The ten to two club

That was that then. A weekend mountain biking in the Peak District followed by a week being Dad - looking after the kids while Liz was off on a jolly.

The Peak District is great for cycling and yet shamefully ignored by myself. It's only 90 minutes by car and there's some great routes, all of which are very hilly and contain much technical stuff: marvellous.

Rich Eatough came up to meet me and Jo J from the North Leeds biking crew 'gatecrashed' in on the Saturday night for the Sunday ride. The drinking was all her fault I'm sure.

It was the first camping of the year as well which was fun, and the weekend also included my first hangover for what I've calulated as 6 years. On white blinking wine too - something we thought was 'safe' to drink at will. Mind you given that three of us downed a 3 litre box plus another bottle at the tents and then more in the pub afterwards - what did we expect? Duh.

But (as we are so dedicated) we got out as promised on Sunday albeit on a foreshortened excursion after having spent most of the morning asleep and then in a cafe trying to get ride of the nausea. Yep - we all suffering from Richter scale hangovers and we eventually made a start on the bikes "at the crack of ten to two". We valiantly managed some cruel climbs at the start and kept going. Our pay off was the wondrous complete traverse of Rushup Edge, in glorious sunshine and with the wind behind us. Fabulous. Mountain biking rocks.

The kids were as ever brilliant for the week. It's an odd place inside the bubble of being a full time parent. Just concentrating wholly on keeping the kids entertained and nothing else being a priority. Good fun really. We all enjoyed ourselves anyway. It was a week of parks and more parks; plane and train museums in York and the Play Barn (inevitably). Also we did an excellent visit to Five Locks Rise near Bingley and the kids were fascinated by the locks on the canal watching boats go through.

So, back to it. The summer's here though, eh?

Permanent dickhead

Yeah, so there's me whining about a bit of hearing loss when I have a daughter who is permanently damaged in a way that most people can't even imagine. Way to go Andy.

It's strange though with Holly, as she's "just Holly" to me. I'm used to her disability, and we all just get on with it. But if I think what it must be like for her to just not be able to do things - not to be able to make her limbs work and her hands open and close properly. Imagine not being able to scratch an itch - any itch... and to not be able to speak and tell people what you want, what you think, or just tell them anything. It's frightening. But, she deals with it -heroically is probably the best word I can think of.

Anyway - I got to take her swimming at the weekend for the first time in ages (with help from friend Jo, who looked after Jamie in the baths). There are many things which just make Holly very happy and swimming is one of them - she's just off kicking and generally giving it some stick with a huge grin on her face. No doubt if she could she'd be jumping in the deep end of the big pool by now - probably off the diving boards. Jamie on the other hand is a wimp and even with armbands on clings to whoever is with him like a limpet. Jo did manage to get him to do a little bit of floating on his own though which was impressive all round.

I have the kids for 6 days after Easter while Liz is off biking round the Lakes or something. What am I going to do with the pair of them for 6 days? I'm sure I'll think of something ...

Permanent Damage

Have been having some problems with my left ear of late - it feels like it's got water in it. You know that annoying thing when you have to jump up and down a bit after you've been swimming? Yes, well it's like that all the time.
The GP (a couple of months ago) had said it was likely water in my middle ear from an infection after a bug and would go away. Well it didn't do so I engaged my private healthcare option and saw a specialist this week (at a most plush BUPA hospital in Roundhay).
Bad news. Could be that I just have a knackered ear - it may be an inner ear issue which they cannot do much about. My hearing test showed my ears were far from perfect (loss a certain frequencies) and when I mentioned a history of playing the drums there was a knowing look from the doctor fella.
The upshot is that I can likely blame a combination of those noisy cymbals for frequency destruction, and my dad for my inheritance of crap hearing. I will be having an MRI scan on the really duff one this week just to make sure.
It's a bit alarming though to find out that a bit of me may be permanently damaged.
Eh?