Jan 16

New Year Resolutions (not)

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This happens occasionally, I get all enthusiastic about certain projects or aspects of my life and sort of get renewed interest that lasts for a while and then mostly dies out gradually…..its on several fronts this year.

Firstly the sewing - the big kite WILL be finished this year.  Yeah right, I’ve said that before - no really, it will!!!  The timing with work, and social life all falls right this year to go to Fuerteventura Kite Festival.  It would be great to take the Double Star - mind you trying to get the 5 foot long poles safely over to the Canaries by air may be awkward and costly - whatever happens though, I am determined this kite will have a test flight before we leave - and then I can move on to other projects on the kite front, a nice light-wind kite would be handy…..

Fitness and diet - I’ve put on far too much weight over Christmas and New Year, and the last year has seen me become a bix lax on the exercise front too - so I am currently heavy and unfit!  Running has started again, maybe I’ll enter the Kings Lynn 10k, or maybe just the Race for Life, but whatever I do, I need to train regularly.  After the button fell off of my mp3 player on my second run of the year, and rendered it unusable, I decide to invest in an ipod nano.  This, together with a nike+ receiver plugged into it, and a receiver in/on my running shoe, give me the opportunity to measure and log my training online - hopefully an incentive!  First it needs calibrating so I need to run an already measured distance and get it set right…..but not today - its too windy!!!!

I also tried, for the first time, a Zumba class yesterday.  Not really knowing what to expect, I found it very energetic (slightly more so than I had anticipated..), and quite fun.  A definite mixture of dance and aerobics - the repetitiveness of aerobics with some latin dance moves really.  Being on a saturday morning it means I will miss a few when I am out and about at weekends, but it seems that the moves are simple enough not to be losing anything if you miss a week, unlike the dance lessons I enjoyed.

Diet then, and another part of shifting some weight is to start cooking proper meals and not relying on convenience food and someties take-aways.  I never was that terrible with the take-aways unless I am away from home, but I do need to make more effort on the cooking front, and make fewer cakes too!  Also proper lunches at work instead of supermarket sandwiches.  I know that eating right doesn’t actually have to  involve loads of salads…but salad is actually very easy to pack and take to work, so thats the direction I headed in last week - lets see if I can keep this up and, together with the exercise, improve my shape.

So - although I hate the idea of new years resolutions, I guess that is pretty much what I have here, a few things that should improve my life if I actually do them…..we’ll see how it goes then!

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Jan 03

Hello World…..again

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Its certainly been a while, hasn’t it?! 

Life has been pretty hectic and trying to blog everything I did got a bit of a chore, so I’m back with a new outlook on blogging - only blogging when I think its interesting and worthwhile, which is pretty much what I should have been doing from the start.  This is by no means a New Years Resolution to make sure that I blog regularly, but probably to make the effort to do it more often.

Since last time then, courses and exams completed to become a qualified member of the AAT, I’ve taken on two positions within the Great Ouse Kite Flyers committee, one of which is editor of the newsletter - which is one of the things that has been taking up a considerable amount of time every couple of months, pretty interesting though.  Work has been quite “interesting” for some time, leaving me temporarily short staffed, but hopefully can only improve.  Christmas and New Year celebrations are all now over, one more day off work left.  The kitchen has at moments been totally overtaken by cakes and cake decorating, for parties and for gifts - if nothing else I love the excuse that Christmas gives me to be a bit creative in the kitchen!

Main reason for resurrecting the blog now, is that work has begun once again on Project DS, all the panels are now completely attached.  Next job is to attach a ”D” ring to each of the points (all 40) and four more in the middle - this could take some time, a couple of hours work left me with 7 D rings attached.  Stephen, true to form, couldn’t wait to see what it was going to look like, so rigged up one side of the kite onto the spars with electrical tape - unfortunately it is too big to stand up in the living room assembled!  Guess what I’ll be doing on my last day off tomorrow…..

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Jun 20

Project 52 - Week 43

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I’m being buried alive in kite bits!

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Jun 08

Coming soon….

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….ok then, other things to get caught up with soon on the blog….

Photos to follow for Nene Valley Railway Day

Project 52 photos

Progress photo for Project DS

Recipes…chocolate chip scones (including the vodka strawberries!) chocolate meringue pie….and if I can find one a recipe for a chocolate guiness cake (tried a slice at Strawberry Fayre and was amazing, just need to find a recipe now!) I will put that on too for future reference.

Think thats about it, at least that will do for the moment anyway!

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Jun 07

Motivation & Enthusiasm

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I joined the local swimming pool a few months ago to try and help shift some of the weight that I seem to have accumulated over the last year or so.  I’ve also sarted eating much healthier with the same intention.  So far I’ve managed to lose about half a stone.  When I joined the swimming pool I found it difficult to get the enthusiasm to go as often as I should, always seeming to find something more important to do with my lunch hours at work. 

Just recently I seemed to have gained the motivation that I was previously lacking, not quite sure where from, but maybe it has something to do with setting myself targets and making my swims more interesting by making up a “routine” for my time in the pool.   This week I actually completed three sessions, 30 lengths each time, including a variety of different strokes.

On top of the swimming, now I have come to the end of the physio on my foot  after the car accident, I have been wanting to improve my walking distances.  I am hoping that I will gradually increase the distances until I am back up to the 5/6 mile walks I was happy with previously.  We went to Strawberry Fayre in Cambridge yesterday and I certainly walked a fair distance there - only having troubles when we were nearly back to the train station in the evening. 

For the first time since the accident I went running today - ok, so it was probably the shortest run ever, but its a start and with my newly found motivation maybe I can build up the running distances too, possibly even get enough enthusiasm to go running before work in the mornings once or twice a week - although that may be asking a lot for someone who really hates mornings!

Also resumed after a long(ish) break are both archery and kite flying.  The last kite meeting I went to was the New Years Day fly-in, when there was almost no wind but plenty of time to socialise round the BBQ, so I popped over the Ferry Meadows for one of the meetings….where there was very little wind, but more socialising going on!  A hot day, and although not much would fly I got the chance to catch up with some friends and the swan kite did manage a short outing.  Archery on Tuesday was the first practice session since we began shooting outside in May - was a bit daunting to start with, but we soon got into the swing of things and I was pleased to see that the alteration to my bow that I had done at Custom Built Archery seems to have improved my range slightly too.

Something new for this weekend, if you include Friday evening in your definition of  “weekend” (and I certainly do!) is a couple of hours of dancing lessons - something I’ve been wanting to do since WASH last year.  I attended an hour of ballroom dancing, and learnt some quickstep, and an hour of latin ballroom where I learnt some jive and some rumba.  I had so much fun, and amazed myself by picking up the steps quite quickly, that I may well go again this coming Friday too.  I don’t think I have the time spare to commit to going every week, but its certainly very appealing to be doing something new and energetic.

The last, but certainly not least, activity this weekend has been resuming work on Project Doublestar (DS), the ongoing kite project.  We knew it was going to be a long term project, but I didn’t count on having so much else going on that I wouldn’t touch it for weeks, possibly months, on end.  With the sewing I’ve managed today, we are now up to the point of joining on the third set of panels.  It is already so large that if we try and lay it out to photograph it takes up most of the floor space in the middle of the living room, and still two more sets of panels to attach yet!  Only 15 more pieces to hem too.

Success all round then, this weekend - and I’m hoping this period of motivation and enthusiasm continues for some time to come, particularly as it also extends to updating the blog too!  Maybe I’m finally starting to lighten up a bit again after worrying so much about college - who knows!

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Mar 17

Project DS - Back on Track

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Another weekend dedicated to kite building actually went slightly more to plan than the previous one, now the new sewing machine has arrived.

Everything has been a bit trial and error, despite having a folder of instructions and a whole 83 (or so) pages of forum to peruse (whenever there are a few hours spare!!).  The double sided tape we have been using to attach pieces together before sewing has proven both to be indispensible, and a pain in the backside!   For holding the pieces together ready to sew without any worry of them moving against each other its great, particularly when we are now looking at three pieces of fabric at a time.  For actually sewing it has been a problem as the sticky stuff stays on the needle, then the machine starts missing stitches and I am having to constantly clean the needle with silcone spray to remove it.

Eventually, we managed to get all of the yellow pieces sewn together - that gives us the centres for both sides of the kite - next step is to start joining the other colours onto these bits, and this is where sewing three pieces comes into things.  Each yellow piece now needs both a pink and a black piece joined onto it.  The technique we finally came up with is a bit fiddly, but seems to work - it involves sewing the first line of stitches which hold the pieces together, then removing the tape (with difficulty) before sewing the second line which binds the raw edges back onto the kite making a double seam.  This way the needle doesn’t have to go through the sticky tape at all - problem solved!

Progress was good - having a break for a while now though as I will be off to Brean (a Plus holiday) next weekend.  There will be no doubt a lot of problems ahead to solve before we get this finished, and certainly a ton more sewing, but its now feeling like we’re actually getting somewhere!

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Mar 11

Project DS/Project 52 - Week 30

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Well the theory last weekend was to get a big chunk of work done on the Doublestar kite - all went well on Saturday when I got stuck into hemming, I now have only 23 pieces out of 140 left to hem,which means I managed to hem 37 pieces this time.  Sunday was set aside for assembly on the theory that assembly would need two people (twice the brain power to try and work out how to do it!), whereas hemming I can finish in the evening on my own.

Whilst doing the little bit of assembly we had already achieved, I had discovered the hard way that the sewing machine wasn’t keen on the double sided tape we had used to hold everything together until sewing time.   I seem to remember a bit of a metallic crunch and since then things haven’t quite been right with the machine - missed stitches, tangles etc.  I spent hours on Sunday fighting to get the thing to sew the bit we had finally worked out how to tape (should have written notes on what we did the first time!) - managing to sew three out of five pieces before giving up and asking for assistance to find out what was wrong with the machine. 

Thats where things took a turn for the worst and all work on the kite was temporarily halted.  A new sewing machine was ordered on the internet!

….and as if by magic - my new machine turned up today, we’ve been playing about with it tonight (although we are both a bit unsure about Stephen playing with it too much given what happened when he touched the last one!).  I think I have decided that the automatic needle threader gadget is probably slower than actually threading by hand, but otherwise its looking good, and work will resume shortly!

Project 52 photo - a broken sewing machine!

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Feb 26

Satin sheets are very romantic……

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So Madonna said.  Not sure I can comment on that, but I saw a full bed set in brown satin in a shop the other day at a very reasonable price, so gave into temptation.  Duvet, pillowcases and fitted sheet, all in chocolate satin, means I wake up in the morning feeling like I am in an advert for Galaxy!

That provides me with week 27 of Project 52 - I know its a bit sad that the most interesting part of the week is buying bed linen…..

Actually the most memorable part of the week was when I decided to trim the growth of an overactive climber on the pergola down to size, and managed to trim the cable on the hedge trimmers instead - whoops.  Now we have a pergola that is only two thirds trimmed, and no hedge trimmer - not a very productive day all told.

What else has been going on since I lasted posted (yes I know it was quite a while ago!)?  Lots of Plus stuff, group AGM, Area AGM, National AGM all have taken place in the last few weeks, the most recent being the National, held in Walsall - an interesting, positive meeting and a great evening do too.  Work on Project DS has also carried on - all the pink parts are now hemmed, that leaves only 40 black bits to hem and then carry on with assembly.  There is progress, slow but sure!

Anyway….Project 52 photo:

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Feb 09

Cars, Kites, Archery and Geocaching

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A  busy, fun weekend in all, although the cars bit involved a lot of time spent outside in very cold weather helping fit electronics to two cars, so not so great.  After sorting the cars out, we went to a Portsmouth shoot with the archery club at Holbeach, where I shot a new personal best, I’m getting more practice these days and seem to be continuing to improve.  Still striving for the 500+ point Portsmouth though - that may be a way off yet!

There was a kite club meet scheduled in Bedford for Sunday, and despite an obvious lack of wind we decided to head off in that direction anyway.  We arrived quite late due to an unscheduled lie-in, and we were the only kite flyers at Priory Park in the snow.  The star kite had its first flight with its new tails, two at first, then four - it flew ok with two in quite a light wind, but four were just too much for it.  I’ll save all six for another day! 

Also having its first proper flight was the swan kite I made just after Christmas - in virtually no wind at all it gained some lift from somewhere and was beautiful to watch.

The sun came out, and it actually got quite warm despite the snow - when we finally decided the wind had died too much to fly, we packed up the kites and went to find a geocache.  For those not in the know, geocaching is a sort of treasure hunt using gps and co-ordinates given on a website to find hidden “treasures”.  The one we found in Bedford was quite straightforward to find and we signed the log and put it back into its hiding place before heading off to a pub for some light refreshment, and then returning home.

Once home, I started work again on Project DS - put aside for some time now, but today resurrected.  I’ve managed to sew 20 of the pink pieces tonight, and will carry on during this week to see if I can get all the pink done - that just leaves hemming on 40 black pieces and then we are properly onto assembly - thats when the real challenge starts!

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Taken on my mobile phone so the colours are a bit odd in some, but that will teach me to charge my camera battery regularly….

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Jan 22

Kites

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Quite a lot has been happening on the kite front in the last few weeks, both making, adapting and meetings.  First off, there’s the swan kite….

At the same time as I was drinking too much, and sleeping too little at WASH, most of the rest of the kite club were attending a workshop with Karl Longbottom, making swan kites.  Karl was kind enough to put together kits for a couple of us who couldn’t make it to the workshop and mine has been sitting on my dining room table since the day of the car accident.  I thought the time between Christmas and New Year was a good time to make a start, and hopefully complete the kite.  Unfortunately I was a piece short, so I contacted the club, who contacted Karl, who put the piece into the post extremely quickly.  After that it was a case of following the instructions on the DVD provided.  I’ve never been 100% at following instructions, I tend to skip ahead and miss bits out - in this case it mean unpicking some bits and re-sewing!

I was hoping to have the kite finished in time for the New Year’s Day fly-in at Grafham Water, but due to the missing bit was too far behind with the build.  As it turns out, I got most of the sewing done, but took the opportunity at the fly-in to check out the bridling of a completed swan - we took some photos which proved very handy for reference when it came to finishing the kite.  I finished it fairly quickly after that but I’m not sure how it flies yet until I go to another fly-in with it.

Project DS hasn’t been abandoned, although it probably seems that way at the moment.  I have got some odd bits done that I’ve been meaning to do for ages - a bag for the 8 pointed star kite, another bag for the new swan kite, and a tail for the star - actually several tails, and I’m still working on those - the idea is to make it look like shooting star - I’ll take photos when they’re finished, if it still flies with them attached, that is!!

The New Year’s Fly-in was fun, very chilly, and hardly any wind!  Scott had a hot air balloon that flew so high it disappeared into the clouds, otherwise only a couple of kites were flying.  Always worth going for a good chat/catchup, some BBQ food and hot non-alcoholic mulled wine.

Photos…..swan kite:

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GOKF New Year Fly-in:

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