My first mountain bike event, horse riders and Epping Forest

So I did my first Mountain Bike event this weekend. Not a race as such but an orienteering type thing, set up by Garmin to promote their bike GPS gadgets. Pretty cool in fact, bit hard to read in the sun or rattling along the trail but once you get the hang of the moving map and the very simple keys, its pretty good. I must confess I think my time (1hr 51m) would have been faster if I had been using a paper OS map but one must move with the times. Orienteering is mostly a head game, with a lot of navigation thrown in to make it interesting. The Garmin unit does the nav and you just have to use your brain.

I didn’t do enough planning, just set out for the nearest check point with a decent points tally. This meant I ended up having the cycle over two valleys’ to collect the last 3 CP’s worth only 10, 20 and 30 points respectively. Out of a total of 360 available.

I have a Garmin 705 strapped to my hybrid which I use to cycle to work and for general trolling about on and off the road around Chilmark and it is great. Thanks Mark for the loan, not certain I want to give it back.

The Cadence and HR data, along with the GPS info can be analysed in the Garmin Training Centre software. This shows time, distance, speed, height gained and lost, and can be transferred back and forth to the bike unit from a laptop. Its is possible to set alarms and waypoints to see if you are getting fitter or in my case just chart ones decline into middle aged spread.

The event was fun as I had borrowed a proper full suspension bike from mate Chopper Dave. My first problem was that the seat post was fused into the seat pillar and being a combination of carbon fibre and aluminium was not going to move even with half a can of Carbon Flo (WD40 for carbon fiber). The very nice men in Stonehenge Cycles put their chances at no better than 50:50 at getting it to move or shatter the post. Not good odds with only 24 hrs to the off. What’s an inch and a half amongst mates, bloody masses in my view. I couldn’t get a full leg stroke on the uphill sections, which is very off-putting. I did a couple of short rides around local tracks to get used to the feel but the Daviator rides with flatties which feel weird after years with riding with eggbeaters, so they were changed. Peddling is a lot simpler with ones feet clipped into the peddles, rather than sitting on top. A bit of fettling improved the indexing and I was off to Queen Elizabeth Country Park for my first decent crack off-road on a proper bike in years. I had had a couple of big days in the Brecon Beacons over the May Bank holiday but that was a spine jarring experience on my hard tailed hybrid.

My first mountain bike (25 years ago) was a Peugeot Crazy Horse, only 10 gears, no indexing and a cast iron frame. I brought it with the intention of it being a great way to get me and my gear to the crags in style, without walking. My first attempt was at Swanage on the Dorest coast with panniers loaded up with ropes and my crag bag on the rack, I spent an entertaining hour falling off every 10 metres trying to get to the top of Boulder Ruckle. It normally took 30 minutes on foot.

I left the bike in the shed after that but kept the cycling to my local trails which at that point were in Epping Forest. Mountain bikers are now in serious conflict with walkers and horse riders in the forest. I think myself and two of my colleagues would have been the only mountain bike rider in 8,000 acres back in 1985/6. The conflict today is a silly one really, lots of intolerance of changing recreation patterns and few bikers being selfish. It’s not unusual that selfishness, dressed up as rights for the masses, is the cause of lots of local difficulty. I went back to Epping Forest to work for a cope of years recently. I had mountain bikers using a trail at the back of my house almost every day. As a family we never had a problem, they called ahead on the poor visibility bits of the downhill and slowed down when ever they saw us, normally out with the kids (then aged 3 & 5). We stood back and allowed them to pass, everybody got on fine.

I don’t doubt that there were incidents when bikers disturbed peoples picnic and walkers stubbornly refused to allow bikes past on narrow paths. I bit of given and take, along with calm discussion without adjectives, is the best way forward. I am sure the entrenched are busy digging in deeper but bikes are not going away. In fact I would suggest the number of people cycling for pleasure is growing. That’s great in my book.

The issue with horse riders is an interesting one. I can understand that bikes can spook the horses. One of the most enjoyable things I had to do during my time there was ride. I arrived as a rusty novice and left a lot better. We had lots is discussion about the issues with horse riders and I must confess to taking quite a hard line on this one. Horse riding is never going to be “safe”, there will always be risks. One of the horses I had to ride in Epping didn’t like white vans and would shy away if she saw one coming her way. This was a very regular occurrence as Epping Forest is in Essex, the home of the white van! I knew this about my mount and rode accordingly. There were riders in the forest who would expect all other users to stand still as they came past in case the horse spooked. One actually told me that her horse was scared of branches, whilst riding in a forest! I understand the risks of riding a bike and horse, and accept them. I understand that I have to mange my own mount and its behaviour. That I could be injured by the actions of another. I expect them to behaviour in a sensible way but I do not expect then to put my needs exclusively before their own and I certainly do not believe it is the responsibility of the land owning authority to de-risk my recreation space. Many of the horse riders in Epping Forest believe the forest authorities should provide an inherently safe place for them to ride. This position is made worse by the generally poor standard of horsemanship exhibited by the majority of riders in the forest. the shining example of good horsemanship came from the forest authorities own mounted staff. Sadly they are being disbanded and retuned to foot and van patrols.

Mountain bikers do need to take extra care around horses but equally the riders need to be aware of the other users and school their mounts to expect cyclists. walkers, white vans and trees. From observation I think the riders are more concerned than the horses and this spooks the animals more than the cyclist, etc.

Back to the present, Chopper has a very nice Trek Epic M5 with lots of XT, XTR and Fox Float front and back. I bit short in the cockpit for me. The front wheel was coming up on most strokes on the big rings and on some of the down hill bits I was very close to acrobatics at times. It’s a large frame and even though we are both the same height I think I could do with an XL.

No idea how long my route ended up being but there were 8 check points spread around QECP and I found them all. The Oregon unit worked well even under the tree canopy. I did spend a while wandering around a nicely thinned stand of beech, swearing at the bloody thing as it insisted I was on top of the CP but it was nowhere to be seen. I found it about 50 meters away and 10 minutes later on the side of a track. Why of course all the other had been, so why would they put this one in the middle of a load of bramble and singers. There were no other tracks in or out so it was all my fault not the hardware’s.

I made it back in one piece, a bit scratched and drenched in sweat but loved it and will be adding a new iron horse to the stable ASAP. The next goal is to find a few equally daft mates and have a crack at Mountain Mayhem. The bike is on its way to the shop for some proper fettling as the indexing drove me mad. Couldn’t get any low gears gear under load, especially the bigger rings. Old blokes like me need lots of mechanical advantage to get up the steeper, longer hills. Dave says he hadn’t noticed as he doesn’t need the big rings. Its not that he is fitter he just gives up and walks sooner!

Baby P, adjectives and tribes

Do I need to saying anything about the latest chapter in the Baby P story? Yes but its quite simple. What happened to the child was appalling, I know enough, I do not need to know anymore about the suffering and the causes. I do not want to know anything more about the people that did these appalling things and equally I do not want to know anything about the people who failed to do something to stop it or didn’t notice when undertaking a diagnosis.

The media appear to think that we do want to know and to this end have worked hard to get all the names into the public domain, or rather in there individual organs, everything reported in the media over the last few days has been available online for months, also reported by the media. To this end their campaign has been a waste of time and money.

We, the tax payer, will now have to pick up the cost of protecting the 3 people whose ID has been revealed, once they get out. The Sun estimates £1.5 Million per annum. I assume this is a massive exaggeration but it will not be cheap and it will go on for a long time. The ability of the media to generate a self propagating story is amazing. The incidence of one feeding story being recycled to feed the next feels a lot like feeding dead cows back to healthy cows and creating mad cow disease, which then jumps species to people. In this case we are creating mad journo disease which is jumping across the gap to infect newspaper readers, radio listeners and TV viewers. Will we never learn.

I am assuming the law suits being brought by the various social workers, managers and medic about the criticism of them and subsequent dismissal will all end up in a huge cost being covered by the publics purse, that assumes they do not win anything but there will be huge costs. Please God tell me that the employers took some decent advice from the employment lawyers and followed due process.

A bad day for the public purse, all driven by a media that loves adjectives almost as much as circulation, BARB and RAJAR figures.

A bright hope is that TATA have found their own funding from commercial banks to get Land Rover Jaguar back on track. A big thank you to Peter Mandelson for not caving in to huge pressure to cough up £400 million in loan guarantees. The idea of active industrialism might actually work. I know the great white hope of Heseltine was a strong advocate of intervention before every meal but government staying out of industry and looking after people in need more directly may be a good idea.

I could do a very long blog on the problems of people sticking their oar in when they have nothing to add but it would be of little value to anyone especially me. I will say that I am constantly surprised at the ability of people to not hear the important things that are said to them and how easily some can take offence at the best intentioned action. We do appear to love to create tribes in our life. Tribes have many good things about them but one of the things they do bring with them is tribal conflict and better still intra tribal tension. A like working in teams of people, I try hard to build teams to deliver objectives, being a firm believer in the Chinese parliament style of decision making. Get a group of smart people and give everyone an equal say, all idea valid and everyone then develops a workable solution. It gets everyone on the same page, shares the risk and builds ownership. Why is it then that some folk will not play but the game goes on and they are asked to come on a half time. Then they have to change the game plan to the one they like or they provoke a pitch invasion too get their own way. No real winners then and lots of time wasted.

By the way, love the sunshine. Lots more please. My enthusiasm for sunshine not rain and cold must be something to do with getting old.

Baby P, adjectives and tribes

Do I need to saying anything about the latest chapter in the Baby P story? Yes but its quite simple. What happened to the child was appalling, I know enough, I do not need to know anymore about the suffering and the causes. I do not want to know anything more about the people that did these appalling things and equally I do not want to know anything about the people who failed to do something to stop it or didn’t notice when undertaking a diagnosis.

The media appear to think that we do want to know and to this end have worked hard to get all the names into the public domain, or rather in there individual organs, everything reported in the media over the last few days has been available online for months, also reported by the media. To this end their campaign has been a waste of time and money.

We, the tax payer, will now have to pick up the cost of protecting the 3 people whose ID has been revealed, once they get out. The Sun estimates £1.5 Million per annum. I assume this is a massive exaggeration but it will not be cheap and it will go on for a long time. The ability of the media to generate a self propagating story is amazing. The incidence of one feeding story being recycled to feed the next feels a lot like feeding dead cows back to healthy cows and creating mad cow disease, which then jumps species to people. In this case we are creating mad journo disease which is jumping across the gap to infect newspaper readers, radio listeners and TV viewers. Will we never learn.

I am assuming the law suits being brought by the various social workers, managers and medic about the criticism of them and subsequent dismissal will all end up in a huge cost being covered by the publics purse, that assumes they do not win anything but there will be huge costs. Please God tell me that the employers took some decent advice from the employment lawyers and followed due process.

A bad day for the public purse, all driven by a media that loves adjectives almost as much as circulation, BARB and RAJAR figures.

A bright hope is that TATA have found their own funding from commercial banks to get Land Rover Jaguar back on track. A big thank you to Peter Mandelson for not caving in to huge pressure to cough up £400 million in loan guarantees. The idea of active industrialism might actually work. I know the great white hope of Heseltine was a strong advocate of intervention before every meal but government staying out of industry and looking after people in need more directly may be a good idea.

I could do a very long blog on the problems of people sticking their oar in when they have nothing to add but it would be of little value to anyone especially me. I will say that I am constantly surprised at the ability of people to not hear the important things that are said to them and how easily some can take offence at the best intentioned action. We do appear to love to create tribes in our life. Tribes have many good things about them but one of the things they do bring with them is tribal conflict and better still intra tribal tension. A like working in teams of people, I try hard to build teams to deliver objectives, being a firm believer in the Chinese parliament style of decision making. Get a group of smart people and give everyone an equal say, all idea valid and everyone then develops a workable solution. It gets everyone on the same page, shares the risk and builds ownership. Why is it then that some folk will not play but the game goes on and they are asked to come on a half time. Then they have to change the game plan to the one they like or they provoke a pitch invasion too get their own way. No real winners then and lots of time wasted.

By the way, love the sunshine. Lots more please. My enthusiasm for sunshine not rain and cold must be something to do with getting old.

Energy conservation, Heat magazine and hoodies

So Gordon is serious about being Green, how I hate the expression “green” . I am very happy with government policies that look after the planets assets and heritage but for me, green has become didactic, even dictatorial, free of choice and slavish to a few “do good” messages. Mostly do less and roll back to the stone age messages, stubbornly refusing to accept and enjoy the benefits that technology and understudying have brought to most of us.

What gets to me at the moment is the equally stubborn refusal of the government and its policy wonks to look down the other end of the telescope on power generation. I am delighted that the government has once again pledged its support to a future that will see a reduction in our carbon production figures and is beginning to get it that we do not have forever and need to act soon. I steer all readers to both the One Hundred Months campaign (http://www.onehundredmonths.org) and the Prince of Wales Rainforest Project (http://www.rainforestsos.org). Big Ears’s project includes a wordy action plan with a brief summary plus many fine words from lots of business leaders, a couple a junior Princes and Robin Williams, all posing with a frog.

Record a message, add a voice and feel connected. Then go on and be connected by encourage those who can change thing to buy a new telescope.

Back to the glassware. As an undergraduate, way back when, before the advent of e-mail, facebook and blogging, we were taught about the fallacy of the much peddled “energy gap”, a construct of the power generating industry. This great piece of hype repeatedly put up graphs showing that if we did not build nuclear power stations and drill for oil in hard to reach places, all the lights would be going out and we would be back in the Victorian era, for as long as society held together that is. The clear indication was that without 240 volts and a few amps available on demand, there would be rioting in the streets and the hording of bottled water, tins of beans and copies of Heat magazine, would be punishable by death. Actually I fully sign up to the later. Stand in any newsagent and see the number of different spins there are on Katie Andrea and Peter Price (a former Blue Peter presenter I think), let alone the long suffering father in the Smiths at Southampton Airport last week, who, bewildered by his daughters avarice forked out £47 in cash too buy the whole news stand of magazines called Now, OK, Next, Left, take a bit, a break, be comatose, Cosmo, Company Top Sante, Red, She and anything else with a red top and a six day bikini wonder diet plan.

The energy gap may exist if we keep plugging in more things and leaving them on, if we continue to allow heat to leak out of poor quality housing stock and we make people live all year round in structures designed for holidays only. The solution too much of our energy needs is conservation not production.

In those undergraduate lecture halls we were informed in the measured tones and with the barely comprehensible maths of a very bright physicist that if the technology of the day was harnessed and more efficient electric motors fitted, better light bulbs used and buildings insulted then there was not a gap but a surplus.

The same is true today. Those who know, say that we could reduce our energy consumption by 60% with a bit of loft lagging, window changing and a few more led lights and gadgets that switch of the TV if there is no one in the room for more than 30 minutes. All existing at market, low unit cost, technology. And not a mad haired boffin in sight.

But it costs money, yes and so does building new nuclear power stations or trying to make coal clean. Clean coal is nonsense, a very alliterative strapline but practical nonsense. Carbon capture and storage works in a lab, it might work in a shed or on an allotment but it has yet to be proven to be effective or even viable at industrial scales. It might work in the future to but conservation works now.

If Green Gordon wants to invest in something then invest in a Green new deal that will create jobs, wealth, and better homes, factories and business as well as reducing the amount of CO2 we produce on a timescale that will make a real difference.

Don’t stop with the wind farms, the offshore tidal stuff, the heat pumps etc but get real about large scale production. The secret is to use less, not produce more.

Is this so simple it’s a no brainer, yes. Will it cost more than the subsidy on offer to the coal and nuclear boys? No. Will it be more visible? Yes. Will it win votes? Yes, with those who get the work and with those that get their homes and workplaces improved? Yes, Yes. Do these people have the influence of the energy generators, construction companies, engineering combines and bankers who will finance the projects? No. Is the good option domed as a result, I hope not. Am I getting fed up with the debate being hi-jacked by those with the quite but deep pocketed voice? You bet I am. If big power and concrete want to make a profit then great, just make it out of new business not old business. In the short term its harder and more risky but in the medium term its stronger. It has the added bonus of there still being nice places left to enjoy all this wealth they have created.

A small plea is this, next time you get involved in a debate over the dinner table, in the pub or with the bloke sitting next too you on the bus, train, cycle lane or plane and they ask “would you prefer a wind turbine, coal burning or nuclear power station at the bottom of your garden” please answer by saying that you would prefer not to have any of them as you see the view over the fence through a triple glazed window, in the thermally efficient house with the “lecie” meter going round so slowly it was hard to see it move. The bill hasn’t got any smaller but neither have the icebergs up north and down south.

When the prospective parliamentary candidates start knocking on your door, invite them in, you do not want to loose the heat from your ground source heat pump. Get them to talk not about energy production but about conservation. Tell them that if they spent the same money on increasing the efficiency of our life then we would be able to get the existing power stations to last longer, run less often and trash the planet less quickly. If they talk about green issues, unless they are from the green party, tell them off and get them to talk about sustainable issues and the politics of climate change. If they adopt the stance of the climate sceptic, chuck them out with the flee in their ear that tells them to be better informed on the issues and to stop reading the Daily Fail.

We can do this and only we can do it, they, those who govern have now convinced me that they cannot, will not and do not want to make the real difference. We have to force them too. It will still be them but they have to be incentivised to do so. My vote has a price tag, it requires them to listen to the sensible voices and do the right thing, even if, like the builders and engineers its hard and takes a while.

One last’ish point. In a discussion a few years ago with people who were looking to invest some money in long term savings, I witnessed a whole debate about the folly of putting money on novel instruments, and by that I mean funds that invested in wind, wave and solar technology, rather than construction and energy, not the normal use of novel it finance terms which is wine, cars and lake fly pate.

Those who took the plunge and went for the eco funds have done well, those investing in bricks and boilers have done a lot less well in the last 12 months.

On a final note, I saw a great debate on Question Time last night. The panel where asked to comment on the Chris Greyling’s (Tory Shadow Home Secretary) idea that all young people who do anti social things should have there mobile phones and bikes confiscated by the police on repeat offending. WHAT?

The audience, the panel, including Tory Vice Chairman Margot James, didn’t really know what to say in response to a ridiculous proposal. Greying was slated by all, most effectively by Trisha Goddard, all pointing out that the demonization of “youth” will have a significant impact on all our futures. Do those in authority, and I included myself in that list, ever stop to think that the generation that will be make the key decisions about our quality of life in old age, are the ones whom we are trying to manage with “mosquito” devices, generalising as “hoodies” dismissing and misunderstanding as the “playstation generation”, etc.

We reap what we sow. I would like to see that begin to be recognised and the statements from platforms across the media being more balanced and acknowledging far more often that the current drop of young people work hard, study long hours, use the tools of life effectively, are not risk averse like their parents and will have to hold both a creaking planet and a creaking society together for most of their adult life. Both of these damaged edifices they will have inherited from their rather sanctimonious, short sited, head in the sand parents.

I fully expect my two to tell me I can sit in the mess I have created, literally and metaphorically, be grateful for what little help they can spare whilst they try to get the people and place of earth back together.

Jacko, Glasto, Blez and The Bomb

Michael Jackson is dead. Glasto was great, if populated by the middle classes, hence the popularity of people carriers with top boxes and car seats eastbound on the 303 all day on Monday. Lucy Kellaway is lamenting being fifty, I am in T5 and Paul Blezard has been creating collectives of bloggers on the south bank.

The railways are being nationalised, the banks have forgotten that they are, the IPPR have decided that being a pacifist is cheaper and I am still in T5.

Oh yes the F1 community are ripping themselves to pieces, the fans are astonished that its about money and the sun is out. According to a number of high brow newspapers London was hotter than Brazil yesterday.

Lets go back to the beginning. Michael Jackson’s death. Is the world a better or worse place as a result of this. I suggest it is unchanged. He might have been a great bloke but as I never had the pleasure I will never know. The songs, videos and dances were amazing, changed the face of pop. Obviously having changed the face of pop the next thing was for the proceeds of pop to change his face.

Glasto was great, not that I was there but the sky box is stuffed to the gunnels of its hard drive with hours of great music. Yes Springsteen was pretty special, the Durbury boots and guesting with Gaslight Anethem were both taking points but then again he is an old pro and knows how to get a crowd on his side. For me the performance of the weekend had to be Pendulum, I had never come across them before but that blend of techno and rock is just what we all need. We had a bit of a night of it on Saturday, a couple of friends came round for sundowners and we all ended up properly pissed in front of Bruce, with the kids coming downstairs telling us to turn the music down as it was one o’clock in the morning and they wanted to go to sleep!
A couple of the bits of Neil Young were special and bang on for the Glasto vibe. Florence and the Machine did it in the JP tent and Blur managed to get on stage as a group and do want they do well, have fun.

During the Bruce stuff M and the guests actually agreed to go to Gasto 2010 so see you there.
Check out Lucy Kellaways blog on the FT website as she is always great and never more so when deep in introspection. She is deep in middle aged mum land having just made 50. Worth a listen to her podcast.

Likewise The lady Magazines new Literary Editor Paul Blazard. The old Editor was non other than Charles Dickens, it has taken a while to find a suitable replacement. Much as I love the great Blez “suitable” is not the world I would use for him. He has a great log at http://libradoodle.blogspot.com. Tune in.

On the subject of tuning in if you are a petrol head go a look up www.sidepodcast.com or better still subscribe to the podcast and enjoy. This is for both supa-sad F1 people who really need to get a life outside there Excel spreadsheet analysis of Fantasy League F1, the real races and anything else that fits in rows and column. However if you are just a bit interested and want to hear some great interviews with F1 journo Joe Seward it’s a must. Joe speaks as well as he writes, even if he is either very tired or very “emotional” when the folk at SPC interview him. Again tune in, down load and find out the truth that is not F1 you read about in the papers. I love F1, not the racing its usually a dull a life devoid procession around a shiny new circuit in a shiny new country. It’s the politics and the technology that floats my boat. The level at which the gamesmenship is played is always breathtaking and sometimes heart stopping. Obviously its about the money the money and nothing but the money. Its no different from the Premier League, the PGA or whoever runs world tennis just the business of sport. Joe and the folk at sidepodcast understand this, talk about it well as both fans and world weary cynics.

As to pacifism, well I suggest anyone trying to understand why we want to spend lots of our national debt on either a nuclear deterrent or a couple of aircraft carriers read the first couple of chapters of Tony Giddings new book, The Politics of Climate Change. He offers the best and most succinct discussion of why at least the carriers will get built. A quick précis goes like this. We live in a globalised world economy, that was a one-way valve, we cannot go back, to that end trade routes are vital as everything we consume from Lego to petrol to newsprint and coffee come to our island by ship. As we have all seen, piracy is a growth industry, protecting the merchant shipping in the Gulf of Aden is one of the few areas where there is real cooperation amongst the navel powers of the world. All signed up to keep the cogs of global trade turning, we see joined up navel operations between the Chinese, Russian, French, British and US Navies, to name just a few. It is common to find one nationals air patrols spotting a suspicious vessel that is then investigated by helicopters from other forces, whilst fast response RIBs from a third deploy their marines to board and search. The air assets being refuelled by any ship with chip and pin, and club card points.

As we start to run out of stuff and it takes longer to find the replacement sources of energy, water, food etc, the only way to maintain the supply chain into British ports is to be an effective navel power. This means expense ships with even more expensive aircraft on board. A mix of fixed wing patrol/AWACS and rotary assault means a couple of carriers at least and hopefully a couple of cheaper HMS Ocean style assault ships. That should keep the shelves of our supermarkets full and childhood obesity on the upward trend.

Trident? As a fully signed up old hippy I do not like nuclear weapons but if the spokes really do not know where the Pakistani/North Korean or Irainian nucs are and who has the key. I do want some kind of seat at the top table and I suspect giving up being a nuclear weapons would result in a another revolving seat being created on the Security Council. We may be a tin pot nation, and I am a long way from being a little Englander, but until the EU have demonstrated a degree of solidarity in the face of “hostile” nations I want HMG to stay at the top table.
It might be cheaper to try and stick together an effective European military force but until we have, can we empty the piggy banks and melt down our fillings to pay for some real navel power, a half decent Air Force and an Army that is a little bit bigger than the home gate at Old Trafford. As to the Vanguard boats I have always found that gaffa tape and cable ties can fix most things, in the short term at least.

And finally. Yes its hot and sunny, that happens in the summer, even in the UK. Oh yes I am not in T5 any more, via a long bus tour of Heathrow I am now X thousand feet of England on my way to Newcastle airport. Deep joy. On an unexpected 767 not a cramped airbus. BA do get it right some times, even if its by accident.

Almost a perfect morning

It was almost one of those perfect mornings today. Not too certain how to describe the perfect morning but it includes; waking up to a soft silence, early morning sun streaming through open windows, a clean fresh slightly cool air in the room, drawn through by a gentle breeze.

The sheets have a clean, smooth feel, there is a mixture of cool and warm patches to fidget your feet between. The warmth is shared and comes partly from you and partly from the body next too you. The cool patches are at the edge of the bed, connecting the warm human to the cool air in the room.

You are awake, asleep, there is no rush to get up or go back to sleep, the day ahead has few plans, the fridge is all the fun stuff needed for a relaxing breakfast. The paper will pop through the door at some point, you know the day will be fun, probably warm but the company will be great.

The drifting air currents bringing the sounds of the waking day into and out of the soft silence. The birds start their usual chat, the church clock chimes, the ewes call to there lambs, a distant car, lorry or tractor can be herd staring its day, there are the early morning echoes of hoofs on the road outside.

Then the sound of small footsteps coming down stairs and a small body cooches in beside you and back drifts of to sleep. The serenade as I drift in and out of a deep alpha is of two sets of lungs in deep sleep.

The curtains flap gently, the bird sound increase, another small body climbs in the other side and a whole family lies content I the warm embrace of a summers morning. Until one kicks the other and all hell breaks loose and the deep dream of bliss is exploded into another normal day of family life.

Inspiration, some much more valuable than perspiration

Real inspiration is a rare commodity. Who, why or what inspires each one of us is very personnel. Tonight I had 4 inspiring encounters. The first three were at a reception at the House of Commons, not name dropping but creating context for the following.

The first two were speakers at the reception, one a politician, Hilary Benn, a man who today of all days (1^st April 2009) must been torn by his routes (his dad was standing on a platform in Trafalgar Square at the same time as he was standing on a small box on The Commons terrace). Tony was talking to 600 plus Stop the War campaigners decrying all that he sees as wrong with the way the west tries to dominate the world (he may have a point). Hilary was celebrating the way that BTCV provides a second, third, forth and more chance for people who do not fit into our modern lifestyle.

This is not the first time I have heard Hilary speak. The last time was at a farmers conference, a hostile audience to the Secretary of State responsible for Agriculture. On that occasion he was open and honest to the questioners. Told it as he saw it. Suggested that the farming community was an important part of the UK economy and would continue to be an important part of the nation but was not the only thing that mattered. Yes we all need to eat and we should all try to eat food that has low food miles but this did not giving farming special status in government and all other forms of business needed consideration from our elected politicians.

It takes a real level of statesmanship to be able to tell a conference hall full of delegates that their collective view of the world is essentially wrong and walk out alive, let alone with the respect of all but the most entrenched bigot.

Benn junior did it again tonight, despite getting the initials BTCV in the wrong order four times, he summed up why we (the societal we) need organisations that do not take no for an answer and stick to their beliefs. In this case that people are the solution to most of our problems even when successive governments think people of subservient to markets and corporations.

BTCV is fifty this years. It’s a charity that combines an enthusiasm for people achieving the impossible, with a love of the world we live in. I was privileged enough to be a Trustees of said charity for the decade that spanned the millennium. They taught me a lot about governance and business as well as politics, loyalty and diplomacy.

At tonight’s celebration of Fifty years, there were a number of speakers beside the SoS. One was a young ma had ended up with BTVC in Leeds because no one else would have him. He had been diagnosed with ADHD and had a very tough time at school. He suggested that his school might have had an equally tough time with him. He had ended up to BTCV as he liked gardens and the outdoors and no other organisation wanted to help him. During his time with the Trust he had gain a qualification (better than his school had done for him), the self confidence to speak to a crowd in the Commons, the confidence to keep coming back even when it didn’t work first time and had experienced success. The team in Leeds had nominated him for a award, which he won and was presented to him by The Prime Minister in Downing Street. At the end of his speech he mentioned how he had received E-mails and letters from some of his teachers congratulating him on his success, as a result of coverage in a local newspaper. He and his teachers had written each off a couple of years previously. BTCV had brought them together through a successful outcome. Without both the teachers, who I believe will have tried to do all they could, and the safety net held by BTCV his young man would not have been smiling and telling a story that had the whole room cheering for him.

Another speaker tonight was BTCV’s Chief Executive. Now CEO’s of charities stand up and give inspiring speeches almost every day and Tom is no different from any other in that respect. A few on the terrace tonight have been on the journey that Tom and BTCV have been on. He has been with the charity for 23 years, there were a couple of others who had been involved for longer. A couple more who had been on the staff or active volunteers for as long or longer but nobody else will have lived and breathed the business for as long or as deeply as Tom.

His inspiration for me has been sticking to what he believes in through the tough times that all voluntary sector organisations have. Working tirelessly to build the profile of the organisation as he went. He has received the rewards he wants along the way and none should begrudge acknowledging the success he has had. I have seen many leaders at work, they all network as if it’s in their DNA, in fact it is, they all have a game face that befits the performance that is required. They all have grace under pressure and an ability to remember names, faces and places, tie a casual comment back to the core message of the event and place a lasting thought in the audiences mind without knowing it. They all do it well but I find the charm and warmth that Toms brings to the process refreshing and stimulating. It is almost possible to see people signing up in the room as he speaks. Much of this is the natural salesmanship of the Irish but there is real commitment visible and I am certain that is what inspires people to support his organisation.

The final figure of inspiration was less of a meeting and more of a passing. I noticed him but he will not have noticed me. Previously I have written about why I became a bunny hugger. Sitting behind me I the standard class carriage that does not allow iPods and cellphones is the man who inspired the sprit of adventure and exploration in me. One John Blashford Snell he of endless expedition to the bet and most adventurous parts of the world. His books on rafting the Congo River and driving a pair of range rovers from the top f north America to the bottom of south America were the focus of my reading at the age of 15.

I return to Wiltshire, via a bus due to engineering works, tiered, slightly drunk but genuinely motivated to not give up on any of my daft plans.