Archives: bike

Assembled a bike this weekend. Another bike for Jude; a birthday present. It’s more a BMX model & he’s really only just big enough for it. I’ve lowered the seat as far down as it can go – so hopefully this will satiate him. Eve is keen to pick up use of his older bike now that poor Bluebell has lost her glamour somewhat (never properly recovered from having the back wheel run over & tyres changed to non-whitewall

It turned into a task getting the bike home from Bradford where we bought it. Was a shame that it needed to be assembled really as that took that frisson of excitement out of the whole thing for Jude; although, I don’t think it dampened the day too much for him in the end: he was happy & excitable at home in the evening even without the actuality of the bike. On the whole it’s been quite a good weekend. We met up in Bradford with Louise’s mum, as planned & dibbed off to Pizza Hut. Been years since I’ve been in such a place & as we had not had the forethought to book we had to wait a while to get in. The kids still behaved themselves: we didn’t have to mutter about not doing things as we waited. They were good in the restaurant (if you can truly call it that) as well – well, Esme stood on the set & they were a little noisy (but didn’t have to be told not to be) but these tings blended in well & they all enjoyed themselves & their grub. I guess such places are designed with families in mind… You wouldn’t think of going to Pizza Hut for a business meeting really… well, maybe not a besuited one. I think we killed a couple of hours n there – which was a little surprising.

Thence back to the bus station for a free bus down to the … big warehousey shop area on the edge of the centre of town & we bought Jude’s bike (& some skates for Eve & Jack) Esme didn’t need retail therapy to feel included; such things are not on her radar as yet. I wanted to get a new bag, as they do some cheap there, but I couldn’t get a decent compromise between style, price & size, so I left it after Louise frowned at my ‘too expensive’ choice. At least I have a better idea at what I’m aiming for, I suppose. I’m not sure even that one would have managed an A3 sketchpad that’s an ‘agenda’ item I don’t think I’ll quite ever manage. Jude’s bike was in a big heavy box… so started lugging that home. It was inconvenient to carry & dug into my fingers, and n the end Jack & Louise carried the last litle bit up the backstreet, but we got it hone fine & by the time Jude went to bed it looked like a bike (I just had the brakes to fit & adjust). By the morning it was ready & when he was dressed he had ago (in a pause in the rain) & came back a little put out muttering about it being too big. I took the seat down to the absolute minimum & he tested it, agreed that it was better but has yet to go out in it again… oh, well… when the time comes… when the time comes… Oh – and it’s all black, with white lettering – looks a bit swish.

Sunday was more a ‘climbing uphill’ day, Lots of rain never helps motivate a day. Eve had a ‘last minute’ invite to Isobel’s birthday party. We had a standby present that seemed a little lacking, so I bought a pad & pen when ut doing the shopping as a supplement. Then Louise topped her off up the valley for the party (not quite a small walk away). Jack decided to start his Ecodome, but was also distracted by playing with his remote control helicopter with Jude & Jo, so in the end I had to nag him to tidy things up – which he ‘sort of’ did… in that it’s tidied up from outside, but not put away. I can’t begrudge him though as he was in a good sharing mood all day. Most of the weekend… The silly grudge match started over a Gogo on … Thursday evening with Jude seemed to blow over quite nicely, so that was a relief.

Construct thoughts. Adhere ideas to page.

As usual I’m over tired & therefore a vacuum exists where coherence is supposed to exist. I just skitter at the periphery of my thinking teasing out something that appears to be here.

Jack suffered a little last night. He’s a stoic sort, but the travel & all the homework got to him a little yesterday. He’s under the weather & he had quite a bit of homework to do yesterday. He so wants to do it well. Still – he did pull it together & he did finish all there was to finish & he did fall asleep jolly quickly. Sleep, for him, has not been so good this week – it may be contributory.

We managed to get Jude a bike – it’s green & blue, it has gears & it has a suspension! Crikey! He’s jolly pleased with it, but he wants a stand. OK – I need to get a stand…. Louise is going to book him into the dentists with his teeth – he’s starting to get teeth growing through – but his milk teeth are still hanging in there – so that can’t be comfortable. Jude has also been good, & reasonable & less apt to lash out this week – which has been noted & appreciated. He’s making an effort again.

Esme has chicken pox – this is not a surprise because Lilly over the road had them. Just got some first spots appearing yesterday. It was doubtful in the morning, but was mote obvious by the afternoon.

I must try to remember to leave work a little early to pop into town & pick up the 9th ‘Series of Unfortunate Events’ books for Eve. She is starting to read these herself a bit, which is encouraging. Reading to herself is not something she especially wants to have time for though – she’d rather be playing. The man game they play at the moment is ‘schools’ – where they are teachers behind desks & so forth. It involves a lot of books in bags & moving things about – but – they did actually tidy up after themselves yesterday – which is nearly a first as tidying up rarely is allowed to impinge on the time that they consider to be time that they play.

Bikes…

Jude needs a new bike, so we were hopeful that the Chopper down at the shop at Patmos would do for him. It was also reduced! So, we took his old bike & Eve’s bike down (her bike needs repairing) on Thursday evening… only to find that the Chopper was too big. He couldn’t ride it comfortably. Eve could, but that was not the point really. So Jude needs another – he didn’t have one in the shop, but said he’d try at his garage & over at a couple of other shops he’s friendly with. Jude didn’t accept that well – the ‘now’ thing was praying on him. He cried & needed carrying home (such was his misery).

Friday I bumped into Jack on the way home, just past the newsagents, he having parted company with Thomas & finishing of some chocolate (guiltily). Thomas gave it to him (he doth protest too much) as I pointed out (grinning) that I wasn’t telling him off, was I? Popped in at the bike shop & nothing doing – no bike for Jude at the garage or shops in Nelson or Burnley. Ooooh dear…. Eve’s bike not fixed either because no ‘little chain thing that attaches to the gears’ (can’t recall the name). But I make a mental note it’s an 18 inch wheel that we’re after (as well as one with gears, obviously) when he tells me there’s a couple of other chances he’s going to check. He saw that Jude was upset & he was a little affected – he doesn’t like to disappoint.

Saturday morning I pop to get the paper & dib in… nope – no fix, no bike. I remember that Eve’s front tyre needs replacing as well, so point this out. I suspect he’s basically out of leads, so I say not to worry too much – we’ll look if he keeps his eyes open & what will be will be. Jude is disappointed. Eve is disappointed her bike is not fixed as well – she spends a good deal of her play with Amber over the road playing on bikes. Amber looks to have an 18 inch wheel bike with gears, but this also has pinkness & flowery decals.

It’s a low key weekend. Jack has history homework; they have to do a historical figure. Choose anyone from history & write about them – someone who changed the world also seems to be an important criteria. Jack has chosen Dr Barnados; he’s not sure why, but Louise & I kinda suspect it’s the helping the downtrodden, education & equality which (given his Thursday night dream of converting buses into off road vehicles & driving them to Africa to be used as classrooms seems to chime with his general thinking at the moment). He gets upset that we criticise his lifting of phrases & paragraphs from the Internet wholesale & decides that he’ll do Henry VIII instead as he has his own source material (studies from juniors) on the subject. Digs this stuff out (making a mess of his room in the process) and then complains that Henry VIII is boring (and also one of the suggested characters from discussion in class).

Leave it a bit Jack.

We go to the supermarket (him & me) via the library (no books on on Henry of Thomas Barnado) but there’s a DVD he likes the look of & a couple of books I wouldn’t have minded if I had time for reading at the moment). We chat about things on the way into town & he points out that kids his age would hardly ever have seen a dead body, but in Bernado’s time.. I point out that this is a darn good way of opening his history essay were he doing Thomas Barnodo & we chat some more along these lines & let him mull it over.

At home he’s doing Barnado again & Louise & I outline an approach for him to tackle writing it (research on the internet – print things out – read these & highlight the salient points & then write up in the structure plan he has (he had a structural plan all along he wasn’t sticking to it). He makes some good progress.

Sunday, Eve has borrowed Jack’s bike (against his wishes) & is plying with Amber when Amber’s next door neighbours offer Eve a bike. She comes to tell us, I pop over & it’s clear that the bike is somewhat big for her (it’s bigger than Jack’s) but we tend to not look a gift horse in the mouth, we say thank you very much & she’s off (somewhat shakily) on it taking it back round to the back street.

…continuing…

16/09/08@06:51:55

So, we’re all on the back street checking over the ‘new’ bike – Louise has had a go & Jack has had a go & Jude is a bit upset because he hasn’t got his bike yet… He knows my earlier enquiries have come to nothing because I checked when I was getting the newspaper that morning.

So we’re there chatting away & Brenda over the road pops out for something & overhears us. We tell her of our surprise acquisition & the says she has a new bike. Nice ladies bike – folder. John get it out to show us. John says he’s supposed to be riding a bike for his knee, but the one he has isn’t so good – he can’t get it in the car & he can’t get his leg over (queue gag re asking the man at the bike shop as to whether he could do anything with his bike because he can’t get his leg over, “It comes to us all” is the response from the older bike shop owner.) It’s useless to him & it’s apparently offered to me. I’m not paying attention – Louise graciously accepts & I have a bike as well! How did that happen? ” bikes in one day? Not one for Jude though. Poor Jude is upset.

A little later Jack & I set off to Morrisons on the bikes – zooming there in no time (although I have to say I do not like going down Fernley Lee Road – it is just that bit too steep: both brakes on & concentrating on the misshapen road (lots of roadworks) conscious of cars behind & needing to signal direction & you can’t really turn to check the car behind you & you can’t take your hands off the brake to signal. After that the roundabout in the centre of town seemed a breeze.

Coming back we went up Park Rd – less right turns & not so steep an incline (although longer). I was struggling getting a lower gear so really had to push quite hard. As I reached the point of giving up & reached the top of the hill (well – as far as we were going) & turned round to see how Jack was getting on – his bike slips into some delightfully low gears that I’m sure would be easy for even getting up Fernley Lee. I was a little disappointed to see that he was pushing – he’d got off & was pushing! I would have shouted some chastisement but I was somewhat out of breath.

Yesterday – off to the the other bike shop in town – see if he has anything there. Looks to be – 23 inch frame. I call Louise to measure Jude’s inside leg to see if this would be good for him? He has a 21inch inside leg! Ooh. Well – this bike is green & blue, it has suspension& it has gears & it’s £30? OK, yes tiptoes will do fine! I go back to the shop to get it. Ah, but he’s not checked the bike over since it came in… Ah… He checks over the gears & the do not work quite as well as one would expect… hurumph. He’s not going to let me take it away just yet… he wants to ensure all is well (he brakes seem OK). So – now that we have got Jude’s hopes up we have them dashed once more… Bah.

Tuesdays Todmorden closes… It’ll be Wednesday, then…

Aware that I’ve been writing a lot & not finding the time to do the website. Have been doing a little rejigging with the ZUM! Catalogue, & I only have limited time. I was trying to get a ‘Box Hack’ to work, as although it’s nicely HTML4 transitional compliant, Internet Explorer 5/5.5/6 on a PC is not in the way the page is rendered… The Box Hack is supposed to work round this & does allegedly work. My problem is that I don’t actually understand how it works & could find no proper explanation as to how it works, thus …well, I couldn’t get it to work. Seems fair enough. I opted to remove the code rather than sit with untidiness.

The paddling pool was out when I staggered home in the heat of yesterday. Louise said it took over an hour to inflate & fill. Sounds like a lot of effort with the accompanying chants from Amber of
“Where’s the pool?” and, “Where’s the water?”
“In the tap” (Louise manages)
“I’ve got a tap at home.”
They all enjoyed the water.
Jack crashed his bike in the evening. Nasty scrape on his shoulder. I would have gone to investigate which van he claimed he ran into, but I reasoned I’d rather not know & concentrate on Jack. I’m not aware there’s a red van that usually parks around our way. He was off again in 5 minutes with instruction to be more careful. I don’t know if he was as I didn’t have to go & collect him at bath time. Hamish must have gone in – so Jack came in. He’d been playing with Hamish constantly since about noon (Louise says). They must have come to an accommodation between themselves where they know how far to demand from each other in the direction of play. Eve & Amber have not quite managed it yet. Eve is accommodating to bending over backwards, but when she starts to take the initiative or go in a direction that Amber does not Amber goes from a scale of huffy to bealing. It’ll come – I remember Jack & Hamish used to have similar.

Picking Jack up from school, I was told by his teachers that he was telling them of the bad dream he had the night before – possibly even a nightmare! Difficult to say nightmare, I know that he had a disturbed sleep, but I don’t think as far disturbed as that. Nevertheless ‘disturbing’ is the right word. He says He went to Halifax (with us – more than just us, with friends) & Eve was with them. Suddenly Eve ran out into the road & there was a car coming & she was run over. I’ve tried to phrase it a little how Jack did. Then it seems it wasn’t Eve at all, Eve had painted a balloon & made it run out into the road & it was the balloon that was run over. That last bit is a bit weird. It’s either real dream logic, or embroidery on Jack’s part to save my feelings a bit. He’s quite capable of rolling with a story – he does it to me every so often. I had a whole story about ghosts at school the other week while he was in the bath. Apparently they broke a bit of Leila’s lunch box, & then it went into this whole thing about bad, naughty & good ghosts. The bad & the naughty ones messing about withy the dinner ladies’ preparation of school lunches, pouring water on things & making them soggy, & the dinner ladies putting things in bags to protect them form ghostly interference but the ghosts still managing to spoil things & the good ghosts killing the bad ghosts (but not all of them, so the bad ones come back again). All quite bizarre & delightful. Last night I was also told that an invisible person had pinched 2 oranges out of Leila’s lunch box, but returned them to the classroom.
We all went to the park after tea yesterday. Jack wanted to practice on his new bike. He’s a bit big for it, but it is a very nice bike. It was a good practice session for him, & although he fell off a few times round the bike circuit in the park, this was mainly because he was trying to ride up grassy banks & alike, so it wasn’t that surprising really. Eve was so tired after this that by bedtime she was incoherent with disagreement. Not wanting bath, not wanting bed, not wanting what she wanted. As soon as she stopped yelling about it all she was asleep.
She’s been changing of recent – a growing spurt. She’s losing the rounded belly physique of a toddler & starting to get more upright – straight up & down…. Little girl.

Missing a couple of days again. Easy to do – why? Trains without tables & an inclination to read, not write. What’s been going on? …I forget as usual.
My parents (my dad) has a mobile phone!! Of all things?! They are more ‘techno’ than I! It seems it might be my brother’s old one, so at least they didn’t have to fight their way through the sales fog of a shop to get one. If I were to get a mobile, it would have to be one that I cannot afford, so really – there’s very little point.
So, anyway – we’d gone to bed on Thursday night & I get up & it’s me dad on his mobile… He’s telling me that he’s coming to pick me up on the Monday, not the Tuesday… & that he’s thinking he’ll get here in the evening & we’ll set off back for Somerset at 03:00. The kids should sleep through that. Me having just been falling asleep upstairs before the call can’t really muster the thought to disagree. It seems an insane fait accompli. When I totter back to bed Louise also agrees that this is barmy. We eventually decide that we have little choice but to catch the train Tuesday evening. The expense of the train & the expense of having to buy stuff (nappies, soap powder etc) will have to be burdened. I call & leave a message at the restaurant the next day.
Louise & I talk it over again after I get home from work & well…. we conclude that barmy as it is, we will have to go by the car (we can’t really afford the train & the carrying & the etc etc etc. I call dad again in the evening, & that plan he outlined the other day was only a suggestion really. Ah. Cool. Still – Monday is the day & I need to negotiate another day off work.
Jude had his 1st ‘solids’ last night. Some ‘baby rice’. He was fine with it. Ate from the spoon without any trouble & had no trouble with the whole thing.
Jack fell off his bike yesterday. He tore his trousers really badly, but it seems he had not hurt his leg (relief) but he hit his face on the floor. Bashed his lip & grazed his chin – & that’s what was hurting him. Poor lad. We were not watching for him at the time & a couple of the older boys escorted him home. A few more minutes & we were going to collect him, as it was bath time.

Off to the park after school yesterday. The weather was doing a good imitation of a hot summer’s day & I my skin tingles this morning to let me know I caught the sun. My head also pulses to let me know I’m probably still a bit dehydrated… ug. Eve was in a happy little pottering mood & was playing quite well on her own. Jack had his bike, but hung around as school pals Harvey & Flo (twins) were about. Jack partook of a little tree climbing with Harvey – got stuck once & got told ‘not to’ quite frequently as we were concerned that they would damage the (young) trees.
Right, well, I have a ‘thinking’ problem this morning. I’m stuck in mental 1st gear…. although, some might argue…

I got Jack home from school quite quickly yesterday. William was there (his friend who moved to Spain). Don’t know if he had been there for the day, but I think Jack was pleased he was there. It’s always so difficult to judge Jack’s mood as he leaves school with how his day went, as he’s onto the next angle already – how to get me to pick him up & carry him, or something like that. Anyway – I told him that I had already taken the stabalisers off his bike. That got him home in a good mood. He was off as soon as he got home. The street full of kids : Hamish & Amber, Jill’s Tara & Maraid. & Kristen – who had just had stabalisers taken off her bike by looks of things. Hamish got his bike out as well – he’s been off stabalisers for a good while, but his transition was a little shakey. I think because Jack has got so adept with the scooter he’s got good balance & he made the transition quite easily really. Pedaling along with ease after a while.

Have proper bags under my eyes again this morning. Up to late doing a spot of decorating with Louise.
Well – Jude does not have a cough in his chest – although he sounds wheezy, it’s all ‘in the head’. Eve does not have a heart murmur, but there is no diagnosis as yet as to why she seems to go a little blue-lipped occasionally. The Dr commented that she had dark rings on her eyes – which is something we hadn’t really noticed. She wants to give her a blood test, but being new to the practice (apparently) she wants to check with the health visitor & a pediatrician 1st (I think that’s what Louise said). She took Louise seriously, which was good – Louise did not feel that she was facing skepticism over what we were saying, perhaps because the Health Visitor had assured the Dr that we were not wastrels? We’ve also been given direction if Eve seems to do the same again. All in all a positive step forward.
Everyone was in the park when I got home – which was a bit weird. I didn’t know where anyone was, but I suspected, & went looking. When we got back Jack pestered & pestered to have the stabalisers taken off his bike. I wonder what put it in his head? I was not willing to start with as the brake is in an awful position for him to be able to effectively use it. Andy – our good neighbour adjusted it for us (so now I know how to). Now all I need is a spanner that fits that bolt. Jack woke before I left for work again this morning. The 1st thing he asked was whether I would take the stabalisers off today…

Sunday evening after tea – the kids are playing out on the backstreet. Jack on his ‘new’ bike & Eve with a pushchair that Georgina has given her. Hm – the kids have done well this weekend for neighbourly hand-me-downs. Mum & dad got her a pram a while back – but this is a buggy design – she has become instantly attached to it – & as it makes a noise you can here her wheels rattling up & down the street. It has the dolly that she got yesterday from Sophie in it – & she likes that a lot as it has a hat that comes off… & she can take it off & exclaim “Hat! ….HAT!” etc. Jack is jolly interested in what I am doing & breaks off from riding his bike up & down so that he can look at the screen at which I write & try to press a few buttons.
We got Jack the bike yesterday. It’s a second hand one from the local bike shop – but it works better for him than any other bike he had had. An early birthday present. It is sort of obvious it is second hand, but Jack is very pleased & was referring to it yesterday as “new & posh”. Too “new & posh” to allow Kirsten to ride on it initially. She got a look in eventually though through sheer persistence of sneaking up to it whenever Jack was not actually riding it.
Both Jack & Eve have been in a really lovely mood all weekend. Jack especially. Sweet & no grumpyness (in any quantity) what so ever.j yfcderh9iop[;