Both of my bikes have actually been getting some use over the last month or so, which makes a nice change as I'd got lazy about my cycling again.
Following an incident with some broken glass, my road bike is now running brand new tyres. I've been breaking these in (and reminding myself why I love road cycling) with some shorter rides, including popping into Gloucester to watch the Tour of Britain come through. My new workplace is definitely in cycling distance (and, unlike the previous place, doesn't involve running the gauntlet of lorries at 50mph) so I've done that once so far. Can't promise to keep it up once the weather gets bad, but hey.
In off road riding news, after approximately 18 months of talking about it I finally managed to convince Jon to take his bike out of the garage and actually ride it! He's really enjoying it, so we've been out a few times now.
Our first trip was around the Forest of Dean Family Trail - a nice safe choice for someone who hasn't ridden in a while! The second trip was more forest tracks, including bits of the family trail and Cinderford linear park.
having a breather on Verderers climb
Our third and most recent FoD trip was a step up - a full lap of the blue Verderers trail (followed by yet another loop of the family trail, because apparently he's not bored of that yet).
I hadn't ridden the full Verderers for quite a while, and had forgotten just how fun it is 
Apart from the switchback climby bit, ugh. I would have got a new Strava PR on the downhill section if I hadn't had to have a bit of an emergency stop to tighten a very rattly saddle. Next time!
We bumped into Abi in the car park, who'd just finished some downhill racing.
We've also had a trip to the local pump track, not that either of us really knows what we should be doing with it...
Autumn is my favourite time of year for cycling in the Forest, so no doubt we'll be back for more very soon. I'm so pleased he's enjoying it, as it means I'll be riding more too as we can go together rather than just lazing around watching netflix all weekend. yay!
As I may or may not have already mentioned, for the second half of our week in Italy we stayed in Sorrento. It's a convenient location for visiting Pompeii, and has the added benefit of not being Naples!
On our first evening we were treated to this rather stunning sunset:
There's not a huge amount to do in the town itself. Lots of nice places to eat and drink, even more shops selling limoncello and other lemon themed products, and travel companies selling day trips to Capri or tours of the Amalfi coast.
We went on an hour long boat tour of the Sorrento coastline. Just like everything else, this included a limoncello tasting. One of the places our guide pointed out was a little gap in the cliff beneath the remains of a fort, leading to a sheltered cove which he told us was the best local swimming spot.
It was also only about a 20 minute walk from our hotel, which quickly answered the question of "what shall we do after lunch?"
So nice to have a day of relative relaxation after our week of visiting historical sites
Last Sunday we went for a nice long walk with the dog. Ended up being 21km, to a local pub (the Red Lion) and back.
For whatever reason, we took a slightly different route than previous walks, involving some untested footpaths.
Turns out this wasn't such a great idea.
It should have been a warning sign when our path led to this footbridge:
it also wobbled
This led into a cornfield, supposedly with the footpath running diagonally across it but this was impossible to do because of all the corn.
Having skirted the edge of the field we just about managed to find our next stile, which led to yet another field of corn. And some brambles/weeds/general hedgerow along the side where the path was supposed to go.
corn and brambles/hedge - but no obvious path
Luckily at this point we found a big stick to bash at the vegetation with. Particularly handy when the path went between two hedges. Or through the middle of one giant hedge, depending how you looked at it...
Later on we came across another of my favourites - a footpath going into a field, but with no other way out again.
I'm just glad I wore trousers rather than shorts on this occasion!
All the footpath faff probably added an hour onto our walking time, which isn't ideal when you're trying to get to the pub before they stop serving lunch. I understand that path maintenance requires time and effort, and obviously lesser used paths are always likely to be in a worse state, but it's very frustrating to run into 
tags: cycling Forest of Dean mtb 
