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Tuesday, 26 August 2008 - Two years in the bloody UK (and two to go)!
Yup, two years already since I first touched down in the UK, and what a busy two years it's been. Lots of good stuff: holidays, work, friends, the cycling and local sightseeing, etc etc. Some bad stuff too (not least of all the weather) but hey you gotta take the good with the bad.  My current situation is more-or-less right where I had planned it to be: I have left Edinburgh and have more-or-less set up camp in more-or-less London, hehe. The original plan was to leave my current job in Edinburgh, properly plant myself in London, and pursue independent contracting work (as opposed to my current full-time employment). As it happened though, I got transferred down here to St Albans (just northwest of London) with my job and am currently living in their accommodation for as long as I can milk it. So, similar to the original plan but everything was made easier by accepting a transfer. As it stands, I intend on remaining in the UK (specifically London) for a couple more years before making a move to Canada (probably Vancouver) around summer 2010, and doing my thing there for another couple years.

Other than that, the British Summer has once again lived up to its reputation this year and been utter crap. We had two weeks of glorious weather last month and that was it - that was our summer come and gone within a fortnight. During the summer immediately before I arrived here, Britain had a ‘heat wave' (by their standards at least) during which the mercury hovered around the 30-degree mark (ha!) and people died! As a result the 5,000kms I pumped out in 18-months on the bike in Brisbane has been impossible to match and so far I've barely done half of that, but the opportunities to go nuts on a bike around Europe and beyond have at least been some consolation. Speaking of which, in the last twelve months I've visited Spain, Croatia, New York, Vancouver and Banff in Canada, and a couple spots in Britain. Not as many places as I notched up during my first twelve months here, but I've therefore got a couple weeks of annual leave available before the year is out so keep watching this space! :)

Thursday, 28 August 2008 - Glaswegian guide dog!

Glaswegian guide dog - click here to watch, and enjoy the accent hahaha! :)

Saturday, 30 August 2008 - To the beach, in Britain!

Far out! After a solid month of dismal weather (this has officially been the wettest and gloomiest August since records began), the clouds finally fucked off revealing nothing but blue sky and that big bright thing that makes every Briton turn a funny shade of pink! And what's more, today isn't a Monday - it's actually the weekend! 100kms south of London right down on the coast is the beach town of Brighton.

Brighton is home to 150,000 and apparently gets a whopping eight million tourists a year! The beachfront is full of bars, clubs, restaurants, arcades and so forth, and plays host to various festivals throughout the year. Cool spot! :)
Katie and I arrived at about 4pm and headed straight down to the beach, so admittedly we didn't see much of it. The view along the beach, the ugly buildings along the main drag, and the rather large police presence all made it feel like some dirty coastal European town in Spain or something. There were cops all over the show and evidently they get pretty bored during the day as no less than ten of them decided to turn up for this van being pulled over.
More cops on the beach too.		The coastguards of some English town made the papers recently for breaking health and safety regulations because they broke the speed limit while rescuing a drowning 13-year old girl! There was nobody else around, she's was going under, but they still got done for breaking the speed limit. Either way she was successfully rescued.

Brighton Pier is over half a kilometre long and has been standing here for over 100 years. It has a friend further down the coast called the West Pier, but that keeps getting blown over and burnt down hehe.		Ahh the cliché: sun, beach, ice cream, lack of clothing, sea birds crapping everywhere - in Britain of all places!

The pier has arcades and cafes along its length, a bar and even a big fun-park thing at its end. There are deck chairs along the edge of the pier near the bar for public use, right in front of these signs (but I can't read).		What the hell?

One of the few days this 'summer' that boat-owners have really been able to make decent use of their boats! Had I not shot these myself I would never have picked this to be Britain - we've had the worst summer on record!

These two looked like they were trying to make a cheap calendar aimed at auto-repair shops before she finally appeared to succumb to the cold.				However, five minutes later she was back into it, posing for the big December climax ;)

Nice!		About this time there were a lot of pasty Poms leaving the beach who were the same colour as the sun is here hehe!

By night I well and truly lost count of the hen parties, and the number of couples making out on the beach!		Brighton Pier's little fun park / theme park thingy.		Sunday, and what can I say - I knew the sunshine wouldn't last.

Wednesday, 3 September 2008 - "Washout on its way" (another one)

		"August was the gloomiest and sixth wettest since 1912." If you thought your summer was shit, Britain, there's plenty more on the way! "Can expect gale-force winds and storms by the weekend which have the potential to be very bad." Very bad hehe. "Our overall forecast for the month remains unsettled." Another term for "very bad". "Flooding anticipated." At least there'll be some action then!

This pretty much sums it up.		If it's nice enough for granddad to catch some fish it's nice enough for me to get out for a burn on the bike (I'm working from home at the moment) before the storms hit this weekend as per the newspaper above.		Come and get it ladies!

A while back I found a canal in London and followed it for a way. I think it was part of the Grand Union Canal that runs 220kms from London all the way up north to Birmingham. Either way, the Grand Union Canal works it way past near where I am in St Albans and so I had a quick blat along it this afternoon (before it started raining).
Somebody's home sweet home.		Certainly not a bad idea living out front a big hardware store when your home looks like that ;)

As I might've expected there wasn't really a lot to see but it is a good ride (and I ended up getting caked in mud).		Just in case the big open area containing several boats doesn't imply water to you, there is a sign.		Mmm where's my tyre tube - could have some fun on this!

Friday, 5 September 2008 - Fuel for the masses!

This BBC story says it all but in a nutshell computer games developer Electronic Arts (EA) launched a new game today, Mercenaries 2. To promote the game EA gave away £20,000 worth of fuel for free from this little suburban service station in north London. The fuel was pumped by people dressed as... yup, mercenaries :) Needless to say it caused extreme traffic chaos and pissed the locals of something wicked hehe. I got here about midday and although the cops had put an end to the fiasco two hours earlier (after only £10,000 worth of fuel had been given away) the cars were sill queuing and the BBC were still on hand! I personally think it was a bloody great idea as this has got people talking all over the city - that's just good marketing!

Monday, 8 September 2008 - There's something very wrong with this country!

"A soldier on sick leave from fighting in Afghanistan has been refused a hotel room for being in the Army. When Cpl Tomos Stringer used his military pass as identification to check in, he was told it was 'company policy to turn away members of the armed forces'. The 23-year-old who was helping arrange the funeral of a friend killed in Afghanistan, had to spend the night in his car."		Says it all.		"A boy who put up posters to find his missing cat was ordered to tear them down - or face an £80 fine under the Anti-Social Behaviour Act. Daniel Cope, 13, was devastated when eight-year-old Milly disappeared from the family home. He spent hours hunting for the pet with his parents before printing off 100 posters with Milly's picture and putting them up on lampposts near the family home in Whitstable, Kent. Just three days later, Daniel's mother Heather, 43, received a phone call from a community warden telling her they had to come down. 'The warden rang up to say it came under an anti-social behaviour act and we could face an £80 penalty."

HAHAHAHA!		Life in Britain goes on...

Thursday, 11 September 2008 - 5 countries in 11 days!

Today is the 7th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, so what a great day for booking flights I thought! Recently I mentioned I hadn't been to as many places this last 12 months compared to my first 12 months here (Croatia, New York, and Canada pretty much sum it up), so Katie and I have organised a bloody beauty of a road trip taking in five countries over 11 days hehe. Focusing primarily on southern France, we'll also be stopping over in Italy, Monaco, Andorra, and Spain. As per the map above, we'll be starting in Nice (pronouced 'neece'), head east over the Italian border, head west again through Monaco and eventually to Andorra and the Spanish border, and finish up in Bordeaux - sweet as! We don't have long to wait either, we fly out on September 23rd - just 12 days and counting :)

Sunday, 14 September 2008 - Edinburgh to Glasgow (by bike - finally!)

Back in Edinburgh this weekend, and after not seeing the sun in London for two solid weeks it was shining bright and warm in the burgh!
It wasn't to last though. When I lived here I had always intended to cycle the 80kms through to Glasgow along the Union Canal. As it turns out I just never got around to doing it, and so I brought the bike up with me this weekend for this very reason!		Shitty weather or not this was probably to be my last opportunity to do it so off I went! I've crapped on about the Union Canal many a time, but in a nutshell it runs for 50kms between central Edinburgh and the Falkirk Wheel where it then meets the Forth and Clyde Canal through to dirty old Glasgow.
The Union Canal is a bloody nice ride (or walk if that's your thing), and passes over several roads and motorways...		Meanders past farmland...
Several random towns...
Under blind bridges which encourage head-on collisions with other cyclists and pedestrians hehe...		And has several narrow bridges itself.

There are also many other impressive vistas in the middle of nowhere - good stuff!

At the 35km mark it passes through Linlithgow. By this stage I was pretty well covered in shit from head to toe, but it was to get far worse!

Shortly after Linlithgow my odometer hit the 3,000km mark. It's taken 17 months, by which time I'd done about 5,000kms in Brisbane - such is the weather.		Other random sights included this bunch, and the dumbass right on the shore of the canal was slowly but surely sinking as I stood and watched. He would eventually realise he was going down and flight his way out, only to have the cycle repeat itself over and over again hahaha. Moo!

When I left Edinburgh it was drizzling, and it started pouring not long after Linlithgow. It eventually stopped again right as I found this random road-side fire. After standing here for ten minutes I left again completely dry - nice!		Near the end of the canal on the approach to Falkirk is the 650-metre Falkirk Tunnel.
And it is bloody dark in there hehe! I could barely see a damn thing and very nearly slamed into a pair of pedestrians coming the other way who didn't seem to understand what the bright and flashing white thing was coming at them (i.e. the light on my bike). After passing them I gave the air horn a blat to warn anyone else in there, and it echoed for a good five seconds hehe - awesome!		At the other end there was a strong flow water draining form the ceiling. It was so strong I lifted my bike over the fence there and held it under which completely washed it down (and then I washed myself down). We came out of the tunnel damn near spotless hehe (but like I said above, it wasn't to last).
Santa's Grotto, on the Union Canal in Falkirk - random. I'm surprised this isn't covered in graffiti!

At the 50km mark there's one last 300-metre tunnel before emerging atop the huge Falkirk Wheel. In a nutshell it connects the Union Canal to the Forth and Clyde Canal 24 metres below. I was last here December 2006 during a road trip.

The Forth and Clyde Canal runs for 56kms between the Firth of Forth and the filthy River Clyde in filthy Glasgow. When I met it at the Falkirk Wheel the rain had set back in and the canal path covered in mud, but I was well past the halfway point to Glasgow so I pressed on.				The rain didn't let up, I was getting sprayed with mud, and I could've bailed at anytime and continued to Glasgow on road, but some of these outer-Glasgow towns look so dodgy I felt safer in the mud hehe.

Around four hours (actual cycling time) and over 90kms after leaving Edinburgh I found my way into central Glasgow (with a lot of help from the GPS as I was in no mood for navigation).		I was a mess, the camera was a mess, the bike was caked in mud as was my bag, but after intending to do it for two years I'd finally cycled to Glasgow!

This was the state of the bath tub after I was done cleaning the bike in it.		Friday was sunny, Saturday (for my ride) was shit, and today (Sunday) it's bright and sunny again. I can't win.

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Well it's gone from horses racing to sheep racing but what a good laugh it is.. - Ba'y

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