This page is all about what we do for fun. A couple of years ago I bought a water rocket kit from the science museum. We had so much fun with it when we finally flew it to destruction I started looking on the internet to see if there were any web sites about making water rockets or modifying them. Well there are loades of them so picking up a few design hints on modifying and joining plastic pop bottles together we started building our own. It is so much fun and living in a rural area we have plenty of large fields away from buildings and the like. Although I have hit our car once or twice.

The NX 02 above was made from two 2 litre pop bottles. The first bottle remains intact the second has the bottom removed and is glued to the bottom of the first. This gives the top of the rocket a more areodynamic shape, and extending the nose by making the rocket twice as long has the effect of increasing flight stability. We estimate that this water rocket has reached nearly 500 feet and is affectionately known as the beast of Boswarthen. The rocket finns were made from corrugated plastic - the sort that is used to advertise house sales. A word of caution here. If you have a go, do some research because over presurised fizzy pop bottle rockets can explode. I never pressurise ours above 100 psi. I also use fibreglass re inforced tape to add strength to the bottles.

This is our mate Steve having a go from presurising to countdown to instant wetness.

cycling

With my youngest daughter asking all summer 08 to come with me for bike rides….Lili at the time was only 4 years old I decided to first get her cycling without stabalisers. I think sibling rivalry had a lot to do with this. Anyway I took the peddles of her bike and lowered her seat so her feet could rest flat on the ground. We are fortunate not to live on a main road - the hamlet is a dead end and has a very quiet lane for the children to play, so within three days Lili had her balence sorted and with peddles back on my children and I were able to do some short rides. A bit frustrating for Aaron who is 10 and capable of 10 to 15 mile rides. Anyhow the thing is Aaron, Saffy and Lili’s bikes had all been ridden into the ground - just as it should be. Aaron and Saff had these very heavy Raleigh Max full suspension bikes and while being good fun for mucking about and giving a very forgiving ride especially when learning they are just to heavy for any real distance or even gentle up hill riding.

Here’s some images of their last ride to school on their old heavy bikes. 

I had been taking them to some local ancient sites Lanyon Quoit and Men an’ Tol and some of the numerous ruined engine houses scattered across our local moor on the bikes involving quite a lot of off road riding which they both loved but found the hills very hard. So it was time to start looking for some new bikes. What they needed was light weight, strong and high spec. with a good gear range. Lili’s was the first bike to have problems. The rear wheel ratchet mechanism failed and Aaron’s front suspension forks were very dodgy having been pummelled beyond belief for the past two years and then the head set bearings finally disintergrated. So the search for new bikes was under way. It took three months going round local bike shops and surfing the net. I became very disillusioned with the apathy I came across concerning good light weight high spec childrens bikes and the typical excuse of ‘it’s a specialist market etc etc. The only bike shop of any help was the bike centre in Penzance. They understood the problem and were very helpfull. They had helped rebuild Julia’s bike and had searched and found a few options one which did take my eye was a BH dedicated road racer, very light and a beautifull bike. But being a road racer and also knowing in the back of my mind the sort of rides we were likely to do, it would not be suitable. Aaron was very keen to have drop handlebars and the more I thought about it the more I was convinced that a cyclo cross design would be perfect for him.

After some searching I came across a parent Phill Deaves who had compiled a list of bikes he considered worth a look at. You can see his list of potential bikes at http://deaves47.users.btopenworld.com/bikes/junior.htm  Islabikes caught my eye immeadiatly and having looked at their web site http://www.islabikes.co.uk I got in contact to find out a bit more and at the end of September we made plans for a visit. My children and I are writing a review of the Isla bikes we bought which will be posted under catagories. So anyway cutting a long storey short we travelled up to Bristol camped at a place called Priddy and travelled up to see the bikes the following day. We had a terrific day out. Islabikes were fantastic and the children came away with new bikes. We are now cycling to school everyday that the weather allows as we have to cycle off road across a moor and in a gale and driving rain becomes…..interesting.

Snowboarding

This has to be one of the most fun things I have ever done inmy life, and now that our children have grown a bit we are hoping to start doing this again. It should be fun teaching them to ride.

This was the first time we went snowboarding. At the time Julia and I were doing our M.A. in Cardiff living in a shared house and three of us, Julia me and our mate Morgan had learned to ride on the dry slope in Swansea. We had gone for a twenty minute taster lesson at the Churchill dry slope near Bristol and were totally hooked. For our first trip we went to Poland, why, well Julia and I had studied painting at The academy of Fine Arts in Krakow so we new the place well, and it is snow sure, and it was good powder snow, and there was plenty of it, and …it was really inexpensive. So We had a great time. We travelled by coach and arrived just as it was going dark but could not resist getting on the slope at the back of the challet. Morg’s and I come from a skateboard background so we new pretty much what our stance was going to be. Morgs is regular and I…goofy. Julia tried the goofy stance at first but quickly found herself able to snowboard faky much better so we adjusted her bindings which sorted that out.

We have been to Poland serval times and always found good snow conditions. A couple of years laterwe also went to Andorra and the following year to Banf.