50+ and proud of it.

My wife and I went to France last week and had a very nice time thanks. Really relaxing, as this time, we didn't rush all over the place visiting everything within a 50 mile radius. No, we just put the bikes on the carrier and used them all the time once we got there. The days consisted mainly of cycle to town, get some bread, cycle back, have breakfast. Cycle to town have lunch, have a beer, cycle back. Cycle to town to the nearest bar, watch the footie and have a few more beers. Cycle back - carefully. One day we even ventured 10km to a small town inland by way of the cycle track which ran alongside the dykes and rivers. "Oh look, a brown beaver!" The large furry rodent sitting on the path gave us a withering look before gently gliding into the stream. Unfortunately, all the subsequent beaver jokes fell completely flat when we found out later it was Coypu. Such is life. On the last night however, we decided to have a "proper" French meal. Cycling to ...

Well, after nearly a year of training, the day finally came and 96 riders including "us" 1 set off on 30 th April on our 4 day ride to Paris. There's so much stuff on Facebook , Twitter and YouTube then it seems pointless repeating it all here. However, it's worth saying that it was one of the best things I've done in a long time and I would do it again in a heartbeat. In fact, most of us agreed that we could have cycled back the next day. Out of 170+ punctures, we had - none. Out of all the breakdowns, we had - none. Out of all the hills, I walked - none; as Alan said "that's ain't gonna happen!". Apart from cycling through the Somme and instinctively saluted a War Cemetery, there are two things that stood out above all the other things that stood out, one was arriving at lunch at the green of a beautiful old French village and noticing that the Church walls were a little worse for wear. "Yes", we were told, "those are bu...

Since the last post about the Dacia Duster, I've had quite a bit of interest from Renault about the mileage (or rather, lack thereof). They actually admitted that the motorway mileage wasn't "what they expect for a Diesel". Not sure exactly what they expect, but they're "looking into it". So fingers crossed. Now, gloves. It's now the last working day for me before I embark on the mad Sittingbourne-to-Paris Bike Ride, when 100 cyclist will be riding 260 miles in aid of Demelza House, our local children's hospice. There are seven of us in our "team" and for my sins, I was promoted to leader as I was the one who organised the training and pushed the guys to get out and ride. At some point, someone said we were like Dad's Army and I therefore got dubbed "Captain Mainwaring" by default. A few weeks ago, one of the guy's chain came off and we spent more time looking for a stick to use to put it back on than we actually...

Following on from the Christmas Day Power Cut, we got a cheque from UK Power Networks for £75 for "any inconvenience caused". You mean going down to MIL's as planned? Thanks.

Well, Renault have gone down in my estimation as bit. I figured that the (Dacia) Duster should be doing more MPG than it was so I moaned at them a bit. To be fair Renault Maidstone took the car in and checked the "clip" - i.e. they plugged in the ODB tester and found "nothing wrong". A Brownie Point to them for trying. So, I opened a case with Renault UK to see what they could do. A bloke rang me up to discuss how I should drive a Diesel. "Don't rev it more than 2,000. Don't put anything in the boot. Don't have any people in it. Throw away the spare tyre...". I lied about the tyre, but you get the idea. "Listen, my Dad taught me how to drive slow - he was very good at it too. But I'll try what you ask." I managed to get another 3 mpg out of it. It's a thin line between changing gear and having the engine flame out due to no revs. He rang me back. Another Brownie point. "Nope, still a load of old bollocks....

We went out last Sunday on one of our regular training rides in preparation for the Demelza 101 Sittingbourne to Paris 270 mile Bike Ride. We went out a) because it wasn't raining, b) because we had to and c) they do the best bacon sandwiches at the top of Tankerton Slopes at the cafe at the halfway point. It was however windy. Really windy. Piglet and Pooh windy in fact. It was also cold. We started from our regular start point in Sittingbourne and had, for the first time, managed to get in touch with one of the other participants, who, for the sake of anonymity, we'll call "Terry". Terry turned up on a dusty bike he'd found in his shed and was wearing nothing but shorts and a running top - and no gloves. "I have some spare gloves. Do you want to borrow them?" "No, Oim fine." "I have some rain trousers, that'll keep the wind out. Borrow them?" "Nope, Oim really fine." "You haven't got a hi-viz on, I...

I was going through the wallet-full of documentation that came with my new Dacia 1 Duster the other night. Y'know, just to ensure that I really did know how to wind up the windows and where to put the key in, that sort of thing, just before you file the handbook under "seen-it-before", next to the Haynes Manual about the Spitfire and Weber carburetors. Now, I don't know if it's a Renault thing, or a specific Dacia thing but when you tick a few boxes on the order form marked "extras", that indeed is what you get - extra. Extra paperwork by the ton. You get installation and user-handbook sheets for every single one of the extras. Dacia new car order forms work by having a box called "touring pack", which contains a tow-bar and an arm-reset etc. They have a box called "protection pack", which contains reversing sensors, mud-flaps and a metal plate that sticks to the rear bumper 2 etc. Oooh, lots of etc's. And so on. And so on. ...

Today I reached two milestones. One: I reached my minimum "you-can-go-to-the-ball" sponsorship level of £1,750 for the Demelza House 101 Bike Ride to Paris, and two: I clocked 1,000 miles in the Duster (in a week!), and thereby have officially run it in. Wow. This means that the bear can now get strapped to the handle bars - any £1 over the minimum is a mile towards Paris before the bear gets flung into a hedge (or The Channel). £270 over and it gets rinsed in The Seine. It's not coming back, OK? Trust me.

So, this is Christmas And what have you done? Another year over And a new one just begun Yoko Ono; John Lennon. Yes. That's just how I feel!   On the plus side, I bought a new car, like, brand new and I've never, ever, done that before. It's a Dacia Duster Laureate 4x4 . I picked it up Christmas Eve, just after "the storm" the night before. The interesting part was getting out of the village that morning to pick it up - a tree has fallen across our street which I had to cut out of the way with a hand-saw, then the main road blocked with a *huge* fallen tree, the back road blocked with a fallen power line and the only other road out was flooded to about 7"; which caused some concern when the vehicle we were using was a smart roadster which holds you bum about 2" off the tarmac. We got back from the dealer 1 ("don't worry sir, you don't need to run it in") and I settled down to read the owner's manual. Five minute...

I've been plagued recently by the infamous "Yahoo Search has hijacked my search bar in Firefox" problem. Like a thousand other people, Googling for that search generally yields nothing concrete. Most of the answers show that responders simply haven't understood the problem - "just set your home page" - no it's the damn URL search bar thingy, not my home page you idiot, etc. etc. Anyway, someone gave me an idea - "Search for the yahoo.xml file and delete it, it's in C:\Users\ \AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ .default\searchplugins\yahoo.xml" And there it was, so I deleted it and guess what? Nope, it didn't make a blind bit of difference. So I carried on looking, and there, in C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\browser\searchplugins is the offending file. Shut Firefox and then delete the bugger. Job done. No, don't thank me, sponsor me... (Well, it worked for me. No hate-mail please ).  

Ar*e. On Friday evening I went to get up and my knee gave way. Not in the "oh, I'll just sway a bit" way, but, "F**k, that hurts like hell and I can't walk now" way. I somehow managed to hop upstairs to bed. It kept me up most of the night with the pain. I went to the hospital (minor injuries) the next morning. "Sorry, it's not swollen/broken/cut/bruised or generally anything we can fix. Here's a pair of crutches. Bye" I limped around like The Karate Kid doing that stork impression for most of the weekend. The doctor on Monday was more helpful. "You've pulled a tendon (or something), there's nothing we can do. Just rest it for three weeks." I then mentioned the magic words - "Private Health care". "Oooh, go and see a physiotherapist, but they probably won't be able to do anything..." I went to the company doctor (for referral to the PH scheme) who was even more helpful - he actually did ...

Ah, woke up this morning as normal and went to shave. I took one look in the mirror and nearly had a fit.   There, staring back at me was something out of a Hammer Horror. The white of my eye had turned a bright red. I think the rest of my face went white - which didn't help the situation as I now looked like a zombie or something This made the situation worse - I thought I'd been vampired in my sleep and now started to feel sick. I'm quite fond of my eyes and the thought of losing one of them was cause for some considerable concern. As always, Mrs Sensible came to the rescue - "Can you see OK out of both eyes?". "Yes". "Are you in pain?". "No". "Don't panic then". "That's easy for you to say" "Guess where you're going this morning." Time passes in the local out-patient's waiting room. "Next please" I walk in and before I even had chance to shut the door - "Ah,...

I found a bear a while back. This of course was not a real bear. It was a pink bear about 3" high languishing in the back of a draw of a desk at work. I found it whilst moving offices one day. No one claimed it, so it ended up in my drawer instead. I named it "Pooky" after the one in the Garfield cartoons. It used to stare blankly up at me every time I went for a rubber 1 . I occasionally would move its jointed legs around for fun and try and balance it on the desk divider, but mostly I would rummage it to once side to get to the eraser 2 . Today I had an idea 4 . In a sad attempt to drum up the sympathy vote, I came up with a fund-raising idea for my charity bike ride to Paris. I would kill the bear. It goes like this: Sponsor me or I would dangle the bear off the back of my bike on a piece of string at Christmas. In the cold. And the wet. I'm very good at knots. I ran the idea past my wife. I got the look that said 'even you've over-stepped t...

Hmm, if you think this is over the top text PTVC59 £1 to 70070, if not text PTVC59 £5 to 70070. The question is whether I can wear it around work as instead of my normal safety vest!

This is an unashamed plug at raising £2,000 for charity at:- http://www.justgiving.com/petethevan If everyone who visits my page above donates just £1 (or even, €1) then we can do this. Please visit Demelza House to see why it's worth it. You can even donate via PayPal - it's that easy! After many months of deliberation, I finally decided (=shamed into) to sign up for the Demelza House 101 Cycling Team . This is a 4 day, 270 mile, Sittingbourne-to-Paris bike ride in April 2014 to raise £100,000 for the children's hospice. Well, to be absolutely honest, I am the last one of my group of friends to do so. Several signed up straight away many months ago, the rest signed up over a period of weeks. My friend, Mark, and I took a more pragmatic approach. "Um, it's a long way, that's, like, 60 miles a day." "Yeees, do you think you can make it? "Not sure" "Oh good" "Let's think about it over beer." "Good ...

We went to a local Stately Home last Sunday to view the rhododendrons, which allegedly were "just right" according to my wife. It was raining slightly, but got told to "Shut up and get on with it" and, "Here's your cagoule". The entrance is not very far from the car park and we walked to the little hut (aka garden shed with a door) where the man behind the desk was busily engaged in conversation about the house and the grounds with a (possibly) retired lady . After about five minutes of us standing there in the rain with no sign of the conversation ending - which had now moved onto the price of fish during the war - I thought I'd chivvy things on a bit with a jovial "Come on mate, stop talking and do yer job!". Fortunately both the lady and the concierge took this in the spirit it was meant and she thanked him and left. He turned to us and launched off imparting the same information he'd just given to the lady and probably a tho...

*ring* *ring* (Thick Asian accent) "Hello, it ees World Wide Web Services here, your computer 'as been infected by some malware." "Oh right(!)" "We need to fix the problem. Are you OK with that?" "Yes of course(!), Will it cost me anything?" "No, no this is a perfectly free service. Are you sitting at your computer?" "Yes, of course I am." (I really was). "You liar!"  *click* Jeez, didn't expect that. 1 minute later. *ring* *ring* (same bloke I think, same accent anyway) "Are you sitting by your computer?", "Yes, I am.", "Are you sure?", "Yes, I have a mobile phone", "Right, please left click the start button, this will not cost you anything", "Where's that?", "At the bottom left, have you done that?", "Yes", "What do you see?", "Properties", "What?", "It just says Properties...

I finally got around to installing Windows 7 today which I bought a while back. I thought I'd better wait until I found I had a day free - the last time I had to reinstall XP it took me about 2 days to even remotely get a system up and running that I could use, so I didn't see why 7 should be any different. I read around the subject first and came across the Windows 7 Easy File & Settings Transfer thingy and the corresponding "Upgrade Adviser". "...yes, of course you can upgrade to W7 in one easy mouse click..." I took today off as I had an annoying cough and it was raining - perfect conditions for the upgrade. I ran the adviser. "You might want to upgrade a few device drivers, but otherwise everything's fine!". I thought it wise to take a ghost (copy) of the hard drive before starting, you never know do you? I started the transfer wizard. "Please come back in a few hours..." I went downstairs for yet another cup of tea,...

I am completely paranoid about getting cancer. Sorry, but that's the way I am. My Dad had skin cancer (a small patch which was cured with a small, single laser treatment) and regrettably, I have lost a few friends and neighbours to the disease. So when a mole on my head did something funny I freaked and went to the doctors. "This mole has done something funny!" "Um, you mean like singing and dancing?" "WTF?" "Sorry. That seborrheic keratosis is completely benign and there's nothing to worry about." "Can I have a second opinion?" "Yes, it's the same as my first one." I got sighed at, but the doctor referred me to a specialist who took on a more serious stance. I went today. "There's really nothing to worry about." "But it did something funny a while back!" "Like singing or dancing?" "Stop it." He took a long hard look using a hand microscope thingy. ...

I went to London for a meeting this week. This is not unremarkable, except that I had completely forgotten about it and went into the office instead. It was only when I started reading my emails and read one from my boss that said "...we will discuss with the client at Monday's 10:00am meeting with Jim from Glasgow..." that I knew the next few hours would be interesting to say the least, mostly because I was wearing all my safety gear (PPE) required at my place of work and a fluorescent jacket - I certainly didn't have time to go home and change into my suit. I got a lift to the station and missed the Cannon Street train by seconds. The next one in was the High Speed one to St Pancras. I got a return ticket, got on the train and wondered how to explain the fact that I was going to be unfashionably late and still wearing PPE. I was exactly and hour late, however the client never batted and eyelid - "Don't worry, welcome to London, the trains are always awf...