Get Checked

Well first off, it’s a bit personal what I gotta tell you all, but I feel I must do it. It’s like this guys. You have all seen these adverts on the TV lately about what to do if you spot blood in your urine. Well on Sunday the 22nd July at 11pm last I did see just that. It lasted all day but by Monday evening and ever since I have been clear. My doctor has put me on what he calls the Cancer Pathway just to be sure, and I have been to hospital for tests, and now I am waiting to go in for 3 days to have a procedure, but nothing is definite until this has been done. Of course, I’m worried as is the family and a few close friends but I’m trying hard to remain positive. So, ladies and gents do one thing for me please, if you never do anything else I ask of you.  Don’t mess about if you see anything remotely like this yourselves in your pee, get it checked and the sooner the better.  I don’t want this all over Facebook please, its just for my Blogg readers.

HAPPY VALLEY 4x4

At the site in Kent I look after its going well just now. We have nearly 100 members on our FB page and all the members that bowl up are a nice friendly bunch. With all this super-hot weather we have been having lately its mostly been bone dry just now. Even when we have had a few showers as the site is sloped on the side of a long natural valley, there is always a prevailing wind/breeze and it dries out again very quickly. However later in the year when it does rain a lot the site changes dramatically. It quickly turns into a mud fest, and drivers have trouble getting up the slopes and hills to get out to the top field parking area. In the past after a private 4x4 club day, a 4X4 had to be left there. It was a long wheelbase Nissan with barely legal road tyres, and as the driver struggled to get out he just kept slipping further and further down the site until he was wedged up against the perimeter fence at the bottom against the next field. I had to go to winch it out when it had dried out a few days later and leave it for the driver to come back and take it back home. As I write next we are hosting a visit from the South East 4X4 Response volunteers for a weekends training event. We also have regular days from a local trials motorcycle club and various 4x4 and off-road clubs that hire the site for their club events.

THE HOME FLEET

Not much to report on me 2 cars the Discovery 2TD5 off roader and the Ford Edge. One thing I don’t like about the Ford is the driver’s manual. For all the good it does me it might just as well have been written in Swahili. There are still icons on the steering wheel for me to jiggle with me thumbs, and after nearly 1800 miles I still haven’t sussed out what they activate or do. I shall have to get me mate Simon to give me a lesson as he as a brand-new big Ford Transit van with the same set up. Other than that, I still like it and it’s a joy to drive, although I sometimes wish that I had been able at the time to stump up the extra cash for the automatic version. Six gears plus reverse certainly gives me left arm a work out some days.

The D2 I haven’t really had to touch for a while, which is nice! Squared away in the garages is all the stuff I take to Happy Valley on the days it is open, and it is all boxed ready to go, and its just a question of loading and unloading it all again when I get back home. I probably take too much but you know what its like? On the day you don’t take a socket set the Hi lift, or your jump leads someone will need them, to enable themselves to get going again.

RIDE LIKE THE WIND

The bike riding has been going well I did a local route the Heron Trail which was 18.5 miles a few hills a hard ride, and another local ride of 13.5 miles, and in between to keep me old legs going I can do anything from 4 to 8 miles just by riding around the roads where I live once or twice a day. I have come to realise that to have a good long ride you have to be I suppose what they call “in the zone”. A few things in my case must be lined up, such has what’s on my mind is it relaxed, am I fretting over anything, how to do I feel today, are my legs good, have I fuelled properly, and things like that? A few times I have set out in good intentions and I have looked at the milometer and then realised, I have got to go back later that distance that I have travelled so far out from home. So not having reached the intended end of a ride and not feeling that I had the puff in me to complete it, I have had to turn back home a couple of times. But the more I ride the easier its becoming. My longest ride when I was buzzin one day was 32 miles, and for an old ferret of my age I don’t think that’s too sad. Also, I always ride balls out fast as I can, and I ride alone. I must keep that in mind as well, because if I was to fall bum over tittyfalery, whilst riding in a wood or suchlike there would be nobody there to help me. So, until I Blogg again. See Ya Soon my muddy chums and Happy rovering.