Recent Adventures, part 1

Whilst I have not been tremendously creative since the exhibition - I am sure I have made something.

Hmmm I remember now - a piece of "embroidery" that M wanted me to make during my course, but I really didn't think would count as a samples or a finished piece.

Cycling activity has increased however. I joined G & Mr T on a couple of rides with M.

Then they abandoned me (makes a change as I have been the absent Sunday cyclist) and so I toddled off for a lovely weekend at my folks back in Kent. M however made it quite plain that just because he was living it up at an all weekend drinking session cum music festival in a field somewhere didn't mean I could get away without a major cycling marathon. My ride was selected and in the high temperatures of that weekend (the summer hadn't totally gone - just got lost for a while) I pootled between the district of Sevenoaks and the district of Tonbridge and Malling. Quite pleasant really (erm, ok it was exhausting and I felt the absence of someone to whine at keenly). The full picture story with commentary is over here in a Flickr set.

The ride was not without incident, however. I guess I got a little cheeky and was enjoying myself a little too much down a bit of single track, when my pedal/back wheel pranged against a rut edge and I found myself being thrown towards a barbed wire fence on my right. Whilst I managed to only get a little scrapped on the fence I did manage to bang my inner right knee against my pedal and cross bar whilst toppling off. This produced one of the biggest bruises I have ever managed to create, this is what it looked like 3 days afterwards:
Impressive. The colours are quite interesting its now more pinky with a little bit of yellow. Nice. Anyway, I managed to haul myself back on track and up the odd extra hill and back to my car, lob the bike onto the top of that and drive back to my parents. There, I inhaled all the carbohydrate I could get down. The roast beef sandwiches (with a liberal dosing of horseradish) were the best ever and followed a large slice polenta cake (which did defeat me). All this was eaten whilst holding my Mum and Dad's medicinal peas between my knees.

One "creative" thing I have done is taken my poppy photos from this ride and played with them using this (from the previously mentioned course) to come up with things like this: