Just wanted to pass on my congratulations to James and Katie who became the proud parents of Samuel John Walsh early on Tuesday morning.
Words can’t describe how happy I am for them and I look forward to meeting the little fella! I just hope James makes him a City fan and not a Darlo fan :-)
What have I been up to in the last week or so? Well, apart from the standard work stuff (yawn), I’ve been visiting the parents in Chester for Easter weekend.
Easter this year was a really chilled affair with me arriving at chez Purcell on Thursday evening to be greeted by a wonderful meal served by Mum. This was to be an ongoing theme as Mum excelled herself with the cookery whilst Dad did his best to help with excellent wine choices each evening!
Apart from eating food and drinking wine though I did manage to get out and about. On Friday I managed a quick lap of the Karrimor trail at Coed Y Brenin. This was mainly spent in hot pursuit a team GB rider proudly wearing his team jersey and using his lycra to maximum effect! Fortunately I still overtook him a couple of times whilst he dealt with minor mechanical issues and by the time I got back to my car, he’d got ahead by about 5 minutes.
On Saturday I went to see Chester win against Wycombe. This was a great relief after seeing a number of Chester defeats over Christmas and New Year. Fingers crossed but it looks good for league two survival this year. All this was after a quick run with Dad in the morning.
Sunday afternoon was spent taking a stroll with Dad on Moel Fama, just down the road in North Wales. The weather was great and the views were stunning across to Snowdonia, Liverpool and Beeston Castle.
Monday was a challenge because although I wanted to go to see Chester play at Bury with Andrew, I also wanted to get out on the bike. Well when Andrew suggested a departure time of noon, then I took full advantage and dashed off into Wales for my first ever ride at the Llandegla forest centre. This was great fun and had I have known that the football in Bury would prove to be a dour affair, I may well have investigated further.
I’m writing this after getting back to Swindon, doing a day of work and then spending the evening riding with the guys from Red Planet Bikes. All I have to do now is run to work tomorrow morning and have an appraisal. Easy huh?! (At least I’m getting fit!!!)
Having done lots of running this week, I thought I’d jump back on the bike this evening. It was already 5.30pm by the time I got on the bike and sunset was at 7.30pm. At 7.15pm I fitted the bike lights in preparation only to find that they hadn’t been charged since early March. Bugger!
This led to much amusement for the last hour (yes that’s right!) of the ride along muddy paths, singletrack and Swindon’s finest cycle paths all in the pitch black!!! Still it felt great but I’m going to ache tomorrow!
Note to self… always check lights before jumping on the bike when it’s going dark!
