we dived at. We saw a couple of ship wrecks, crabs, fish. The visibilty was not great at 5m tops and 1-3meters for the most part. I'm told it gets up to 20m though!
It was great diving experience & totally different to what I'm used. Not sure I'll dive in the UK again though after hearing lots of nightmare stories of strong currents...:-s.

July 1st: Canoe trip!!

So it was that our annual canoe trip at Ross-on-Wye came about. I arrived at the campsite on the friday. Heres Ruth posing in front of the site...

Here's Steve, Ruth, JB & Owen chilling at the site..


The next day we covered 11 miles before the disapointing England game. I'm pretty sure I saw Cal (pictured here in Celtic top) supporting England at one point-but he denies all!

We passed some swans..

& some cows!!!






Then stopped for food on a bank...

Soon it was time for Cal, Julie & Mark to power on down the river again...

Enjoying gorgeous views on the way...

Stu organized the event & found it difficult to stay aboard at one point mistaking some rocks for rapids - ;-). Nice one Stu - well done for a great weekend! Also pictured is Simon & Mel (In the boat!).
"Hold on - Two of you, one of me, on the river, in a canoe?!! Its PIMMS O'clock"..


At the end it was all too much for my arse as the seats were "tres" uncomfortable!

All good things come to an end, in this case at Simmonds Yat. Well done Stu for organizing it all!!

MOTHER!!!!

Yup, so it was that mum came up to visit. Owning a house with Mum in Greenwich means I am the constant butt of jokes - being called Norman Bates (of film Psycho fame) etc.
Here is a pic of me & "MOTHER!!!" at Watermouth castle..



I took "Mother" on a scenic drive to combe martin taking pics along the way..


I confess we ended up at the beach on the last day so I could get a cheeky surf in! Mum tried to get some pics of me but is a technophobe so was not able to use the zoom :-s.


Mum had a great time embarrassing me at work, (I had to give her a kiss when she came to visit, when staff pressured me!) visiting Lynton, doing a boat trip from Ilfracombe harbour. Well done Mumsie!

June 24th - New Girlfriend...

Most of you fortunately took no offense, :-s, to my tongue in cheek male chauvanistist text message about my new 9ft2" longboard (girlfriend - quite sad really!)
Here she is in all her glory - was quite small at Saunton that weekend so it works for what it was bought for.

June 17th - Weekend at Davy's - Safari in Wales!

After another hard weeks work without surf for but a day, I went to Gorseinon to see Davy & Pav. Pav is an old university mate too & ANOTHER optometrist! We camped at Llangenith beach. The first day was spent chilling & skim boarding....

I was busting some moves...

Whilst Davy & Pav nearly busted their ankles ;-)...



Here's how you do it guys ;-)...

Davy & Pav decided it was easier to balance the board on their head rather than balance on the board it self...

I'm so sorry Davy, but I could not resist adding this camp one of yerself - tee hee!

That night (&lunch for that matter!) Davy & Pav cooked up a storming BBQ which I contributed nothing to - Ooopsie! Thanks guys!

The next day we met up with Andy & Liz to take the dogs for a walk...


We saw some horses race down the sand dune in front of us!!!


We were then cornered by a herd of cows!!!! I think they wanted their Dairylea back ;-). Marley decided to have a stand off with them it was indeed a true UK safari experience!




We headed on for a game of frisby - "Z" would'nt give the frisby back when he finally got it...

Ah go on - give it back "Z"...


Ah well time for a beer!

This babies mine...


The end of another fine weekend in Wales

June 10th - Waxing off the cooked board - DOH!

This weekend England played Paraguay & won unconvincingly. I stripped the wax off my board at home in London to find that it had bubbled up on the side - I'd left it in the hot car during the flat spell - how could I have been so stupid!!?? :-(

Dirty board...

Clean, cooked surfboard - "Dya want fries with that?" - You can see its bubbled on the righthand side of the board.