kelseybacon.com

I am not out on a ride today, though I may take Jordan out for a short one tomorrow, weather permitting.  He is working hard this week to earn a day off for some Goecaching.  We have a place we need to go back to in order to get a cache that we could not get last time, but have now figured out how to get to. 

Instead, I am at home, watching the clouds roll over, drop rain for a few minutes, then pass on by and let the sun shine through, just before covering up again.  Meanwhile, I have ordered some new bags from Wiggle.  They are 56 litre panniers!  These will be a great help in returning food from the shop, and saving us some money on delivery fees, and keep us shopping at the less expensive, further away grocery store, rather than the expensive local shop.  It is always so that the cats get through all of their tins of food before the next shop is due to show up.  So I can now go and get several flats of cat food at a time on the bike!  There is also the usual problem of the store running out or otherwise not delivering the cat food.  So bags are important! 

At any rate, the weather is getting better, the temperatures warmer, and the sun a bit more shiny.  I hope to have more up here on all of this and more soon!

It has been a long while since I have posted, frankly for two reasons.  One was the cold summer and my lack of desire to get out on the bike last year.  The other was the pain involved in blogging.  I have hated how much work it is to put together a really nice blog and post  to it. 

Microsoft To The Rescue!

The Windows Live Mail came long and saved the day!  It is a piece of cake to use, and so far has worked seamlessly between my e-mail program, where blog posting should be done from, and the actual blogs themselves.  I have it working on MSN and Blogspot now, and they are both as easy as can be.  Admittedly, I hav to format the images to a smaller size on Blogspot than MSN, but the way Live handles images, it was simple to set up a couple of default sizes that work for both blogs in the image default settings, and it is just a matter of a quick change and everything goes from hanging out and looking funny to fit and friendly in a zip.  Also, I have the copyright info showing up on images auto-matically, which is very important for me as a photographer.  (See this picture for a fine example.  this is a road leading to a pub in Clains that claims to be the only pub in Britain that is on consecrated ground.)

Perhaps now you will see more blogging going on at this site since it no longer feels like suicide to create and post a Blog!  Thank You Microsoft!

I took this photo last summer when the boys and I went up to the top of the cathedral here in Worcester.  See if you can be as amazed about this as I am.   I am speaking of the floor in this image; the stone bit which looks like a long mound of dirt down the middle of the room.  That is actually the top side of the ceiling of the cathedral below.  It is made entirely of stone, and was built in the year 1376.  So it has been erected in this position for 632 years.  Now for the exciting parts.  It is self supporting.  There are no beams of any kind holding it up from below.  It is only about 10 inches thick, and if per change you were to drop off the catwalk and fall through it, you would drop some 65 feet to the stone floor below it.  This space is over the North West Transept.  If you are walking the stairs to the top of the cathedral, you will find this room atop 109 spiraling stairs.  When you pass from this room through the door at the far end, you will be under the bell tower, with a further 126 tightly spiraling steps in a shoulder tight passage to go to get to the top of the bell tower.  At that point you will be on a roof deck that stands 170 feet above the ground.   (The second view is looking down the upper set of stairs.  At the top of this set, I had to turn my shoulders sideways just to fit through the passage.)   Of course the view from the top is amazing! 

This third and final image is looking North, The River Severn at left, and St. Andrew’s Spire and Dean’s Way to the right.  In the distance you can see the Abberley Hills, and the saddle (long indentation between them) is just above Whitley Court.  It is in the saddle that Abberley Clock Tower stands.  I will include more on those in another post to come. 

St. Andrew’s Spire stands 245 feet base to tip and was part of an old church that burned down some years ago, leaving only the spire standing.  I suspect that the spire may have been built so tall in order to give it greater importance than the cathedral, as if to say, "we can get you closer to heaven," or "we are closer to God."  It is hard to say without definitive proof of any kind, but you know how people are.  What’s more, I have yet to hear anyone say much about the old church anywhere.  Conspiracy Theories aside, it will have to be a topic on its own! 

Incidentally, beyond the bridge, on the right is a white building.  In front of that is where the old bridge used to cross the Severn.  It was at the point of the original Roman crossing, and remains of the old Roman road have been found under the road  in front of the white building. 

–KB–

Whew..!! Off for quite a while now. Her eit is January, and I now know how it feels to take a load of time off for a rest from an injury. I was out of it for a time due to that hip injury, and now of course, it has become a load of work to get the bike out and go for a ride.

I did get out last weekend though, and did 14.7 miles gettign out to Malvern and riding around till I caught (yes, embarrassing) a train back to Worcester. Ouch!

ODO: 1230

I have taken some time off to let a leg injury heal up. I then took a few rides, two of about 40 miles, and one of 25 miles, and things appear to be okay at the moment The leg has been doing very well, for the most part, except for the least bit up the hill between Worcester and Leominster. I went up to croft Castle on that trip, and I have been to Pershore and to Whitley Court. All have been great rides!

For the moment…

Kelsey

ODO: 1010

At 1007 I had to put the bike in the shop due to a fault in the free-wheel
that caused it to catch and suck the top of the chain down. I had that done
on Friday evening / Saturday morning, and I had them also replace the rear
derailure with an upgraded one. I now have a Deore LX, and it shifts
flawlessly. I forgot what that felt like.

I am still waiting for the pictures I sent in to Transpcolor to come back to
me. I have three in for printing in fairly large size. One is intended for
the doctor who recommended the location photographed in it, and the other
two are for me.

Other than that, I am just chilling and waiting for the repair guy to pop
round to fix our boiler as it keeps shutting itself off several times a day.

Waiting, and waiting, and waiting…

Kelsey J Bacon

kjbacon@kelseyphoto.com
www.kelseyphoto.com

ODO: 990

Wow, I sent that last post to the wrong blog! That was intended to go to MSN Spaces, but what they hey?

As you can imagine, I am a bit excited about crossing that threshold that stands just ten miles before me now. I will soon cross the 1,000 mile mark, and I will have done it within the first year of this bike’s life with me. That is good. That makes it an average of more than 2.74 miles per day. And we all know that a guy will miss days here and there. Maybe the coming year will be even better, especially with the medical assistance of the good Doc. Solesbury in my shoes.

I have a load of kittens that need a home soon. There are seven of them. I would only be satisfied to give them to a good home, and they are free to such. Obviously, they need to live with someone who lives in the Worcester area. The speak English with a British accent, just so you know. It is a rather refined sort of mew.

At the moment I am sat at home waiting for some deliveries to arrive. I am expecting one from Amazon and two rolls of film. It will be most nice when that stuff gets here.

UGH… One of the kittens just made a pressie..!!! I might be willing to compromise on the GOOD part of the home!!!

Ta..!!

I have a dry skin condition on my feet and hands that cracks and bleeds when it is mild, and itches like mad, to the point the only relief I can get is the temporary relief of removing any of the dead skin from them. That then makes them hurt beyond my ability to walk on my feet. Obviously I do not walk on my hands, so the pain is something I have to beat, or it keeps me from doing much of anything.

So let’s see what Dr Solesbury has to say about this, and what she can do! I have had Diprosalic, and Diprobase. DS has given me the best results in reducing the condition. I need it sussed out so I can ride and photograph without inhibition.

I arrived here at 11:00, and got deli-number 5. It is 11:27 now, and I am still waiting for my 11:20 appointment.

12:23. Such was the advice of Dr Solesbury that I may actually follow it to the T. She was very understanding with the psoriasis-a-macallit that I have to be thankful. Beyond that, she reccomended a church to photograph. So I would love to go out and sort a photo and have it printed to give her with a note attesting to the fact that some patients actually do follow their doctor’s advice. She was that good about the whole thing. Also, she said she’d rather be doing what I am doing than medicine. Imagine that! From a doctor! I’d better get to work and make the most of it!

Kelsey

ODO: 867

I have obviously been riding lately, but I have been ignoring my blog. There has been talk around the house of me doing a ride across Wales in the summer. I have a week I can do it in at the end of July, beginning of August. I just need a tent that is reasonable to carry, and a sleeping bag, new, frankly. I am not fond of climbing into things that other people have sweated in. It grosses me out. Anyway, I am looking at a route, and I am going to also consider other possibilities since I am going to be allowed a train fare to return on. For example, this might be a good opportunity to ride across the width of England.

Whatever the course, I do not want to go in a hurry. I want to see historical locations, and I want to take pictures along the way. We’ll see… Update you more on this later.

As for travel in the last twenty days, I have taken the boys out to Huddington Hall, and I have gone to Upton Upon Severn yesterday. The boys and I did 19 miles, and Upton Upon Severn took me some 25 or so. There have been the trips to and fro as well. Yesterday I stopped into the church at Powick and walked the yard. The cemetery is huge, and divided into two. The first part is kept, and with the old growth trees has a beauty like no other I have seen in the area. The back part of the cemetery is cut once a year, and encourages woodland animals to inhabit it. Need I say that haunting is the word best suited to that part of the cemetery?

ODO: 771

Yesterday I rode to Droitwich and then to Hanbury Hall and finally down to Crowle. I had to fight wind half of the time and half of those were headwinds rather than crosswinds.

I got a couple of pictures, one at Hanbury Hall, and two at the church on the hill overlooking it. It was a beautiful day, but the wind was chilly. Other than that, it has been a lot of back and forth to the school since my ride last week to Brockhampton Estate.