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"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."
- Leonardo da Vinci

I'm fairly certain Leonardo never experienced cattle class(!) but....... 

The link on the title is a groovy website but uses up rather a lot of bandwidth..my poor computer nearly blew a gasket.  However, in these rather uncertain ash cloud affected days it shows whether or not airspace is open and the answer is currently "yes"!

Ash prediction for May 5th

these are the predictions for 5th May at midnight GMT/UCT  (also known as z or Zulu time) and every 6 hours thereafter.  It looks like I might be able to  breathe easy but my sister who lives in London and  who's joining me for a 4 day jaunt around Sicily before the cycle tour starts may be holding her breath.  Airspace in the far north of Scotland is once again closed.

The entire situation has a certain ironic ring to it, since  one of the things I've been looking forward to seeing in Sicily is Etna and then  a few days later  Pompeii with its history of being wiped out by Vesuvius

Oh no! not again....

Apparently Irish airspace is ash contaminated again....aaaargh.....

So what I'm asking for during the next 3 days  is a concerted effort of expiration  northwards please to blow the ash right back to Iceland

after me now......
turn south, breathe in 
turn to face north, breathe out very hard
and again and again and again...etc etc


Thank you!

Falls prevention and pets

I might be on "pre-disengagement" leave (see side bar) but I'm still a Physio and still engaged with aged care concepts as they apply to my previous patients and also (perhaps) increasingly to myself .  So I was interested , as the slave of 2 cats  to read an article on the Perils of Pet Ownership in the Age today.

My two owners are Flea... please note a) the WTF look and  b) the cushion, an Xmas present to me but  immediately commandeered by him

and Pippi

The on line version of the article omits the bit I wanted to refer to so I sourced it here  and the case I especially relate to in view of my many, many rat stories is the poor woman  who ended up with a fractured pelvis running (and falling) out the front door as her cat brought a live snake in through the side door.  Below is what the two cats would like to bring in through our side door, only I've now got into the habit of locking the cat door overnight.

Pippi's offering.. she's been carting Ernie around for a couple of years now

and Flea's....yeetch

...I cleaned the  back doorstep after taking the pix(!)..could have photo-shopped the dirt away..but hey!

GPS learning curve

this was the plan as seen on Garmin’s Base Map program, usable off line, which I uploaded to my Edge 705 where I have a more detailed map on a micro chip thing.  

Unlike previous test rides, when I sprayed the ride copiously with mega amounts of “waypoints”…the blue flags, this time I tried bare bones.   Why? ‘cos every time you get close to where a flag is, the thing bips and an instruction comes up on the screen = distracting and irritating especially when the instruction is go straight on.

BUT..I stuffed it twice..once by not putting a waypoint at the southernmost end of Springvale Road and so got mega beeps from Centre Road on trying to get me to turn right and then by not realising I’d tracked myself along the Nepean Hwy from Mordy  and so was urged to “Do a U turn when possible!” almost all the way to Black Rock. 

I reckon its tiny brain was fried by the time I stopped, which was in the city…a head wind from Mordy to Docklands = forget the planned Donna Buang ride…one struggle fest a weekend is plenty. 

I’ve ditched the top tube panniers ...drove me nuts every time I stood up getting in the way of my knees.

Bike reviews

I think Bike Reviews must have been reading my last post!

I've been doing some steady km's this week both indoors and out.  I've taken note that the day I stopped work was the last day of half way decent weather.....what power!  Since that day its been cold, wet and windy and I've been riding in all 3...just to familiarise myself with riding in less than clement weather.   Looking at the forecast for Sicily..it seems pretty much as it is here.


I've also been checking out how to order my usual coffee, which is long black with cold milk on the side and have come up with the following....no doubt if its wrong someone will tell me..please(!), but I got it from a blog called Access Italy.....un caffe lungo in tazza grande con latte freddo a parte......per favore.


Grooving....

Sicily

Day 1- Palermo to Santo Stefan Quisquina.....103km, 1533m of climbing Day 2- SSQ to Agrigento....75km 1200m climbing Day 3- Agrigento to Geracei...107km 1600m climbing Day 4- Geracei to Nicolosi...115km 2542m climbing Day 5- Nicolosi to Taormina...82km 1543m climbing Day 6- rest (and be thankful!) Taormina Day 7- Taormina to the ferry at Messina and then to Palmi...85km 1126m climbing

well I had to have a day off on day 5 as day 4 shattered me totally..my gearing is too unfriendly.  I'm borrowing one of the staff's compact cranks until i can find a bike shop that has one to sell me.  the steepness is less of an issue than the length of the hills/mountains.

First day wet wet wet then sunny.

I'm writing this in an internet shop while my computer is being fixed...so no pix and can't access my facebook page as I can't answer their security questions!  I must have put down a false birth date to prevent identity theft and can't recall what I put!

Am having fun!