The McKenzies' Blog…

The day finally came this past week when I was finally released from Nokia based hell on Earth.

On Tuesday September, 14th was the day of my release. I can only liken the feeling to the one a convict whose just served 40 years in a Turkish prison. Ok perhaps that’s a bit dramatic, but it’s really not far off.

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On Friday I left work at 1pm to meet up with my pal Dave (M0VMC) to head up to the Peak District to do some walking.  On our way we’d stopped off to check out a huge hole in the ground that was left as a result of about 3500 tons of stockpiled explosives all going off at one time.  It’s known as the Fauld Crater, located next to Hanbury, Staffs.

It was a short walk (check out the GPS log – 2.9km /1.8mi ) across a couple of fields to get to the craters edge.  It’s quite the hole, and must have been one hell of a bang back in the day when it up, then apparently came back down, all over Staffordshire.

After that it was off to Nottingham for the night before heading off to Bakewell, Derbyshire.

We’d got a bit of a late start on Saturday so it was pretty long day.  We’d started our walk at about 1130am, should really have been about 930am haha but meh it’s Saturday after all.

I’d parked at the Bakewell Bridge car park.  It was only £4.00 for the entire day (Midnight to Midnight).  Check out the walk and GPS log here (21km / 13.1mi).

In the above photos you could see the sun was shining nicely, well that didn’t last too long.  Shortly after walking past the old train station we’d got into rain and took shelter under a tree for about 15 or 20 mins not wanting to actually having to dig out our wet weather gear, we’d just wait it out.

We’d stopped at Hobb’s Cafe that has a spectacular view of Monsal Dale and the Viaduct in the valley

Having enjoyed a coffee and a chance to get out of the rain again we’d set off down into the valley below.  We’d actually ended up taking the “wrong” way down, it wasn’t the way down we’d planned to take but it was still just as nice.  We did get a bit worried when we’d approached a place we thought we should have been using to cross the river and were faced with with this…

This was clearly not going to be our way across the river.  We’d figured we might have to head back up the hill and down the other path.  But since we’d come this far we consulted the map more closely and it appeared there should be either a small bridge or more likely some stepping stones to get across a bit further down stream.  We were relieved to find a small bridge.

The rest of this part of the trail until we crossed the A6.  We’d search for another Geocache just on the other side of the A6 and after about 20 mins of chasing the GPS needles we had to admit defeat.  I didn’t bother loading up my phone with the details of the cache so we had no clues to work on and no phone signal to be able to look it up.  So, it was a good time to stop for lunch here.   While looking for the cache we’d found this cave near by.

Having consumed our lunch and had a nice break we set off on what would be the worse part of the route, little did we know it (we should have I suppose, but meh, why bother paying attention to all those brown contour lines on the map).  Well, to be honest it wasn’t so much a bunch of brown contour lines, it was more like big wide brown streak haha

There was quite a significant climb up of about 700 or so feet on a 35-45 degree slope, made extra nice going by the rain we’d had that morning.  All I can say is I’m glad we were going up and not down, that would have been a hell of a ride down over all those rocks.

Looking up the slope

Looking down the slope

The photos don’t really do justice to the actual grade on the hill.

Having finally gotten to the top and totally winded from that we had a pretty uneventful few miles with nothing but just some awesome scenery provided courtesy the Deberyshire countryside.

The rest of the walk back into Bakewell was pleasant except for when we had to pull our out rain gear.  With nothing to shelter under and about 300 meters of open fields to cross before getting to anything that might have helped us, the choices were clear haha.  Typical too, the rain had only lasted about 5 or 6 mins, we’d have been soaked without the rain gear but what can you do.

The last 2 miles or so were a real slog, everything was starting to ache from the pounding we’d been giving our legs and feet.  Interestingly enough though, neither of us were suffering from blisters or anything.  The soles of my feet were 100% fine, which for me was a first after a long walk like this.

We’d arrived back in Bakewell around 7pm and stopped for dinner in a pub in town before heading back to the car park and heading back to Cambridge.  Our total time from leaving the car and getting back to it was 8h 27m, of that included about 1 hour for dinner at the end and about another 90 mins or so of stops and breaks.

We’d arrived back in Cottenham around 1030pm after a very long day.  I had a nice hot bath after getting my pack unloaded and wet gear hung up to dry and dirty clothing into the wash.  Then it was to bed for a very nice sound sleep.

All of the photos from day can be seen HERE

I can’t wait for the next walk….

With my recent re-ignition of all things Gaelic and Scottish, I’ve been listening to more traditional Scottish songs, which are full of the sounds of fiddles and tin whistles. I find the sound of the tin whistle to be quite relaxing and very enjoyable.  I decided to buy a tin whistle (or a penny whistle) off E-Bay.  Well, that in itself was a lesson.  I went and did a simple search for the device.  What I was confronted with started me a quest to learn more about this instrument.

I’d made an assumption that all were created equally.  Not so.  The standard tin whistle is in the key of D.  Most people play this instrument.  However, there are many others to choose from.  After learning about the differences and having found a huge number of tutorial sites and free sheet music sites I’d decided I better just stick with the norm and get me one in the key of D.

So, that’s what I got., except mine is blue.  I think I would have liked the silver one better though.  Oh well, next time

After searching for a while on YouTube to find some good tutorials I came across a chap named Angus MacKenzie and his channel “FeisRois”.  The first couple videos of his that I found were in Gaelic, which would have made things interesting to learn from.  I could understand bits and pieces of what he was saying, but wow, I have a long way to go in learning Gaelic first.  Anyhow, I finally found his English videos.

The first lesson is here if you wish to have quick listen:

The first song I have learned to play is from the above lesson, An Cóineachan  (The Fairy Lullaby (English Lyrics)).  Skip ahead in the video to 3min 15sec to hear him explain the song and then he’ll play it for you.  Listen to his playing of the song, then listen to the recording I made of myself after about 15 times of practicing the song.

Click on the link, it should either play in your browser or open in something like Windows media player.   Fairys Lullaby

I think all in all I’ve not done too bad for one night   I was also playing around with twinkle twinkle little star and Mary had a little lamb.  Lisa was like those because she can play them on the piano, so she wanted to play along with me.  That didn’t work so well because as I started to play she stopped and got side tracked haha.

I’ll try and post some more of my progress with the Tin Whistle.

Over the last few weeks this has come up at my work a few times and I’ve just been watching The Gadget Show on Five when they came up a segment on this exact topic.  I figure it’s all too coincidental to not blog about it.

This won’t work every time, but from my own experiences it has worked each time.  I’ve never personally filled a laptop with liquid or sunk a mobile phone (either I’m just more careful or really lucky), but I know a number of people that have done this.  So here is the advice I’ve given in all the cases an d it’s managed to work.  You must follow the advice closely and NOT try and rush the process!!!  I can’t say that enough, DO NOT RUSH THE PROCESS!!!

Here it goes.

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We’ve now been in Fredericton, NB for nearly a week now.  Only one more day before we pull out and head back to Ontario again.  It’s been a good week here and Nana Shirley has had a great time with the kids.  The kids have been staying with her in her condo while Yuki and I stayed in the guest suite they have in the building.  It’s been so nice for us not to have to wake up to the kids each morning hahah not sure Nana Shirley can say the same thing though   Mind you, she does have “Minnie” her little dog that needs to get up every morning about 5 for a walk outside.

I must get some more pics of the girls with Minnie as well.. but she’s pretty skittish of the kids (and adults too really).

Continue reading to see about the trip to St Andrews…. (photos from the day are in Canada – 2010 – Group 3.

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