It's been a little while...

since I blogged. Sorry to all that either follow or stumble upon this blog.

Things seem to be happening at a lightening speed these days and time is done even before it started.

The last three days in the UK has been like summer in South Africa. Hot and fabulous, always with a knowledge that tonight will be sultry and offer a guaranteed late afternoon sit in the garden, with or without  a glass of wine.

I did a fabulous 60 miles on my bike on Sunday. It was time for the annual Liverpool to Chester ride which causes great excitement amongst cyclists as they can legally cycle through the Birkenhead (or Queensway) Mersey tunnel. This year the organisers put on a total of seven routes. There were the Wirral Circular 25mile, Liverpool-Chester-Liverpool (50 miles), the Liverpool - Chester (25 miles), the Chester to Liverpool (25 miles), Chester challenge (50 miles), Liverpool Challenge (100 miles) and the Tunnel Family challenge (6 miles).

At the start of the Chester Liverpool Cycle - Countess of Chester Hospital

I live in Chester so I found it difficult to warrant a trip to Liverpool just to start there and then to cycle all the way back to Liverpool when getting to Chester whereas I could've started from Chester to Liverpool and cycle back. I did ask the organisers and they said they were 'thinking about doing a Chester-Liverpool-Chester route'. So decision made; I will do the official Chester to Liverpool and the cycle back anyway.


My bike's gears were slipping for a while - since I've changed a back tyre - so I was rather pleased when I saw The Bike Factory had a maintenance hut at Wirral Rugby Club (our refreshments stop). Dave quickly tuned the gears and they are better than they were. Thanks Dave!

Cycling through the tunnel was surreal. It is quite dark in there, not really helped by my continuous wear of my sunglasses, and cold. The down part into the tunnel was fast and furious and the uphill part was not too bad. I managed to complete the official section in 2hr10 (25 miles).

Returning was different as we opted to go by Ferry back to Birkenhead. I had vivid memories of our Basel to Rotterdam cycling trip as Ferry crossings were so regular on the Rhine.

On the Ferry

View towards Woodside Pier - Birkenhead

Lots of people enjoying the sunshine

Sonia and I were cycling together so midway through the return we decided to stop following the official route and head for The Harp Inn at Neston instead. The place was heaving with walkers, cyclists and other patrons. After a pint it was time to dash off towards home back over the new Burton Marshes Route to watch Andy Murray win Wimbledon.

I have a mild case of sunstroke at the moment due to the severe heat of Sunday and time spent on my bike. I will soon recover.

Work is difficult at the moment. There is upheaval through redundancies whilst you need to cling on to your own motivation to get your job done, not knowing whether you will survive this round of cuts. Working remotely aids my insecurity so life isn't a nice place to be in right now. There are 'what ifs' and 'why nots' floating through my mind clashing with moments of realism and absurdity. All I know for sure is work as I know it is about to change. Whether it is for the better of for worse I will have to wait and see.