Road test

 After the disaster of the last ride where the rear wheel failed, nobody mention weight, I was happy to find this bargain set of Mavic wheels

 which arrived 24 hours after I clicked

 and prompted a spruce up of the steed that is supposed to carry yours truly 480 miles next weekend plus a bit

 have to say they look great

and on the test ride much fun was had by all. Roll on the big one!

New rule

 Now I have a nice new kitchen there is a new rule, no dogs allowed in it.

 As you can see

we stick to this rigidly!

Good timing

With the 2016 man test looming closer its prudent to make sure the steed that will be responsible for safely transporting me over the 480 odd miles is a good one. Last nights training was interrupted by a catastrophic wheel fail which meant the rear wheel ended up pringle shaped and broken. New ones have been ordered and it was a good job it happened only 2 miles from home and not on Monday's 150 mile bike ride.

Sheep botherer caught on camera.

 I will point out I am fully clothed but here I am caught bang to rights hand feeding a militias sheep who seems to have adopted us

or rather knows what a soft touch we are particularly since I am now vegetarian.

You hum it, I'll sing it

 True to form nothing is ever simple and the non Steves who were originally tasked to move the old bathroom out of the cottage came over all weak once they found out that in order to save a kidney I had taken the liberty of cutting their pay by doing most of the donkey work myself. One thing I could not do was lift the cast iron bath out.

 They who originally were going to do the task now decided that one of them had a weak arm and couldn't lift and the other had a bad back which meant he never stopped talking about it.

 The final insult was them telling me that if the presence of the bath meant they were delayed they would charge me extra.

Luckily I had a cunning plan and when offered a cup of tea and slice of cake a very good friend non Steve popped round and helped me move the offending sanitary ware. I obviously had bathroom movers Tourettes and could not help myself from asking "Do you know the baths on my foot" to which the only lawful response is "You hum it, I'll sing it".

Man Test 2016

In case anyone needed reminding yours truly has set himself a massive man test for 2016 and the link to donate to raise money for Myeloma UK is now in the margin somewhere to your right. Give what you can I'm trying to raise £5000 this year :)

Progress

 Orla

 suitably

 relaxed

 in fact

 she does

 little else

bless her.

DIY

 In order to save money yours truly has decided to take on some of the lets rebuild the bathroom project himself which is why I was found with a sledgehammer, drill and small screwdriver making

 substantial adjustments to the environment.

 At the end of play things looked a lot different

 if not improved.

Somehow I now have to get a cast iron bath past a big dog and down the stairs.