Mutterings for the Minority

7th Wedding Anniversary

Awwww, today saw Mrs DDWT and I notch up our 7th wedding anniversary and to celebrate we went on a bike ride - with DDWT Junior of course. Ok, I’m joking about the celebrating bit - we’re off to Center Parcs Longleat for a week (starting tomorrow) for the that bit.

In fact ever since, we’ve been married we’ve always made a point of going somewhere to stay as a part of our wedding anniversary celebrations. Thus far we’ve been to New York, London, Paris and Center Parcs a few times (which pales into insignificance I know compared to the former) but we love it in CP’s and so does DDWT Junior!

Thinking about it, I’m quite glad to be off from work this week as I would no doubt be inundated with all of the ’seven year itch’ - no not the play the old saying - jokes going.

As for our bike ride, well we did a 13 mile stretch along cycle route 43 goes from Swansea to Builth Wells, although we only went as far as Ystalyfera! The scenic canal and riverside route was in full bloom and it was a treat to see nature at its best, with birds and squirrels aplenty along the way. The warm sunny weather made it even more enjoyable, although we were glad to be back home by early afternoon as the temperature had began to soar by then. Here’s hoping for more of the same next week.

In terms of food, we opted to have a home made beef curry as our anniversary supper - and it weren’t have bloody hot!!

I’m not great shake when it comes to hot or indeed very spicy food, so the strawberry smoothies we’d made earlier came in very handy. A big shout out to Nanna DDWT at this point for providing us with an the abundance of home grown strawberries.

On a more mundane note, both DDWT Junior and I went for the weekly weigh-in this morning and we tipped the scales at 2st 10lbs and 16st 10lbs respectively. No doubt a few pounds *should* be shed by moi next week!

Supermarket stress

I was glad to see my attempts last night to get my blog updated via my mobile worked - not so sure why the 2nd attempt had the “—- ?Sent using a Sony Ericsson videophone” bit appended to the end of it though. Maybe it was because it wasn’t from a gmail account. Anyone else had this problem?

Also haven’t figured out how to add ‘Labels’ to the posts when sending from a mobile *frown*

On an altogether different subject, I went to Asda’s shopping today - for a change as it’s usually Tesco’s - and probably because of this it dawned on me how stressful (perhaps too strong a word) shopping in supermarket can be. I mean you see hundreds of people meandering around a largish store at very different paces, but all seemingly wanting either the same item as you or wanting to go in the same direction as you. I’ll be honest, I get quite agitated often when I’m out doing the shopping. People are often quite rude as they barge, push, shove, clonk past you without a murmer of “excuse me”.

I’m sure ‘Trolley Rage’ must be on the increase and no doubt the marketing moguls at the supermarket chains are rubbing their collective hands with glee - as vast hoardes of people abandon their visits to the local supermarket (cattle market more like) in favour of doing their grocery shopping online. Sounds like a great marketing plan doesn’t it. Have you noticed how nowadays less stores seem to do the shelf re-stocking overnight, it’s actually during the day? It makes manourvering your wonky 4 wheeled trolley even more arduous and prone to user frustration. I wonder why?

Hmm, I never used to consider myself a cynic but now I’m not so sure. Maybe it’s age *smile*

So did this work?

Here I am lazing on my king size bed still trying to get my darn blog to accept emails! Hopefully I’ve setup my other email account up correctly on this Sony Ericsson Z610i. So here goes … HELLO WORLD … is there anyone there?

—- ?Sent using a Sony Ericsson videophone

Testing mobile to blog

This is a quick test post from my 3 mobile using the Google mail application I downloaded. Hope it works

Sunshine and Swansea bay

With the sun blazing down lunchtime I simply couldn’t resist taking my bike for a spin down to Limeslade once again. I was on my own for the 11 mile ride today, but the pace was blistering - probably due to the keen breeeze which accompanied the return leg of the ride.

Still you simply can’t beat Swansea Bay on days like today and with this in mind, perhaps when politicians talk about Swansea being a European City of distinction by 2020 they’re not talking through their backsides as much as we think.

After finishing one shift, it was time to head off home and start another - the lawns, hedges and trees needed a cut. How the hell do they grow so quickly? I can only assume it must be the warm weather and sporadic showers having an effect on them. With this year having been so mild to date, one can only assume this is a sign of things to come. Still with the job now done, everything does look a lot more pleasant on the eye and I can now look out through our living room window (whilst supping a cup of kenco) and enjoy the un-obstructed via of my front garden!

Blistering start

Today, I was up for early start as I met up with Coach for an early morning run before going to work. It was also my first run since having some back trouble the other week, so I was rather tentative before starting off. I shouldn’t have been really as my back was ok after the long weekend bike ride, but nevertheless I was wary of the 3 mile run around Swansea Marina and SA1 - given the hard surfaces.

I also christened my brand new running shoes (aka daps) as well - which were fine until the last 1/2 mile or so when I started feeling the blister on my right heel. Typical, I obviously hadn’t worn them in enought at home (i.e. using them as slippers!).

All things considered we were both happy with our time of 23 minutes 41 seconds and for me, it sets things nicely for the build up to the Llanelli Waterside 10k on June 24th. Plenty of hard work lies ahead, but I’m determined to beat my previous 10k best of 50 minutes 3 seconds. So watch this space!

Taking Tesco for a ride

Yes indeed, for once I got the better of that monster supermarket (if you can still call it that) machine known as Tesco’s. For those of you familiar with the shop - is there anyone who isn’t - you’ll know pretty much exactly what I’m going to be going on about, for those of you that don’t read on.
Whichever way you look at this, you’ll save some money. If you’ve got a Tesco Clubcard - such as the one above - you’ll know all about its clubcard deals and vouchers. It’s simple really, for every £1 you spend in Tesco’s (beit online, in-store, petrol station, etc, etc) you get 1 point and these points are turned into money off vouchers on a quaterly basis. With me so far?

Well, if you trade in these vouchers via a clubcard deal (NOT in-store) they are worth 4 times the value, so £2.50 in clubcard vouchers is worth £10 of deal tokens (exchanged at lots of places across the UK - full list here). Well most of these deals work in multiples of £1.25 and Tesco’s ALWAYS send out vouchers worth sums like £5.50, £6.50, £7.00, £9.50. Invariably this means that you will always have money left over on your Tesco vouchers (usually 50p).

If anyone has ever ordered deal tokens from Tesco’s you will know that the remaining value of your vouchers - which you’ve traded in - should still be valid next time. Well they’re not.

I was a little p*ssed off about this - not that 50p is a great amount of money - it’s the principle. So I decided to take the FULL £5.50 voucher (well 2 of them in fact) down to my local Tesco to see if the 2 x 50p’s would come off my shopping. I was quite astonished to find that when scanned, it actually took off £11 - the FULL value of the vouchers which I had already traded in previously online in exchange for deal tokens. Surely the Tesco tills/computers should check this properly?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating that you try and rip Tesco off by using vouchers in this way - I’m merely highlighting how there appears to be a loophole in the way their system works (unless I’ve missed something!?!?).

So as Tesco would say, every little helps and in this case it did *smile*

3 Valleys Bike Ride

Today saw me conquer the 36 mile Three Valleys bike ride for the 2nd year in succession. I was very pleased with my time of 2 hours 37 minutes - especially as this was the furthest I had ridden since October last year! Being the statto that , the key numbers from today was a top speed of 35 mph (probably due to the descent down from Cilfrew) and an overall average of 13.5 mph.

I was the 2nd rider home and my time was also just under 30 minutes quicker than my time last year - so look out next year *grin*

The 36 mile ride starts in Swansea and takes in the Neath, Dulais and Swansea Valleys - mainly along the canal tow paths and cycle route that cover these areas. The downside of this of course is that you have to stop quite often to bypass the various safety gates along the way - which obviously hinders any attempt to fly around the course (a la a road circuit). In fairness though the day isn’t about that as it’s a fun ride, its just that I take it seriously (as with most things).

Unlike last year when the organisers - Swansea Bay Rotary Club - were dishing out certificates, this year to save costs they didn’t. I was glad to hear that really, as it means more of the money raised can actually go to the childrens’s charities supported by the event. All competitors did get a little badge to show for their efforts though!

Before leaving for the ride at 7:30 this morning I popped onto the weighing scales - as per every Sunday - and once again I was 16st 11lbs. So off I trudged to have some breakfast -a banana and two rounds of wholemeal toast topped with strawberry jam - just to set me up for the long ride ahead as is the norm. On a normal day I’d have either 4 weetabix or a bowl of Fruit ‘n’ Fibre.

When I came back from the ride, I decided to weigh again - just out of curiousity (not obsession). I was down to 16st 10lbs. This I found quite amusing, especially as I’d eaten two High5 sports bars during the ride and drank 1 litre of water. Sheesh, I knew I’d been sweating but didn’t think it was that much!

I’ll be honest though, come this afternoon and I was good for nothing - in fact I spent most of it either watching TV with DDWT Junior or helping him make things out of Lego. I guess it just goes to show how much the ride really did take out of me.
Lego afternoon

Toots

A huff, a puff, a big sigh… aaah that’s better and it’s the start of the weekend. I’m glad as this week has been a long week in work, in fact it’s felt like an eternity - even though it was only 4 days long. Whilst I don’t mind working long hours, I’m zonked and my brain is drained after three consecutive 7am to 7pm stints (if you include the commute). Starting early I don’t mind, but finishing late is a pain, especially as I miss out on my evening’s with DDWT Junior.

The little fella was in Neath today visiting ‘Toots‘ - a children’s play centre - for his friend Isaac’s 3rd birthday party. From what I’m told, much fun was had amongst the big slides, bouncy toys, soft balls and rubber mats - pictures of the party seem to back up this theory (judging by how hot and bothered the beetroot faced kids looked!).

On a non-party day at ‘Toots’ £2.75 will get you 2 hours worth of playtime (on a busy day) but even longer on quieter days. Mrs DDWT reckons it’s good there, but ‘Funsters‘ in Hendy is that little bit better, mainly because there is more for the kids to do there. Still whichever you choose it offers good value for money - especially on a rainy summer day during the school holidays.