Henry Surtees was only 18 when he died in a racing accident almost a year ago - only a few weeks after we'd taken this photo of him driving one of his Dad's old GP cars up the Hill Climb at Goodwood Festival of Speed. A talented up-and-coming racing driver, Henry was following in his father's footsteps, well, probabbly not all of them as his Dad remains the only person to have won world championships on both 2- and 4-wheels.




















Anyway, Henry's school friends are swimming the English Channel next week in Henry's memory to raise funds for the Surtees family's nominated charity, Headway, which helps those with brain injuries. Yes, you did read that right, they are SWIMMING THE ENGLISH CHANNEL! Their Just Giving page is here if you'd like to donate. If you're reading this after the Just Giving site has closed, please click on the word Headway above to go to their donations site.

Friday Fun 6

Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown,
And things seem hard or tough,
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft,
And you feel that you've had quite enough,

Just remember...



And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space,
'Cos there's bugger all down here on Earth!

2010 Goals Update

I posted some goals in January, and I just thought I'd look at them again to see how I was doing.

They were:

1. re-mortgage in Feb when our 10 year fixed rate ends
2. over-pay mortgage to allow us to pay it off early
3. do at least one long motorbike holiday this year, even if it does rain all summer, again
4. get more exercise

So, 1 & 2 - we've re-mortgaged. The chat with the mortgage girlie was very positive, in that her figures matched the ones we'd worked out before-hand, so that was good.

3. Have booked a ferry and the first 2 nights' accommodation of a bike trip to Germany before the schools break up for the summer. So expect the nice weather to end soon and it start raining!

4. Have moved offices at work and it is slightly easier to walk up the stairs now! We have been trying to get out for a walk round Dyrham Park or to walk to Lacock on a weekend. Training walks with Claire as she prepared for her trek helped too. But could do better.

There's been some progress toward the goals I set myself for the next 10 years:

1. pay off mortgage in 2012 (13 years early) On track, but it'll be 2013 instead. We will have paid off the mortgage in 3.5 years - 12 years early and only 23 years after we took out the mortgage on our first house.
2. travel more – possibly by volunteering on archaeological/environmental projects
3. perhaps do more studying
4. work less I think this and no.s 2 and 3 will be more do-able once 1 is sorted.
5. enjoy life more
6. do more draft/scary things to prove I’m still alive
7. use the motorbikes more – preferably abroad, preferably Libya, Iceland and Morocco Trip to Germany planned. Although we've mostly enjoyed our trips abroad in the last couple of years, we've REALLY hated the flying - airports and airlines seem to do all they can to make travel as unpleasant as possible. So I think that our hols for the next few years will be on bikes and trains (hence the rail map of Europe I got for my birthday).

5 and 6 still need a lot more work!