Adventures with Claudia and Merlin #2

Welcome back to the adventures with Claudia and Merlin. Last week Rich and I once again strapped the bikes on to the car and headed towards to sea. We wanted to get a good ride in so headed to Powderham with the plan of following the coast to Dawlish, most of which is flat and you only have to go on the road a couple of times. The best part of this cycle ride was it was all about nature. I've been loving Springwatch on BBC2 so was on the look out for any nature related treats. As we cycled through Cockwood (ha ha) we stumbled across a lovely family of Geese, the mum and dad were guiding their little babies around the golf course and hissing at anyone getting too close, you've got to love how protective they are. 

It was plain peddling until we got to Dawlish Warren when we encountered a couple of problems. Firstly we were informed that you couldn't take bikes on the sea wall between Dawlish and Dawlish Warren, so we would have to cross the railway line and go up and over the cliff and back down to Dawlish, not too bad (apart from the hills) until my handlebars came loose, going down hill, needless to say I squeeled a lot haha. But thanks to a very nice man with an allen key at the amusement arcade we were soon on our way again.

As a reward for making it up the hill we treated ourselves to a scrummy clotted cream ice cream from Gays Creamery (teehee) and had a stroll along the seafront before heading back up and over the cliff for the return journey.

My favourite part of the bike ride was coming back past Powederham Castle. You can usually see some Deer roaming the grounds in the distance, but we were really lucky to come across two that were right next to the road and feeling particularly friendly and photogenic. We hung around for a while just watching and pretending we could speak Deer, as you do, then discovered that around the corner a few Heron's were nesting in the trees and were on the hunt to feed their babies, they're beautiful birds and sound amazing as they fly over.

What are your spring highlights?

Sarah
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A nice rack

Ever since Ikea released the Raskog kitchen trolley I've been seriously lusting after it but could never justify spending £50 on a veg rack, no matter how much I love my fruit & veg. So in my true frugal fashion I started looking out for a cheap alternative. Everywhere I went it was either horrible plasticy or stainless steel trolleys, nothing pretty about them at all. As I mooched around the Range one evening I stumbled across this white wire trolley, nothing too fancy but with plenty of potential. At £15 it was a little more than I wanted to spend, so I fired up the eBay gods and found this gem for £6.99... Now the hard part was finding the perfect colour spray paint. I looked around online and in shops and couldn't find the perfect aqua colour that wasn't £10+ a can and would defeat the point of doing this cheaply. Last week I popped into Wilkos and stumbled across a whole stand full of spray paints, including aqua blue, also £6.99. Needless to say I made the purchase and last weekend I took advantage of the dry (crazily warm) weather and got spraying in my Dad's garden. The photos don't do it justice, it really is a lot brighter but it's hard to show it off against the background. So here are my before and after photos...

Are you currently getting stuck into any DIY projects? 

Sarah

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Exciting news..

I have some exciting news, so exciting that I decided to dedicate a whole post to it... Rich and I are going to Amsterdam!! OK, so not so exciting to most people but to me this is a big deal, it's my first 'grown up holiday' aka without a parent/family, and mine and Rich's first trip abroad. We've managed to get a great deal on Expedia, I'll tell you more about that later, and are already planning our itinerary. We go at the end of next month for 4 days of sight seeing and cycling, I cannot wait!!

Sarah

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Adventures with Claudia & Merlin #1

Hello all. You may remember that I mentioned starting a new series of regular posts about mine and Rich's bicycle adventures, well welcome to post number one. You're probably sick of me harping on about Claudia already, but if you're not these will be exactly what they say on the tin, tales of our adventures with our bikes. 

A few weeks ago when the weather was beautiful I took a couple of days off work to soak up the sun seeing as it was likely that it would be the only proper summer we would get, this is England after all. After recently picking up a cheap second hand bike rack, we strapped the bikes onto the back of my car and headed off to the coast for some seaside cruising. While I'm building my fitness levels up I'm still pro flat cycle routes, so Exmouth seemed like a good place to go. We tracked down a free parking space and peddled over for a nice leisurely cycle ride along the sea front, armed with a picnic and sun cream! 

The weather was perfect, the picnic was scrummy and Claudia was a dream (as always). The only down side was it being so busy and pedestrians not caring which part was the footpath and which was the cycle path, and then proceeding to get narky with us for trying to get past them (I try to say excuse me rather than ring my bell but some people are just plain rude). It was so nice to just get out of the office and enjoy the sunshine, it felt like we could have been anywhere on holiday, until a row of boy racers drove past with their explicit dance/trance/rap/crap music. You can guarantee that sea air will always make you sleep well that night, it's the best!

A trip to the beach wouldn't be complete without an ice cream, Rich had strawberry cheesecake and I had malteser, both were delicious!

If you've got any cycle routes that you recommend I'd love to hear them, and if you've come across any you hate I'd love to hear them too!

Thanks for reading.

Sarah

xx