Tales from a down-shifted family
- Making the most of modest means
Alan, Anna & Morgan live in West Wales and attempt to make the most out of life. Alan is a freelance website designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband. Anna works at Aberystwyth University and is a full time Mum & wife.
I know I can paddle my surf ski here on my doorstep whenever I like, but it’s nice to explore different areas too. So, when Martin posted the following to the North Wales Surf Ski Paddlers Group on Facebook I decided it would be nice to join them. Myself, Rik Pethig & Mike Rudd are out...
Read more »I’m loving my Surf Ski at the moment and I’m certainly getting some decent use out of it, including a lovely surf ski from Borth to Aberystwyth and back. I know I was a little uncertain what craft to get earlier in the year when I first started paddling but at the moment it looks...
Read more »Wow, what a weekend that was! I left work on Thursday afternoon with a fully loaded van. Three bikes, kit for a quadrathlon, surfboards and my surf ski as I had a busy weekend ahead of me. First thing was a drive to my parents house in Gloucestershire where I had dinner and spent the...
Read more »I have to admit that I kind of went into this race with the wrong attitude. It had already been a long weekend and the day before I had been giving it my all at the Bude Awesome Foursome Quadrathlon. My legs were sore, I was tired and not really in the mood for a...
Read more »Wow, what a race! I’ll spare you too much preamble about this race but needless to say, I found myself in Bude on Saturday morning for the Awesome Foursome Quadrathlon. With around 100 participants everyone will have their own story to tell from what turned out to be an epic day. What follows is a...
Read more »I’m always doing maths when out swimming, cycling and running. Counting lengths in the pool, calculating distances. working out pace per mile or how long it’ll take to get somewhere. Working out average speeds and distances left on a bike ride.Counting down intervals or working out Heart Rate zones. It takes my mind off the...
Read more »Look at this, it’s me getting onto my surf ski in the Shrewsbury Quadrathlon and not falling in. Quite some accomplishment considering my first attempts on the surf ski back in June. Thanks to Simon from T7 Proshot photography for the photo. I met him on the beach here a while back and got chatting. I...
Read more »I’m only doing short training sessions at the moment. Just trying to squeeze things in with everything else that is going on but at least I managed to get out between the showers today. First one way, then the other First I started with a run from our house out onto the beach and then...
Read more »With Autumn well and truly here it can only mean one thing – The Welsh Cyclocross Series 2017 season is here. Time to get cold, wet, exhausted and very muddy in various fields around Wales with loads of other lycra clad middle-aged men! There are of course plenty of other categories to compete in so...
Read more »I was ‘competing’ in my second ever Quadrathlon in Shrewsbury on Sunday so we decided to make a weekend of it. We all had Friday off so after a relaxed start packed the camper and headed off to the Shrewsbury Showground. It was a lovely day and we arrived in good time to an almost empty...
Read more »At last, after my first ever Quadrathlon at Brigg back in May, I was toeing the line again at the Shrewsbury Quadrathlon. Injury and illness had kept me from competing at a number of other events throughout the year which was a shame as I had hoped to do all of the trophy series races, but...
Read more »We haven’t been out in our home-made canoe yet this year. Probably a number of reason for this but the main ones are: It’s not going to be easy to man-handle onto and off the roof rack of our camper. I’ve been wanting to add some buoyancy to it for the sake of safety. Although...
Read more »I may have had a busy day on Saturday running 13 miles along the Offa’s Dyke Path from Prestatyn to Bodfari and then strolling around Llyn Brenig, but I was up early on Sunday for some more planned activities in and around the Dyfi Estuary Pedalling the Dyfi Estuary The first of these was a...
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