42

42 is the "the answer to life the universe and everything", the atomic number of molybdenum, the angle in degrees for which a rainbow appears, the number of minutes taken to fall through the earth. It is found repeated 3 times at place 242,422 in pi.

This is the first day of the next week of my life and each will be spent dwelling on the significance, the wonder and doom associated with the the number 42. Now, despite the sunshine, the quiet house, the fresh day, the week long holiday taken in anticipation of this event I kind of prefer the number 41.

Cornwall trip

There are few things as alluring as high cliffs and the Cornwall coast has some fine specimens. This year, for Christmas, we hired a cottage within comfortable walking distance of sea cliffs. We knew it would be cold but, ensconced within an old cottage, with log fire the weather was entirely enjoyable.

Within the ruins of a castle on the Tintagel Headland. This was captioned "family, ruins, rainbow" but Stephen pointed out that with a quick scan, ignoring the punctuation, it parsed badly.

The weather was conducive to rainbows - where ever we looked one would be arcing across the sky.

Ah - a respectable cliff, if it can't kill you then it is not a cliff ...

On Christmas eve we released as batch of 10 Chinese Laterns from the cliff edge, the conditions were perfect and the floated upwards looking not unlike a distress flare. Fortunately we had alerted the coast guard before hand.

Upwards until they flickered out and returned to earth.

A most enjoyable trip. It has been a rather hectic year, work wise, and thus we travelled less this year than we have for a long time. Resolution for 2010 - "work life balance, work life balance, work life balance ....."

Boxing day excursion

Annalise and I decided to leave the kids with the Wii fit, left over turkey and plentiful supply of books in order to find some sea. We switched off the nav system and drove almost, but not quite, randomly but tracking towards the midday sun low in the southern sky, knowing that ultimately we would hit the English channel but not caring where or when.

We had a ambling drive, a lazy stroll and frequent stolen meditative moments when sheltered from the wind but exposed to the relative warmth of the sun.

boxingday-08

Old friends

This weekend we met up with some old friends we haven't seen in a long time.

We traveled down to Devon early Sunday morning and stopped to stretch next to Stonehenge.



We stayed here, in a beautiful cottage with Sheep grazing outside.





This is as heated as the Croquet got - makes a change from the Rugby on Saturday night.


Yes they can rip your stomach out



We went on walks during which small children learnt that gum boot fill with water when walking in deep water.


It was a really enjoyable weekend.

Monologues

We saw the vagina monologues together in the end.

It was interesting being one of four other men in an audience of around 400.

Glad I saw it - to be recommended and lots less cringe making and angry than I expected.

Bank Holiday

We aborted the planned climbing trip today on account of Annalise's dizziness and instead went into London to see the photo exhibition "how we are - Photographing Britain" at the Tate Britain.

The train was packed with people returning from the Reading Music festival. In fact everyone seemed to be out and about - a result of weeks of rain now broken with some summer weather.

After the exhibition, we picnicked next o the river and then walked the couple of miles to London Bridge.

I tried to stop Annalise taking pictures of the unelected (House of Lords) half of the Houses parliament building but something about balance and composure forced her to add legitimacy to the entire institution by rendering them whole.

The rest of pictures are here

Alternate view of lakes

Sophie's take on the same experience

The lakes

With reference to the previous post - It rained.

The tents held out for 36 hours of continuous rain, sometimes light but oftentimes torrential until they started to admit drops of water that in time accumulated into mini-lakes on the floor until they were absorbed by the sleeping bags.

Stephen slipped on a path, dropping the camera and smashing the zoom lens in the process. The subsequent pictures are all wide-angle although we took precious few pictures in the rain.
On a less overcast note - last week I updated my insurance policy to include the camera - will they be suspicious ?

The climbing involved a one and half hour to two hour hike into the mountain. This was punctuated by periods when the sun shone until we crested a spur or rounded a corner and we presented with wind carrying horizontal rain and storm clouds. The climb itself was a little tame with some exposure but not very much adrenaline. We were clustered on a ledge when the wind strengthened and despite a slab of shared chocolate I realised that no-one except me was particularly enjoying the prospect of the additional pitches required to enable a "walk off" from the summit.

We took a vote, qualified with a "no sulk" condition, that only I would complete the next pitch and we would then abseil back down the route and take a direct descent down the mountain to the valley - about 400 metres below the base of the climb. The climbing was easy, finding a abseil point was not. The best I could do was to use an unlikely looking block way off the line and right at the limit of the rope length.

I knew what would happen before I had even returned to the others. The wet rope would not pull around to block and thus could not be retrieved - apart from the value of the rope, this was our only means of safe descent having left the second rope below. My pre-constructed prusik loop is currently serving as an anchor line for my model air-plane, don't ask!, so the only option was a sling based prusik and an aided climb back up to retrieve the rope. This time I left a sling and a pair of carabiners to ensure the rope could be pulled through.

I hate leaving equipment behind but looking down on the rest of the family below I couldn't help thinking that they were nesting eagles waiting for their next rabbit to be brought to them. What I needed to do was bump them off the cliff and catch them on the wing a few times until they had the confidence to fly.

The direct descent followed a stream straight down the mountain side. Usually one slips when not paying attention but the rocks were green with lichen, the grass over run with running streamlets and the ground was soft and spongy underfoot so that we all fell - frontwards, backwards and sidewards many times. Often we all fell in the same spot even when forewarned.

By the time we reclaimed the car we were filthy dirty and soaking wet but miraculously unhurt and in surprisingly good spirits. Also my GPS that I had forgotten in the excitement of the departure was still sitting on the roof of the car - a happy surprise. A quick change of clothes, another family vote and we broke camp in record time, re-packed the car and headed home to the perfect weather in the south-east. It was a 2:30 AM arrival home but the beds were dry and our roof didn't leak.

The rest of the pictures are here

Packing for trip

So I woke up this morning and could not locate the bicycle pump. Annalise needed the car today but no problem I'll catch the bus. Except no bus arrives. It turns out that due to road-works related to a gas main repair has caused the buses to route around my stop :-( By the time I realised this I had missed my bus. I walked to the next stop and wait. Spend 10 minutes trying to get real-time bus information on my mobile phone before I sheepishly notice that this bus stop has it already displayed on a built in screen - this just as the next bus arrives.

By this time I am so late that I figure I might as well try a "short-cut" for the one mile walk at the the other end of the journey. This involves walking through farm land and public foot paths in ankle deep mud. At least I met some very nice horses who didn't seem to think it at all odd that someone should be dressed for work cutting across their field. Needless to say it was a good deal longer than usual.

I spent the evening packing the car in preparation for the trip tomorrow. Today at work I had more calls for help than usual and so I will need to go into work around 6am tomorrow in order to get my code released. Hopefully things will go so well that I can get away around lunch time - 5 hour trip to lake district. Looking forward to it.

Things that could go wrong

• Rain
• Roof box could blow off, smash on the road, destroy the contents and cause an accident
• We could run out of petrol
• We could crash
• It could rain
  
• We could get injured or killed climbing
• Software might not get released before lunch - if only I was a lumberjack.
• It could rain
  
• Forget any of a million things
• Sophie is still sick
• and oh it could rain
  

Sunday - Sophie's birthday

Yesterday we enjoyed watching The Simpson's as part of Sophie's birthday.

Sophie on her birthday

The rest of here birthday pictures are here including some of the troop of monsters that slept over last week.

Stephen and I hung out in the bookstore and coffee shop while Sophie shopped with Annalise and Emily before the movie stared. We did find the Sushi bar mesmerising - all the brightly coloured bowls travelling around on the conveyor belt.

A very relaxing day.

This evening we purchased a roof box for our trip to the lake district at the end of this week - not very exciting unless you are into carrying corpses around but it will allow us to carry the camping and climbing equipment on the roof and make the trip I little more comfortable. In the past we have tried duffel sacks on the roof but as these aren't water proof we have to bring them inside in the event of rain - an all to often occurrence this summer.

The plan is that we will climb on two days and the rest of the time go for walks and chill out around the camp site.

On the topic of boring purchases - tomorrow the bathroom stuff arrives for the loft.

Sleep always gets in the way

There is something wrong with me - each night between 1 and 2 am in the morning I get so tired that I am just literally falling asleep.

Now usually this wouldn't be to much of a problem but my last several nights have consisted of radio control (r/c) airplane construction until after midnight followed some time with Harry Potter. Everyone else in the family has now finished the book and moved on. I haven't seen a TV or surfed the net since the weekend.

With the kids and Annalise on holiday we were woken by the plumber this morning. He arrived to fix a leak caused by the loft alterations - we have a noticable wet patch on the kitchen ceiling.

The plane is now complete and ready for crashing. I tried a r/c flight simulator with it today - first flight 3 seconds working up to a good 30 seconds. Not very promising.

I can't focus at work - to tired, I am wearing a wider and wider range of clothes as the laundry backs up. Something has to give and I think it should be work. We are still planning our trip to the Lake district in a couple of weeks but have identified several climbs and will find a campsite close by.

My arm is in agony and despite now having completed the set of physio appointments it is worse than ever. Gotta nurse it better for the climbing.

Wonderful time in France

The trip to France was wonderful. It has been so long since any of our holidays have not centered around rock climbing.

Being with friends each evening as we looked out the window at the Eiffel tower allowed for good food and discussion after each days sight seeing.

Thanks Martha, Steve, Ivonne and Sophie for making it a great trip.

Some of my favourite pictures of the trip.

View from top of Notre Dame Cathedral



Poppy field at Giverny - Monet's home villiage


The location of Monet's "Water Lillies"


We bought this picture and studied it while resting in Giverny. It is now in our lounge.


The Louve


The landmark that guided us home each night and that made doing the dishes each evening such a pleasure.


Evening boat trip on the Seine



Picnic at Fontainbleu


Under floor lighting at the Arc de Triomphe

More pictures can be found here