As Heifer would be taken as an insult if you were to call a young lady one, that might be an interesting texting experiment for Mr Niddler. I have done loads of cycling and feel that I may tell you a little about it as it will complement the words I have written on the Bike Radar Cycling Plus team blog, which you are welcome to access.

Today I did a group ride with the Esporta tri club, and tackled some great hills, both up and down - I seem to find coming down a challenge as I am tempted to brake too often and not trust the bike or myself to not have a terrible crash at speed. Having had a crash with myself while at precisely 0 mph on Friday I do well not to trust in my ability too much. I uncleated one foot and then tried to put the still cleated one down, thus falling slowly on my left and all this right outside the main entrance of the Holiday Inn in Fareham. I was there to attend a moderation meeting about maths, an experience so harrowing and depressing I was ready to give in my notice and never go near a classroom ever again as I left. Which strikes me as not the kind of reaction that a team of Hampshire inspectors would wish to engender in their workforce. Managed to overcome my feelings with a ya boo attitude, encouraged by R who says he never listens to what they say about grades anyway. Still, came home, via the Pink ferry from Warsash, nursing a bruised behind, sore wrists and dented confidence in my ability to teach as well as twisted handlebars. Luckily that evening I was reading Mark 7 with Sialou, which is always fun and inspiring, and we both learned new things about Jesus and what he did with people. When I got home, R had gone out to an Alarm concert at a pub in Southampton. I knew he was going from about 15 minutes before I had gone out, and he had got Hattie to nip in to babysit for a few minutes in our overlap - rest assured! He had a great time, as he did at the club tennis night on Thursday, where he found himself in the better quarter of the people there. He should write his own blog if you want to know about his sporting successes. I will stick to my own, as the list is getting longer and longer for him. He ran 10 miles the other day to ensure that I wouldn't beat him in the tri we are both entering soon. No chance of me beating him, really he shouldn't worry. I have more chance of beating him in a sailing race.

With everyone I meet, I insist they pick up my bike and see how light it is. Particulary impressed by the parcel delivery man, who said - 'About 8kg?' not bad estimate my friend, 8.6 - he clearly spends too much time picking up parcels. He can do 120 drop offs in one day at work. I got a text to tell me the hour window he would be there, and although he was 2 minutes early, his scanner would not release the parcel till the precise time of 2.30pm. What amazing technology exists these days. When I was at Junior school we did a project on bar codes, for some trade journal, we had to learn about what the numbers meant. They were a new and jazzy thing then - and now we all have them on our foreheads!

I cycled the long way round to the church weekend away at YMCA in Botley, where once again we enjoyed the pattern of weather we have come to expect - sunshine all day Sat, a downpour on Sun am and then more sun. We did Its a Knock out water games and the girls excelled at climbing trees all weekend, and the other favourite past time of theirs - buying drinks from vending machines. The girls and I and Imogen stayed the night and Granny Mary came down for the afternoon on Saturday. A and H both took part in the children's concert - H on clarinet, A singing from memory one of her own compositions. Bless em! The adult 'talent' was all male, but as you may well say, if I wasn't up there then I can't complain, be the change etc etc. I was delighted to say the Libby's talent as a songwriter was represented as R sang a song of her penmanship - or penwomanship I should say. Although the weekend was very pleasant, it has confirmed the nudging I need to keep seeking further and deeper and finding my sense of community and spiritual home someplace else for this time. Don't know - its a tough one, no easy answers and no way of answering them without some change.

Had a beautiful solo ride on Tuesday in the sunshine as part of a tri for some training, I did all 3 disciplines back to back, but in wrong order, while simultaneously getting a new tyre put on the car. I was not doing the car work myself. I rode out and back to Lane End, parallel with Winchester. It is such pretty and quiet riding country, I want all of you to come with me on my adventures, I love jsut trying out a lane and seeing where it goes and coming home when I don't recognise any of the place names anymore. I hardly see any cars or other people on the quiet lanes and its the kind of place people would go on holiday to.

A final cycling story. R and Timmy, Paul and Ang's 10 year old, cycled the 4 miles back from Botley as their overstuffed car was brimful with children and bikes and duvets. I passed them as we came out of the drive of the centre, and a little further on, drove carefully over some odd fabric items littering the road, thought little of it and came on home via a stop at a brilliantly renovated park in Hedge End next to the paddling pool. At home we found R and Timmy, who had cycled past said items and commented ' That's my dressing gown!'. So between the two of them they had cycled on with 2 dressing gowns and two blankets - Tim wearing the dressing gowns, and Rob swathed in blankets. Paul had been alerted and drove back to check for other sundry items that may have flown out of his roof box on travels. He said Rob looked like an old woman, and Tim was shattered with the effort of a mainly uphill ride in two thick cumbersome layers more than was necessary. I keep giggling now thinking of the pair of them. The moral of the story, of course, is to take due diligence to lock your roof box, or just keep quiet and cycle on past if you see your dressing gown in the middle of the road.

Before I wanted to give up teaching for good after Friday afternoon, I had a lovely time with my class learning about Percy the Park keeper and wild animals, with painting and making homes for animals in the woods as part of our literacy learning. Its all about immersing them in the text, so they have real experiences to write from. And on Monday I went in on a day off to take part in and achieve my Open Country qualification, which involves doing lots of risk assessments and taking compass readings and a nice mooch around the country park following a map. I had a lovely day, in the sun, I can see a weather theme developing here as no one apart from Eeyore and Hattie have nice days in the rain. She likes walking in the rain. She clearly didn't do guiding with Diana Sandford, affectionately known as Sandbag, who made us eat cheap spam and sent us on marches in the rain to obscure museums that no one really wanted to go to anyway. Once we walked miles to the vicar's house to watch the royal wedding on his tv. Imagine having to be so saintly as to have an influx of guides who had not washed for days sitting on your sofa to watch Fergie in a meringue. My dad still remembers the expression on the coach driver's face when he saw the assortment of old bits of metal that accompanied us on any camp, essential to the fire building process, which took most of our days. We were so busy making fires and cooking unhealthy breakfasts and tying bedding rolls we didn't have any energy left to sing campfire songs, or walk miles across countryside. One time she picked peas out of the grease trap to eat! We burnt everything, left no rubbish, we buried the ash left over. We dug our own lat pit. It was like flipping prisoner of war camp. We did everything for ourselves, literally there was a few hours in the afternoon for lying down before starting all the fire building work again for the evening meal. I thought spag bol was supposed to have black bits in it and taste of ash for years.