David and Katherine Goodwin

I've finally uploaded a few pictures to our website.

See :

• Rowan on his tummy
• Our new office
• Rachel's birthday cake (cake-pod anyone?)
• Emily's photos of us camping near Bromyard

Hopefully nothing else is going to die on me this week, but yesterday my bicycle suffered a fatal injury. I knew the frame was cracked in one place, and was about to take it to A&E (bike shop) but it beat me to it.

See : here for the gory pictures

When I did take it to the bike shop this morning, I discovered it had another crack in the seat stem... so in total - 3 defects on one frame. Nice.

This year, again I entered the Bromsgrove LRF charity fun run, and despite the horrible temperature, managed to finish 26th with a time of 44 minutes and a few seconds.

Last year, I did it in nearly the same time - although it was somewhat cooler and I hadn't been off-colour for the preceeding week.

On Sunday, I did my 5th Dyfi Enduro (at least, I think it's my 5th). As always, I had a great time, and pretty much knackered myself - which is to be expected. Oddly I reached the half way point and felt quite perky, so decided I'd better push myself harder in the second half. Thankfully I completed it, and now have one more mug to add to my collection :-)

Today, I ran to Redditch and back. It took me 2 hours and 20 mins which isn't too bad for just over 15 miles of running. Bob, who was dragged along for the journey, seemed to cope quite well in his normal dogged manner.

If you're bored the route is here

Perhaps I'm getting close to doing a marathon sometime soon.

Today, I hit 29. This is nearly old (30).

To celebrate, I ran for 11 miles, ate a large bar of Galaxy chocolate (well nearly) and had chilli for tea.

Present wise: Frisbee, Ordnance survey map, Inflatable football set, air powered rocket thing, bottle opener, Metroid 3 (for the Wii), another Wii game when I decide what and money. Oddly I seemed to have more presents this year than last. I'm not sure why - I thought the quantity and quality of birthday (and Xmas) presents was inversely proportional to age.

For the last 5 years, I've done the Dyfi Enduro. And suffice to say, I was looking forward to doing it once more this year.

It didn't seem like long ago that I had checked the site to see if registration was open... today I checked again and discovered that it's been open and is now closed - 602 riders have registered for 600 places :-(.

Boo. Hiss.

Feckenham's Scarecrow Festival

On Sunday, I decided to cycle to Stratford-upon-avon and back (route here). As only I would do. The ride itself was quite nice, although it seemed easier on the way back. There were stupid roadworks on the A46, so I had to take a detour uphill, hence the indirect route. On the way back, I managed to get a little lost, hence the extra dual carriageway.

As normal I sweated loads.

While cycling to work this morning on the Hewell Lane (along side the A448), some stupid van driver decided to get a little too close for comfort, and managed to knock my elbow with his wing mirror. There was no oncoming traffic, that I remember, so he had no excuse for not overtaking properly.

I gestured in an impolite manner at him as he drove off into the distance, but I doubt he would have seen me considering his left wing mirror was now folded in.

While cycling home yesterday evening, I managed to get stung by a wasp - in my bottom lip.

This reaffirmed my belief that I probably have an allergic reaction to wasp stings.

This photo shows me just after getting home (hence sweat, brightly coloured top and ear-phones).

Some hours later, things hadn't really improved ...