And now, the time has come.....

To go to bed.

Went out tonight for what was advertised as a 'fast ride' with the 1XV. I wasn't disappointed: 18 miles offroad in an hour and 25 mins. Boy wonder (otherwise known as Ben, except on a bike he can fly) came too, and was up there all the time. Darned good, as it's only his 3rd serious ride this year.

Think I'm an adrenaline junky - some of the fast swoopy rooty trails above Wendover were just fantastic, and the final descent into the town was dusty and incredibly fast. Excellent.

I'm just grateful God's given me the strength to enjoy this sort of stuff still. 42 and larking about on a mountainbike like a kid. Or best of all, with one of my kids.

Wow!

I'm honoured. Despite the dubious temporary decor, Randall's Been kind enough to link me from his blog. Hope I can live up to it now.

Thoughts on teenage angst.

Chris and I were talking this morning about something close to our hearts - teenage girls getting depressed. There seems to be a general attitude of expectancy about teenagers getting depressed. They just do: it's all part of the moody hormonal thing.

Well I'm not so sure any more. Over the last couple of years we have come across teenage girls that have suffered serious depression along with self-harming, loss of apetite, attempted suicides, gross behavioural change, failure to sleep and all the other unpleasant things that go with it. The common feature seems to have been juvenile first sexual experience.

Now, we don't have extensive experience of this, but it's been common enough for us to start wondering about a correlation. Obviously we don't know all the details of those girls that aren't suffering depression, but, as parents, it's certainly made us wonder. I'm not certain that males are free of this either, but the teenage male psyche handles these things differently.

This isn't what I'd expected.

Thoughts and ideas to blog seem to be transient, rather than solid. Things that I feel should be posted seem to dash across my mind, like someone who's taken a shower, only to remember that their clothes are in the room across a corridor, and has to get from one to the other without being seen.

Actually it's quite a good analogy, because often what I think isn't entirely suitable for public airing. Not that I'm necessarily 'thinking dirty' (happens now and again though ;-) but they may be linked to people's personal situations, and this isn't meant to be voyuerism.

This site is going to be changing, both in appearence and accessories. Once I've gathered the tools, I'll be adding a comments facility, possibly a counter (although I'm inclined to believe they're rather sad - if you need to know how many people read your blog then you're either running it for a purpose apart from blogging, or you're an egotist. Or both). Once I get to grips with the template then I'll tweek appearances, add more links, things of interest. Or if I decide this is a waste of time then I'll just kill it.

The end of the first day.

And God saw what I'd made was.... a bit of a mess.

Well, the end of the first day of blog. Knackered now, thanks to running the family round, cooking dinner, then starting on the bike to fix a puncture only to discover cables needing replacing. All a bit imperative with a 1XV ride tomorrow evening.

Just been asked by Chris “why DO you have to use that computer every day”? The answer “because I’m like that” didn’t go down well. Romance is alive and well in the Ertl household then. Lets see what God has for us tomorrow…..

Well, it's a new day and a new blog. Only time will tell if I write complete and utter rubbish or publish anything useful or interesting.