Tired Boy, Rest and Repair

Blog update

I have woken up today and I am still aching from football on Sunday. So I decided to have a rest and repair day. This is on two levels, fitness and my blogging. So you may see a couple of minor changes on my blog, I had upgraded my Justgiving widget to include how I am getting on with my fundraising target. Just to update you, with five and half weeks to go I have raised £535 for charity, increased my fitness levels and bored you to tears with over 7190 words. The last stat was because my Nan hasn't got access to the Internet, so I have had to copy and paste all the blogs onto a word document for my Mum to print off. This reminds me of a conversation I overheard when I went out for dinner with my Girlfriend, my Parents and Grandparents. My Grandad said to my Dad 'Doug, have you downloaded any tunes on your Ipod recently?' Yeah my Grandparents may not have the Internet but they are certainly 'down with the kids'! I have also added a web counter for everytime someone checks my blog, how exciting I can check its latest circulation figures. Also I amended my facebook page, with new details of my blog rather than a link to my Oxfam Cambodia/Vietnam entries of 2007, and removing the Wallbirds from my music likes and nearly removing Summer Heights High off TV programmes.
Thanks again to everyone who has sponsored me so far.

So to the second rest/repair, fitness, as I said my body is aching with the cycling and not warming down from football. Last season I started going to Yoga classes at a school, the main reason for this was a magazine article I read with Ryan Giggs who said he has prolonged his football career by using Yoga stretching exercises. If it is good for probably the best left winger in the history of the Premier League then I need to keep going, however as I am reminded constantly by status updates from teacher friends, schools are closed for the holidays so Tuesday night Yoga is off ufn. I thought I would go for a little cycle.

Cycle Ride

Then I had a lightbulb moment, I would do an entry with a few pictures cycling around Bristol, as a lot of the people I e-mail the blog updates to are not from round here. First off though just thought I would update on the Bin Men front (as I have just remembered my landlord is on the distribution list for links to my blog), I put the black bins out last night and they duly took them.

Now because it was a leisurely cycle ride I ended up getting carried away with the photos, so I will try and work out how to put the whole album on, rather than just a couple of images. After a few minutes I thought what has Bristol been famous for recently? Last year over 12 weeks more than 300,000 people, visited the Banksy vs Bristol Museum exhibition this matched the museum's own annual number of visits. I would take some pictures of Graffiti.

So Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property.[Wikipedia definition] There are number of debates with Graffiti, whether it is art or considered vandalism. It can be used as a gang symbol for tagging terrority, it can be used to decorate the side of a shop or an eyesore area. It can be used as political statement, someone even sold a Banksy mural with a free house included, as part of their house sale.

My two hours of cycling showed me a number of different displays and forms from just a simple tagline to elaborate wall paintings. It showed me how
People had made ugly old buildings look less derelict and jazzed up Railway stations.
People had made political and anti-corporate statements. Well there is a lot of unrest around with a new Tesco being built one person had even gone as far as putting posters up in their window showing a price match for local shops compared to the nearest Tesco stating, Think Tesco are cheaper?
People could remind other residents not to use their bins.
People can advertise their shops

But it also showed me the negative side of graffiti, how
People had defaced a local street signs from Cotham Park to Gotham City which is hilarious, but the postman may deliver to the wrong address.
A council worker had to clean a wall with taglines off costing the taxpayers money. (I took the picture after when he had gone round the corner for a break.)
People had even gone as far as vandalising fellow artists work.

My conclusion is there are some amazing street artists out there and they should have dedicated spaces where they can work. But what is with little taglines in black on people's houses it looks awful. Although as everything is subjective some people may like that thing.

If someone wants to go on a Louis' magical cycling tour taking in Graffiti let me know, I can widen the spectrum to Pirates and TV locations! (Only Fools and Horses, Casualty, Skins and Being Human)

After two hours of a gentle cycle I got back to see someone from the Top Floor Flat taking two of the four Black bins back onto our drive, (why he couldn't take all four in I don't know). He then proceeded to place Books, DVDs and empty Folders onto the wall. I was just having a relaxing tea when one of the Recycling Men who were just emptying the cardboard, paper, tins and bottles picked up one of the DVDs off the wall to take home. Now if only the Bin Men were as helpful someone would have picked up rubbish when the bins were on the drive two weeks ago! I then went out there myself picked up the rest of the stuff, put them in a bag and gave them to a Cancer Research charity shop minus a finder's fee (ironically Summer Heights High on DVD).

I am not looking forward to football training tonight.

Louis

Cycle to Football

Shadwell Rovers versus Stoke Bishop

Before today I had only clocked up about 140 miles, not including Bike Polo on Thursday night. Yes I went back to give it another go. I turned up and only three other people were there so it a little more obvious that I was a beginner although it meant I had more touches of the ball. I am really getting the hang of it. Since the previous week I have found that it is not going to be in the 2012 Olympics, it was two years ago when I saw a BBC Sport VT with Mike Bushell, he was trying out the sport at a time when people were campaigning for it to be re-introduced. Oh well it makes me feel better that I would not have been good enough for an Olympic squad.

So last night I made a decision to cycle to football and back. It was in Keynsham at the Cadbury's Chocolate factory so I picked up a friend in Southville and another in Whitchurch in a sort of cycling bus. This is the factory non-locals may have seen on the Television as it is due to close February 2011, so this may be my last chance to smell the Chocolate whilst playing football. I think that would be my favourite past time.

The good thing was my friend had an i-Phone with GPS signal which meant we could follow a route and have a map to follow which was handy as I didn't know the route we were going to take. This reminds me of normal journeys to football where I just sit in the back of the car and not really take much notice of the journey. Although after playing football in and around Bristol helped me realise there is much more to Bristol than Park Street, Gloucester Road and The Centre. The ride was going well, or I thought, we had got to a massive roundabout and even given someone directions. We cycled for another 15 minutes and ended up doing a massive loop ending up at the same roundabout. Ironically my friend worked out on his phone that we needed to take the road we had directed the lost pedestrian. I couldn't blame my friend as I hadn't take much notice of the signpost as I thought he had it under control.

We continued on the right road and met up with another team-mate and made it along to the Chocolate Factory playing fields. On arrival the sweet smell of chocolate hit my nostrils, I nearly started dribbling. Only 10 players turned up, usual pre-season friendly so the other team loaned us a goalkeeper and our goalkeeper played out on pitch. Yurka, a Czech the 1st one to play for the club. We played really well considering we had loads of players out and we hadn't played since the 1st week of May. To only lose 2-0 was a good result I think my fitness showed as I was running about for the full 90 when most others were struggling.

The journey back was tiring I saw it as a warm down, just taking it easy. I stopped off at the supermarket to get an Apple Juice and Pasty, Sportsman's snack you may think.

I managed to get out of taking the kit, perhaps I should cycle to every game, hmmm...

A very tired Louis

Childhood Memories

Bristol-Monmouth-Gloucester-Bristol

Its becoming a bit of a struggle now, finding new routes not the actual cycle itself! Then I thought why not visit the big country Wales, well I posted a comment on Facebook before last Tuesday's big cycle asking where to go? and only one person replied, stating 'Across the old Severn Bridge then up the river past Tintern Abbey towards Monmouth'. As I ignored the comment and went to Burnham I thought it would only be polite to go this week.

Then it clicked, why couldn't I re-live my childhood. Anyone who didn't know (which is probably most people) my primary school in its last year visited the Wye Valley, Monmouthshire. So I set off at 9.30am after the usual rituals, however I forgot I had run out of Ribena, so this time my drinks bottle was filled with Orange Squash. I took my usual route to work and then half a dozen more miles to the Severn Bridge. This is where my first bit of fun began. Right by the end of this entry you will know enough about me to go on Mastermind and have me as your specialist subject. As you now know I am massively afraid of heights, luckily it wasn't too windy but it still required me to recite the Arsenal 97-98 Double Winning team.

After that ordeal I had crossed borders into another country, Wales. The signposts are all in Welsh and English, so it always makes me chuckle as I feel I am on holiday. It was then I spied a potential guard for my Bike Polo, a For Sale post from Moon & Co, it was even in the shape of my wheels it seemed perfect, the only issue I had would be transporting it home.

I cycled along the A4166 towards my first tourist attraction of note, Tintern Abbey and Tintern Railwaay Station the route took me down a winding road like on an Alps stage of the Tour de France. It was amazing, I was picking up some pace, although it was at this stage I was hit by a fly which really hurt. I arrived at the Abbey took a picture, when I saw a mother and son and thought they could take my picture. This is the only downfall of cycling alone you get lots of pictures of nice scenery and none with you in. They took my pic, I asked them where they were cycling and they said Bristol and wanted to know where a good cycling shop was. So I let them know and advised of the impending hill category 1 climb.

I then went past taking the second photo of my school album, the Tintern Railway station, I was thinking of stopping for a cup of tea and cake but didn't want to ruin my appetite for my ready-made pasta. It then started raining hard, perfect timing to cycle past a sign stating 'Road liable to flooding'. I carried along the same road hoping the weather would get a bit better, who was I kidding? this was Wales, it always rains. This was a really picturesque route alongside the River Wye just shame the weather was out to see its fully beauty.

Next stop was Monmouth Lidl to pick up a few provisions. If you haven't shopped there before it is hilarious there are snide brands that look like the real deal but aren't. So I bought some chocolate which was called Landt to place in my bag and a bottle of water and on to the rest of my journey. It was then I saw signs for 3rd and 4th historic landmarks, Bibling bridge and Symonds Yat. This took me along a muddy path for 2 miles.The next 'Louis fact' is my Bike, trusty steed is what is called a Hybrid, where it is not a road bike and not a mountain bike so it didn't really handle the bumps and I could really feel it. I went passed the bridge and it reminded me of when 18 years ago I had to cross the bridge with a teacher and the 5 other kids who were scared. There was no time to reminisce, on and up to Symonds Yat Rock which I remembered was a spectacular view.

I thought it was now time to crack open the lunch, eating in the picnic area I was cursing that I hadn't brought hand gel with but I did have a fork thank goodness. I then spotted the way to the view point (across a bridge) I was too nervous to make it so I bought a post card of the view. It looked better anyway because in the picture it was brilliant sunshine.


From here I made my way on, I had ticked all the Woodlands Primary School boxes. I thought against turning round and looping my journey because of the massive climb but also because I had already seen that part of the countryside. So I carried on up towards Gloucester where I had another slab of chocolate and met a lovely dog which I would have given some chocolate but I didn't know if I may require it further along the journey. This was at a place called Longhope which was funny because there was no hope of me cycling the hill so I got off the Bike and walked the hill for 2 minutes.

I then continued to cycle on to Gloucester where I went into the centre at about 3.15to have a look around and to find out if there was any other routes back to Bristol apart from the A38. After visiting the Tourist Information centre (unhelpful) and the local bike shop, who told me Bristol wasn't as far away as it actually was. I decided to take the A38 into Bristol and this was about 16.15 by now. I had under 2.5hours to cycle about 36 miles to get to Ashton Gate to meet my friends to collect tickets for the England Under 21 game.

This brought me back to another childhood memory that an easy way of me to achieve the unachievable is to think there is football at the end. My parents would always say think Football related, it was an easy way of getting me to do my homework. Always no Football till it is done, which worked until I got old enough to think for myself and I didn't let them know I had homework. It would get to Sunday evening I would then remember I had homework and asked my Mum for help, right in the middle of HeartBeat where she would reluctantly help as she didn't really want to miss it. If only we had ITV2,3,4 2+1.3+1,4+1 back in the day.

Anyway I met my friends outside the stadium at 18.45, dumped my Bike at a friends house and back to watch the football. I was still in my cycling leotard with a t-shirt over the top I got a few strange looks that night.

95 Miles what a day and I did sleep well that night.

Louis