More cycling

After my unfortunate experience with Chris the other day, I went out with Kelly for a longer, but easier, ride and I was out again on Thursday morning in the heat for a short ride - didn't last long as we're heading towards the 40 C mark. It's got a lot hotter since the Lesinas left last weekend.

Jo and I looked after the boys on Wednesday whilst Chris and Kelly went on a "date" - lunch and cinema. Our reward was a couple of pints with Chris in the evening at Sweet Amber Brew Cafe:

Nice place - look forward to returning there for Chris' 40th in a couple of weeks.

Our second reward came on Thursday lunchtime when Kelly took us back to Penfold's Magill Estate for lunch. We did a tour of Penfold's original premises, opened 170 years ago:

It's now Friday morning and Kelly's done her early morning gym session and now Chris is out on his bike at the BMX track, which I had a look at yesterday:

Not ready for that yet!

That's about it so far. Today Miller is heading for the water slides and we're being dropped off at the Wheatsheaf Hotel to drink ourselves silly. Tomorrow (Saturday) we're heading south to meet up with Chris' parents David and Lorene.

I was asked what's happening to River Dee Radio in my absence? I won't be missed - there's plenty of other presenters and a couple of the other Headbangers are doing occasional live shows, but I thought I'd make sure there was some fresh content on our nightly cycle so made up two shows before I left and these are now being transmitted on Saturday and Sunday nights between 8 pm and 9 pm, but you don't need to wait until then to hear them - just click these links:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/519b8kyt69iedf8/Favs%2020-11.mp3?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gsa21affbghbw8f/Favs%2010-1.mp3?dl=0

A few years ago, each of us compiled our favourite tracks so I decided to reprise these. I'm not sure they would all still feature in my current Top 20, but decided to go with it anyway. I had to divide it in to two shows, which meant, as there are only 10 tracks on each, there was a lot of non-music time to fill, so there's more waffle than usual from me on these recordings.

Lastly, here's the Strava video of my cycling stats for 2016:

https://youtu.be/-w8tH_iMgKw

2017 so far

We didn't see the bells in, Adelaide time, but I hatched a cunning plot to observe Scottish time and celebrate New Year at 10:30 am on 1st January over a fine brunch of bacon and eggs, washed down with a dram and some shortbread, while listening to Radio Scotland welcoming in 2017.

Kelly and Chris had made an early morning start and had hiked up Mount Lofty with their friend Matt, but I wasn't up to it at this time, primarily because of my knee, so I stayed behind with Jo and we looked after the boys. It was another coolish morning, although Kelly perhaps went a little bit over the top with her apparel:

Jo and I went for a short walk after brunch and the rest of Ne'e'rday just seemed to disappear.

This morning (Monday), Chris took me up to the bike trails at the other side of the city. They turned out to be a bit more technical than I'm used to and I came off a couple of times. The first fall was a fairly gentle controlled one, going down a tricky slope, but the second one was almost inexplicable as I was cycling down a fairly gentle slope and came through some dappled sunshine and couldn't see the trail clearly, so I panicked a bit and squeezed the brakes too hard, causing them to lock and skid on the gravelly surface and over the handlebars I went. Analysing it afterwards, the v-brakes are not as responsive initially as the hydraulic ones I have on my own bike and I over-reacted by squeezing too hard. Schoolboy error.

Of course, it would be my false knee I landed on, wouldn't it? The ride was curtailed, which was a pity for Chris, who hadn't had a chance to use his new mountain bike much recently, but we posed for the photo afterwards anyway:

Here's the damage:

This afternoon, we all drove in to the city to do a little bit of shopping - I bought a new pair of thongs/flip-flops, merino cycling pants and a waterproof cover for my rucksack, while Chris picked up a light rain jacket in the summer sales, but these were mere diversions for the main event, which was a visit to Scroll, a specialist ice cream parlour where they prepare the ice cream scrolls in front of you:

Poor little Asher has been excreting from all orifices these last couple of days and threw up in the shop, but he seems none the worse for the experience this evening: