Tag: Wales

Two Wheels, 65mph, and Total Freedom

Andy Young1 Comment
Quad

Honda C90
VS 125
Honda CB100n
Various motorbikes
Sinnis Max 125

Motorbikes have never been about high speeds for me—they were always about freedom. Never going faster than 65 mph on quiet, single-lane back roads, but feeling 100% independent every time I turned the throttle.

It all started when I was 13, living in the countryside. Me and a friend took an abandoned, blue-and-white Honda C90 and rebuilt it ourselves. Having that kind of freedom at 13 to just tour around the Welsh countryside without a care in the world was pure magic. Looking back, I should have taken even more advantage of countryside life—I remember being terrified of the farm quad bike when I first got on it at 11, but once I got used to it, tearing around on it was amazing.

Eventually, I moved onto the roads legally:

  • The Scooter: My very first legal bike and my ticket to proper independence on real roads.
  • Honda CB100: Stepping up to a proper gear setup.
  • VS125: The bike that carried me through the period after university.
  • Sinnis Max 125: After a very long break from riding, I got back on two wheels with this blue Sinnis in 2017. Taking it out, including trips around Wales, brought all that old joy right back.

Right now, I don’t have a bike or a licence. But I am currently fighting to prove my health is managed far better now. Step one of my long-term plan is getting my licence back, and looking at these photos reminds me exactly why that goal is worth pushing for.

Peaceful Farm Living: My Ideal Home

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Daily writing prompt
What does your ideal home look like?
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My ideal home is the farm where I lived in peace and with nature. It was terrible sometimes with power cuts, leaky roof (before the slate was put on it was a tar like black thing) and its distance from other people, which was both good and bad. It was fine once I got my motorbike and then car license.

Below are some photos, which mean a lot to me, to give you a better idea of what my ideal home is.

Knowing you, knowing me

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Why did you start blogging?

It was a cold depressing day in north Wales. This was back in 1998, the days of the dialup, Napster and all the good stuff before society got in the way. I discovered this thing called blogging and started reading multiple blogs. Most were using something called BlogSpot, which was perfect. You could edit HTML on the fly and it just worked.

So I thought I would get on the bandwagon and start my own. Twisted Reality it was called. I and all my college friends had one. I would upload photos from the LAN nights we used to have, I’d rant about various things and every Friday I tried designing new layouts.

It started out of a sense of wanting to keep a diary, but making it public was my way of sharing with the world, I still love blogging but since they monetized everything it all comes at a price now.

I’ll have to go on the ‘way back when’ site to drag some example content out.

Apple

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Daily writing prompt
What makes a teacher great?
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I will answer however my views might not count as D is about the graduate with her PGCE which lets her teach in primary, high school, and beyond.

To me, what makes a great teacher:

Patience
A sense of humor
Dedication

So there to teach but have a bit of humor at the same time. To want to help kids but not focus solely on them. Someone who gets everyone’s attention and is unique but at the same time firm. So you know you can joke but you have to do the work to be able to,

The last time I had a teacher like that was in Primary school. She’s dead now but the memory lives on Mrs Short.

A picture paints a thousand words #5

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This is me. I got introduced to rock climbing on a skills exchange day with Slag (brother). Turns out I really enjoy it so we stuck to it for a while. It was an hour’s drive to get to the climbing center at the bottom of Snowden but it really was worth it.

It makes me happy when I look at this picture. Not because of my exceptional amount of hair and weight loss. But the quality time I had with slagather as well. We would talk about random stuff. He’d play music in his car to listen to and I’d do the same when we went in my car.

Did some crazy overtaking shit to cut down on time. All are still alive. Mostly!

Black dog is chasing me down

Andy Young3 Comments

It’s hard. You know it’s hard but I’m not trying to undermine your thoughts. It should be simple and in the minds of most people who have never had an addiction, it is a simple thing. I’m craving vast amounts of alcohol again. I find myself on different websites adding things to the basket but never actually going through with it. Just one last drink I tell myself, pure and utter lies, if I let myself have one then I will want three after that. I guess I just needed a moan. I stopped myself so I do have control over it. Smoking for over 30 years and somehow have switched 100% over to vaping. The addiction doesn’t come close to how hard it was to do that.

I know it’s not a great switch from cig to pipe but it was and is the start of starting a new chapter, Where I am well enough to take the kids out, that the panic attacks will down. Wel. I keep telling myself that, eventually, there will be a day with no reliance on anything. I’ll make a list and do a poll on there to see which direction to which to try first,

A very young me, my Uncle Henk, Oma, and Oma (dutch grandparents) before a fishing session in the lape and canal behind Henks; house. This photo brings back memories especially now that they are both long dead. We would have genuine calls saying hello, hope you are well, and things, It was always brief as Oma doesn’t know any English.

Anyways be awesome to each other.

We don’t need no education…

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I’ve managed to open the curtains downstairs as well as the windows. Small steps. Had they closed all week due to wanting to hide? Nice having some fresh air blowing into the house. Well, as fresh as Manchester air gets. Not quite the same as when we were living in the middle of nowhere in Wales. Which I miss. It was great living there. Like 20 people in the village, big house, a nice garden that we worked really hard at so we could have chickens, vegetable plot and yeah, it was great. No fear of anyone knocking on the door. I’m also sure we were amazons worst nightmare as we ordered stuff with same-day delivery knowing they would drive a single trip from an hour away. Good value for money!

It wasn’t real life. I warned D of that so many times. You go to Wales and you live there, and nothing really happens. Everyone is always happy, polite and it’s clean and looked after. You go to primary school, high school, and college with the same people. You have one or two nightclubs to go to. Actually don’t think there are any in Llandudno now. But yeah life breezes happily by and you just live. Probably why it resembles gods waiting room.

We needed to get out of there for the kid’s sake. Education in Wales is very different, we found it more “As long as the child is happy” than “You should learn this”. We saw the difference when we moved here straight away. They were way off the knowledge level of kids in England. They’ve caught up really well, it took time but they managed it. S did well in her tests for high school so she’s in decent sets. B will follow suit as he faces his SATS exams next week.

I still think the whole primary school education system needs an overhaul. They have spent every day teaching from September preparing for these tests. Just tests. Test papers. Constantly so they all get good grades. They are being taught just by answering old questions. The problem is, in my head anyway, kids should actually learn about the world, history, English lit, all of that stuff not just being trained on how to get maximum points.

“Sir said if I don’t know it just writes some working out as you’ll get points”, “You can skip questions with lower points” And it’s great, great for exams and the advice fine but I for some reason cannot support it. Oh well. After a couple of months left, B got accepted to a STEM university high school. Everything is computer-based by the looks of it and he’s excited to get that bus every day. He knows math but has an apathy-like feeling toward things. “I already know how to do that so let’s just move on”. Need to train him to focus more. But that’s where their mental health team comes in and gets support in place.

Rant completed.

I did see Dr. Well. They phoned me. They think I might have narcolepsy or catalepsy. They took a full history of things, I explained that I don’t have to be stressed when it happens. I’ll just be in the dreaming world for a few moments. I also explained that my 12-year-old son had to sit next to me on the sofa and jab me in the ribs when I randomly passed out. It’s been happening all day again. I keep catching it and forced myself to keep my eyes open.

I have a killer headache, double vision, and dizziness from doing that. Really hope the doctor calls back with some kind of solution. I asked if I should just take a fist full of caffeine but that would be bad, I think I already rambled about this,

Plus I hallucinated a bird in the corner of my eye. I started shouting at it after a while as was in a half-sleep state. Stupid bird. Soon as I got some fresh air I was okay again.

Fishing

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One of my biggest hobbies, when I get the chance, is fishing. Someone thing nice about sitting by a lake or river waiting for that next tight line and seeing what you’ve hooked. I wanted to talk about it because I think it’s important for me to remember that I like doing things. Like I am allowed to have something that I enjoy and as an escape from the day-to-day.

It all started back when I was 6-7 with Opa over in Holland fishing one of the rivers/canals in his back garden. A bamboo cane, with a line, barbless hook, and some wet bread. It worked wonders on catching them. I always release my catches and always use barbless hooks. Not only does it stop the jaw of the fish from being ripped out but makes for a challenge as they could slip off the hook. The wet bread bait is genius as you don’t need to drive around looking for maggots or casters. He showed me the basics and whenever I went over, I would take my bamboo rod and fish with him or my Uncle Henk.

I used to heavily fish in the lakes near the farm. £3 permit for the day with a take-home two and release the rest. On these lakes, it was strictly rainbow trout. So sometimes I would take one back to sell to one of the workers on the farm for £3 to pay the fishing fee for the day. Some days I would catch loads, others not so much. It was always very quiet, it being in a remote location. The weather would often be awful and buckets of rain would fall. I still loved it. I invested my wages from the farm on a rod and reel. Training myself from books and practicing knots.

One time Opa came over from Holland to spend time with us. We went down to the lakes where I fish and spent a few hours. He insisted I use the bamboo rod. Just as we were leaving I said “Just one last go” and no sooner did I put the line in, than a rainbow trout got the bait and I landed him. It was an amazing end to the day. Opa took it home, filleted it and we had it for dinner.

The dinner was horrible but still was amazing to see a man prepare food that fresh, deboned, and everything else you do with a fish.

Even through university, I would fish with a few of my housemates. I had a telescopic rod so it would save space in my room. Whenever we could we would go down to the river, which isn’t far from where I live now. Always catching small different kinds of fish but it was more practice for when we went to the lakes near here, those lakes, amazing places. I caught my first carp there.

Nowadays I play online. I did a previous post about the game Russian Fishing, which albeit it isn’t quite the same but is advanced enough for me to enjoy it. So every few days I’ll get some time in. Whenever we go camping we tend to choose somewhere with a small lake or river nearby and I’ll teach B, R, and S the ropes. D even gets involved!