Archives for November 2013

Chosen Hill

More Sunday cycling, and another local hill.

This time Chosen Hill, though no lovely views from the summit as everywhere was in a cloud.

No ridiculous mud this time - there's a road going up to the top (where there's also a church), but it's really bloody steep so once again I failed to actually ride all the way.

Sandhurst Hill

A small part of my car decided to break on Friday.  The window motor - with the window stuck wide open, of course.  All fixed now, but it meant my weekend plans were restricted to "somewhere local" rather than kayaking in Wales :(

So I cycled up my nearest hill.

Well, mostly.  What actually happened is that I happily cycled the 13km of roads and solid tracks, and carried the bike through the remaining 2km of thick mud.

Apparently I did not learn anything from the last time I thought cycling some hilltop bridleway in November was a good idea.  But nevermind -... continue reading »

Scottish culture

Went to Scotland again the other week, because that's what October half term is for. It was a week with nowhere near enough kayaking - but we did do a load of "cultural" stuff instead, so...

Castles

We visited Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness, and Inverlochy Castle just outside Fort William.

At Urquhart, the car park is sort of on the roof of the visitor centre.  You go downstairs and watch a film about the history of the castle.  I assumed it was in ruins due to general fighting, but it turns out they deliberately blew it up so no-one else could have... continue reading »

PiGlow

I am still failing to think up an exciting project for my Raspberry Pi.

Previously it was running raspbmc, though I can't remember when I last switched it on.  But that has now died a horrible death - partly because my homeplugs broke (top tip: don't buy Zyxel powerline adapters), but mostly because apparently you aren't supposed to upgrade it by typing 'apt-get upgrade'.  Something I only found out after I'd done it and b0rked some important packages.  Including ifupdown.  oops.  Time for a fresh install of Raspian (and at some point I'll buy a wifi adapter)

Anyway, I was only fiddling... continue reading »