September 29, 2003

I Survived!

Well, I returned safe and well on Saturday evening from the hiking trip in the Lakes with Mart. The weather was pretty good to us, only had rain on Thursday night and even had some sun on Friday! We walked about 18 miles over Thursday and Friday in the mountainous terrain...and my legs were certainly telling me this by the end of it!!

I felt much better though after I had some Black Sheep Ale in the Hikers Bar at The Old Dungeon Ghyll, a short walk down the lane from Great Langdale Campsite!

I've got the photos of the trip up in the gallery and you can check them out here.

September 24, 2003

Camp Lakes

I'm off camping in the Lakes tomorrow with the boy Penney. We're going to be dropping the car off at a great looking National Trust campsite here, walking around Scafell Pike and then camping here. On the Friday we are then going to walk back to where we left the car - but this time walk over Scafell Pike - and then camp there for the night. Saturday we'll just see how we feel and may have a walk over some other big hills.

Now, the lad Penney does have a bit of a reputation for requiring his activities to be extreme. So "Why?" I hear you ask, am I going to the Lake District with him, putting myself in a position where I will have to say on numerous occasions, "Mart, that is so not the path." Well, the answer is I haven't been camping or hiking with full pack in years. I enjoy it. However, I'm not an extremist like Mart. If Mart wants to walk up a mountain, down the mountain and then up and down another mountain, then he's welcome to go ahead and do it...I just won't be following him. He just has to remember that I have half the tent in my bag.

I won't however, have any of his stuff in my rucksack. If he takes it, he has to carry it; even if his bag isn't big enough (imagine Heidi walking over the green hills with pots, pans, mugs, kitchen sink hanging from the outside of her bag; that will be Mart!!)!!

So I will return in one piece from this trip and I'll see all you guys soon!! Oh, and if you're at all concerned about me being out in the elements and not in a nice B & B (Mike!!), then you can check the weather here.

September 20, 2003

Spectrum Update

I've just found another site where you can play Spectrum games online! This one is HUGE!! Over 5000 games! You've just got to find one on here that you remember!

September 19, 2003

Colour Circle

Following the recent clearout of my room, I've finally decided to decorate it too (about time, seeing as it was last decorated in 1986!). I started stripping wallpaper on Wednesday and managed to get the majority of it removed. I was going to paint the ceiling white yesterday, but I realised I have no idea what colour I'm going to paint the rest of the room. So I held fire on the ceiling.

My original idea was the main colour of the room should be blue; as I quite like it. Then I realised blue didn't go with the fact that I want the room to have quite "warm" feeling. Scrap blue. How about red; that's warm. I found a nice shade of red in the plethora of paint company colour brochures I've got. Then I thought it was such a deep red, it might be too dark. Scrap red.

Orange? It's warm. It's not such a dark colour if I have just one feature wall. Right, orange it is - surely. What colour do I use with it on the other walls? An example I've got shows a whitey cream colour, another shows a beige sort of colour. They both appear to go well together. It's looking good here I'm thinking. Now for the skirting, window frame and door. I look at the examples, there's quite a few dark colours that may go. Hold on, there's lots of brown furniture in these examples? Orange, beige, brown - oh crap!! It's the 70's! Scrap orange.

How about blue?

Ahoy There Bilge Rats!

Avast! It be Talk Like a Pirate Day today! To be learnin' Pirate go here! Yarrr!!

Such sites as this and this have claimed it be so! Aye, me hearties, now I be off t'see what spewed out't' bung hole an' get som' grog!

September 16, 2003

80's Kids Rule OK

How great was it to be a kid in the 80's!? Not only did we have fantastic cartoons like Jamie and the Magic Torch, Danger Mouse, Terrahawks (remember Zelda, wow she was a minger!), Thundercats, Star Fleet (how good was Dai-X!), Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds, Button Moon, Mr. Benn and not forgetting Transformers, to name but a few! You can check out more here and here. Most of the above have sound files of theme tunes and video clips of the titles!!

What about action programmes like Airwolf, Streethawk, Knightrider and The A-Team! Not only did we have classic tv, but we also had the ZX Spectrum! You can even play some games online right here! Check out some of the games like Transformers, Dizzy and Rampage!

It was great to be a kid...I don't think I'll ever grow up; just like Peter Pan.

September 10, 2003

Photo Styles

I've been working away at the photo galleries to bring their style into line with the rest of the site. Guess what, I haven't used any tables to display them either! There's a main photo page now with links to each of the current galleries.

I've also reduced the size of the thumbnails so I can get a greater number of images in a smaller space. Also, all the thumbnails will be displayed in landscape format. Let me know what you think. Are they too small? Not enough detail in the thumbs?

Some of the repetitive/less interesting photos have also been removed from the Cornwall Gallery; I've got it down to 3 pages now.

Finally, a Who Am I? page is also up and running now.

September 03, 2003

Boys And Their Toys

After a conversation I had with Phil the other day about getting our remote control cars up and running again (well mine actually belongs to my brother), we've spent today doing just that.

After an early mishap with a steering arm on Phils' Thunder Dragon during an initial test run, and a missing charger and radio control for my Manta Ray, we eventually made it to Kinver on the evening for some all out action (including the odd crash). Yet more front end problems for Phil meant an enforced switch to 2 wheel drive.

The batteries finally gave up just as we were losing light, which was probably just as well really, seeing as there were quite a few "obstacles" to avoid as I'm sure you noticed at the bottom of here!

September 01, 2003

Choices, Choices...

Over the last week or so I've been having a monster clear out of my room. If you know me, you'd have worked out by now that I'm not the tidiest person in the world. I can't remember the last time I had a big clear out. To prove it's been a while, I've found work from primary and secondary school and also my college work.

One thing I did find, which I'd only thought about a few weeks back, was my options list to decide which subjects to take for my final 2 years at secondary school. I wondered what the list was like and if I would have made different choices now. If you click here, you can have a look and see what choices we faced 12 years ago.

Ice (R)Age

We had a group night out yesterday and went skating at Telford Ice Rink. It had been well over 10 years since I'd last been skating, so I was expecting to end up on the floor at numerous points during the evening! However, I hadn't expected to be on the floor after taking just two steps on the ice! At least I didn't fall over after that though (although I was close to it a few times).

The same can't be said for Mart (that's not Mart by the way), who in typical fashion, sped round the rink as fast as possible. With a combination of speed and no technique there was only going to be one outcome...Mart going down all over the place. His best fall happened almost right infront of us all as we chatting away at the side of the rink. It started with a shaky manoeuvre to avoid a little kid, then with arms flying all over the place trying to regain his balance, it was only a case of waiting for the tumble; which was spectacular. Legs in the air and everything. Needless to say, he left with injuries to hands, wrists, elbows and knees. The other skaters don't realise how lucky they were to survive.

A special mention must be made to Al, who to be fair, wasn't really looking forward to the evening (his last experience involved placing one skate on the ice...and then going for a coffee). He managed to make it round the rink (with the support of a willing arm from Claire) with only minimal time spent on his butt.