White Horse Show 2013

Hi there again – wow third blog post in the same month, crazy! 🙂

The Uffington White Horse Show was on over the bank holiday weekend. It seemed to be another success this year with the main event once again taking place in the skies with the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight – the last remaining Lancaster bomber; Spitfire; and Hurricane doing a amazing display. 🙂
Sunday was a little low on numbers, but Monday was pretty crowded – I think the weather had something to do with it, Sunday didn’t start off with the best of weather conditions – it rained briefly in the morning then dried up for it a rain heavily around 5-6pm, Monday was sunshine pretty much all day long.
I was helping out again on the Church stall – selling cakes, jams, scones etc,  I had enough time to wander around to see what was going on (and also brought a few pressies) before helping with car park duties.
During my little time away from my duties I got to see the ‘Chariots of Fire’ event in the main arena; it was really good to see; Amanda Saville the lady who was performing the display with her ponies, was sitting in a racing pony trap which was pulled along by various number of her ponies – from a single pony to unusual formations of up to 5 ponies, who were jumping and galloping over jumps (some of them in flames) going round obstacles and weaving round poles of fire! 🙂 There were also appearances by Hettie the heifer, a donkey and some Zwartbles sheep (which I unfortuately didn’t get to see).
I also saw the historic cars parade round – I missed the historic motorcycles which were there on Sunday.
There were various other displays – including Jaons Smyth’s Adrenaline Tour; Elaine Hill Sheepdog Display; Jonathan Marshall Falconry; White Horse Kites; Aisle O’var Backswording; Avon Valley Ferrets;
The other bits of the show included – Helicoper Rides; The Natural World Maquee; 2 marquee tents full of trade and craft stalls;  clay pigeon shooting; prayer tent and various other stalls around the show ground including – static engines; steam engines; merlin engines; trade stalls; confederate camp; crockery smash and last but not least the beer tent! But of course not forgetting Professor Crump!
It was a long day but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

I can’t think of anything else to say about the the weekend festivties – I’m sure I’ve must of missed something, usually do, but hopefully it’ll be all back again next year for lots more fun! 🙂

Take Care, Keep Smiling & Peace

Vez

No Racing Again… :(

Hi Guys

Sorry for the delay in reporting about my race weekend last week. Though I think you can guess from the title of this blog post that I didn’t race.

The car had been fixed up from all the accident damage, but when my mechanic Tony went for a test drive in it to prove that it worked and handled ok, he found that under heavy braking it snapped to the right. During the 2 weeks leading up to the race weekend he tried to figure out what was causing this by changing various parts, but nothing seemed to make a difference, eventually it came to be the diff/drive shaft leading into the gearbox that was the problem, so with a week to go Tony went to find another gearbox, the first one he found 3rd gear didn’t work – not useful; on Saturday afternoon he collected another gearbox (which I’m assuming is working), but on his way back to his workshop his truck decided it was going to break down, this was the reason why my hopes of finally racing died. I’m grateful for Tony’s hard work at trying his best to get me out, as he wants to be at the race track as much as I do to go racing. Words can’t describe how gutted I was not to be out racing – for the second time this year.
Here’s hoping that nothing else goes wrong, so I can do a test session in September so I can get some seat time before the last race of the season in October at Pembrey.

That’s it for this post, just thought I update you on my (not happening) race weekend.

Take Care & God Bless

Vez

Month of exercise (July)

Hi Guys

Sorry I didn’t post in July, I don’t know why, but I just didn’t seem to have time.

Well I decided that I would make July the month that I would cycle everyday except for 2 days – 1 of which is when I do my body pump. I did well, I managed to cycle on most days – admittedly my rides weren’t long, between 8-12 miles long, though I did do a 21 mile ride. There were also a couple of occassions where I didn’t ride my road bike – once I took my very old mountain bike out for a spin, due to having some meetings to go to and the roads to the places I needed to get to were pretty rough, the other time was when I was at the Vulpine Cycle Fete in London (The Lion pub in Hampton Wick), had I was made to go up against Matt Stephens (Former British Pro Cyclist) on the fixed gear static bike challenge (can’t remember what the actual name of it is), but I have to say I didn’t do too badly against Matt, I was only 5.5 secs slower, which considering I have never done it before, and I lost my rhythm at one point (I know I can’t really make excuses for not doing better, as I’m generally not that good) but I gave it go anyway 🙂

I also had a week off work just to chill, but some how ended up doing more stuff then I was planning, not that I’m complaining as the weather was beautiful, and I also spent some time with my best mate Ellie, which included having a swim in a private outdoor pool 🙂 well nice!

The last week of July I came down with a horrible cold, where I started off with a very sore throat, which then turned into going partially deaf (which at one point was quite painful), coughing so hard at times that I almost vomited, and having my nose alternate between being blocked or running :(. I’m now fine after a couple of weeks like it.

Now we are into August, all my weekends seem to be booked up with something going on.
The first weekend I went to a BBQ with some work collegues, which was nice and chilled, we had a couple of light showers during the day, but it didn’t stop us from sitting outside and enjoying the day 🙂
The weekend just gone I was helping out at the village summer teas – which happen every Sunday during June-September. I also managed to get back on my bike again and did a 17 mile ride.
This coming weekend I’m racing at Pembrey, which I will report back about. Hopefully everything will go well this time! But this week I’ll be testing my car at Llandow to give it a shake down.
The weekend after (the bank holiday weekend) is the Uffington White Horse Show, which I’ll be helping out at, doing car park duty and also manning the Church stall selling homemade cakes, jams, marmalade etc.

I think that’s it for now til after my race meeting, not long to wait now 🙂

Take Care & God Bless

Vez