After a bit of a bite to eat at the – anything you want so long as it’s in a jacket potato – café (we arrived noonish as it took longer than expected to get back from Eton, where we dropped them off), we were onto our bikes and cycling out to watch the BMXers at the far end of the forest. It was wonderful to see so many kids cycling all around, especially at the Sandy Ridge. Both Tolii and Tosha gave cycling jumping a go too – albeit on a less bumpy bit nearby.

Was it me, or is all of the Forest only uphill?

Back at the Lookout, we ate our crisps (everyone deserves a reward after cycling!) and met a man – Paul – who had the most amazing bicycle chair. It was custom made for him, costing a few thousand, but boy it looks great and does the business. He needs it because of an injury in the army; but I and Katya need something like it to exercise our upper body!

I won’t tell Katya that I’ll kit mine out just like Paul’s: with an electric front wheel to assist on those Swinley uphills!

Photos below (click on them to see bigger version); following the video…

CHIMNEY SWEEPS?
Rumour has it that the pub is named after the kids who were sent up (or down) chimneys to clean them centuries ago. The odd artefacts hanging from the ceiling alone makes it worth the visit; The real ale – I had Goddard’s Scrumdiggity – on tap makes you want to while away the entire afternoon there…And thanks to the many people who have bought us a pint, we could have. However, off we had to go.

CATHEDRAL ATMOSPHERE
You just cannot beat the atmosphere at Winchester Cathedral for outdoor ice skating. The architecture and sense of history all around is stunning, and the friendly people enjoying time out with their families make you feel all good inside.

It was Tosha’s first go at ice skating, and my did he do well! It was just the second time for Tolii – and he was already showing off by doing 360 degree turns (mostly on purpose, other times when getting acquainted with how cold ice is on you bum).

CHEATING
Okay, so there is a fair bit of cheating going on: the rink sits on top of a huge air conditioning unit that keeps the ice solid in air temperatures of 5 to 10 degrees centigrade. That probably accounts for the £30 family ticket price for just an hour of ice time, but that did include skate rental. Cheaper than a ticket to Canada; and skating inside the Basingstoke hockey arena just doesn’t compare.

A superb evening out. Tosha immediately asked, “When can we do that again?”

A medic at London Heathrow Airport, Terminal 5 uses a bicycle to get help fast to people in need.

This is just so obviously the right thing to do: use a bicycle to get urgently needed help to someone hurt in London’s Heathrow Airport Terminal 5!

The fully decked out National Health Service (NHS) bicycle has several bags of equipment hanging off the front and rear wheels, a couple of bright flashing lights on front and typical reflective yellow colouring of the NHS emergency services. There’s probably a horn somewhere on that front handlebar too.

The smile on the medic’s face can’t help but make anyone feel better as soon as they arrive!

Only thing missing is a trailer hitch to hook up a stretcher.

We know the Torch Relay will be going through Basingstoke on Wednesday 11 July 2012 and heading to Winchester via Kings Worthy.

What the organisers haven’t yet done is announced the route the Relay will take between those big towns. That’s where the petition comes in!!

Whitchurch mayor and mayoress collect signatures on the Torch Relay route petition.

CHAMPIONED BY OUR MAYOR

I was with our Mayor, Cllr Barry Jackman and the mayoress Sandra Jackman, plus several other town councillors, on the Town Hall forecourt and The Square this morning. We met a couple people who had seen the Torch Relay when it came through in 1948 – and one person who was an actual torchbearer from then!

Other towns along the proposed route (B3400 to Hurstbourne Priors then south through Sutton Scotney where Naomi House is) are also out collecting signatures. Petitions are in various businesses and town halls, too.

We will give the petitions to our MP, Sir George Young (who is Leader of the House) on Wednesday 28 December. He will pass them on to Lord Coe who runs the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG). We should hear if we have been successful early in 2012, perhaps in February when the announce the torchbearers.

See the campaign site: http://TorchRelay.org.uk

Dear Apple,

RIP Steve Jobs.

I didn’t know the two Steves when at age 11 my parents let me spend my CAN$1000 on an Apple ][+ computer. I had been using a Radio Shack TRS-80 for a year and wanted to stretch my abilities more. Little did I know that the company the two Steves built would shape my career choice.

Not soon after the Apple ][+ purchase, I had mastered Applesoft and, with my friend Peter Luscher, wrote the code for a bulletin board system (BBS). These were the days of analog, acoustic modem couplers -- when everyone knew 'MODEM' stood for modulator/demodulator!

The ComputerLand store in Oshawa, Ontario let us use their secondary telephone line after store hours and one of the Apple computers to run the site. We had dozens of regular callers every night and became one of the areas most popular places to visit online.

Then, every third Thursday of the month throughout my teenage years in the 1980s, I participated in DRAUG - the Durham Region Apple Users Group - sometimes giving presentations to audiences which often included my school teachers!

My confidence and skills grew (and I upgraded to an Apple //e) to the point where I was able to land a contracting job in my mid-teens interfacing an Apple to a custom hospital staff attack alarm system; win countless science and computer fairs using programs I wrote (favourite being a telephone answering system using my Apple); and land a job at that ComputerLand store where things got started! I sold lots of Apple //e, Apple //c and Macintosh (but no Lisa) computers.

I went off to the University of Waterloo in 1988 and graduated 5 years later with first class honours in Computer Engineering.

Without a doubt, the two Steves created a company that made products which were powerful and easy to use. They opened opportunities for people where once there was no knowledge of the opportunities even existing.

On the occasion today of Steve Jobs passing: a thank you for all the effort he put into keeping complexity away and quality in. There were a few stumbles - like the Lisa - but without them, there wouldn't be the successes.

Cheers,

~Andrew~
Andrew Reeves-Hall
now of Whitchurch, Hampshire, UK
and brought up in Whitby, Ontario, Canada