Cancelled lakes holiday and steering problem with the van.

11^th December 2015

After the charity cycle on Sunday a short run on Monday the rest of the week was my usual ‘training regime’ spin, kettlebell, spin, possibly to be called ‘spinning the kettle’ in the future. I did manage a 9 mile run on the Friday before we were due to drive to the lakes on Sunday for a week at Fallbarrow Park. BUT!!! We hadn’t taken account that there was a huge storm called Desmond heading straight for Cumbria – Saturday dawned in Somerset to be grey and very windy but, no rain, however, in the lakes it was not only raining there was a deluge. It didn’t occur to us that so much damage would be caused. We had a phoned call at 4:00 in the afternoon, it was Fallbarrow Park informing us that Bowness had been badly hit by heavy rain and was very flooded, and so was the park!! so they were cancelling all bookings that week. We were clearly disappointed, but, that’s the forces of nature, and looking at the pictures on the news I am glad we hadn’t set off as clearly the whole of the lakes was in deep trouble with closed roads, and flooded towns etc. I hope they are all safe and wish them the best to get sorted asap, we will rebook and be back in March I am sure.

So we had a week at home visiting one or two local places, Sidmouth, Exmouth, the unusual Trago retail area near Newton Abbott, always worth a visit for a bargain or two!! I even did some DIY and managed to replace some down lighters in the kitchen with LEDs, the weather wasn’t good for the week so no cycling and only 2 runs of 9 miles on Monday and 7.4 miles on Friday, along with my spinning kettle!!

12^th December

It was a trip to Gloucester on Saturday to look after the twins for the day, now 3 months old, time flies! GD was going to a panto so we had the pleasure of feeding, winding, changing the two boys for the day, they are very responsive now and developing their characters. A fantastic day out, good to see they are well and very alert, very interested in faces!

Sunday managed a 42 mile cycle over Muchelney way and I didn’t get wet for once! And very little wind, so a good ride.

The afternoon gave me chance to check out the van as the steering was very noisy and I was a little surprised to see fluid dripping from the underneath!! Which on inspection found to be power steering fluid. I hope it’s just a hose gone and not a new pump needed!!! We haven’t used it quite so much this year and as always fear lack of use is not helping, I hope we are able to reverse that trend in the new year.

Bikeability two days this week, I hope the weather holds, very mild but could be damp.