Oct 2007

So, from the 15th to the 19th of October I had the opportunity / privilege / dumb luck to score myself a free trip to Sweden through my work. I'm nearing the end of my time on my current contract and I had to go to Malmo (bottom of Sweden) to Show the design of the current product I've designed and tweak so aspects so that they can manufacture it.

Anyway, early morning flight on Monday and an evening flight on Friday from Copenhagen, coupled with the train from Copenhagen to Malmo and working all of the days I was there didn't leave too much time for tourist activates. But I did manage to squeeze in some pictures and walks around the places I was in.

First night in Malmo, (kinda hard to take pictures but I manage)

The company took me out for dinner a few times , very nice

On the Friday I left work early and headed over to Denmark on the train (over a big bridge and through a tunnel) to Copenhagen where my flight was leaving back to Edinburgh. And I couldn't go to the design capital of Scandinavia without have a quick peek around. So out of a 2 hour power walk these picture are what I managed to glean.

And lastly me trying to be arty and take panoramic shots.

The Big Square in Malmo

Anti violence sculpture in Malmo

Lake in Copenhagen

A big Square in Copenhagen

As some of you already know Rach signed us up for a 5 hour mountain biking / running / orienteering event in the Yorkshire dales on the 30th of Sep. And with our 3 months of studious training (yeah right) under our belts the date quickly came around and it was time to race.

The day before the race we hired a car and headed on down to York to have a look at the old York town and wall the surrounds the city.

After a quick stop at the boarder heading from Scotland into England we arrived in York to be met by a huge line of traffic and people milling about the city centre. Apparently we didn't know that the Yorkshire food festival was on that weekend and the city was packed with tents and people trying to sell you different type of York cuisine. It didn't really dampen our day anyway, still had a good peruse around the city and a walk on the city walls.

Anyway onto the main reason for the trip.

From York we headed into the dales national park picked up our bikes and went to the YHA to get a good rest before the race on the Sunday. Up early on the Sunday we headed into Grassington, registered for the race and awaited our fate.

The race was stuctered in that you were given a preliminary map of the MTB and Run stages with all the possible stations and points it was possible to got to and each team had to figure out what route they thought they could do in the allotted time picking up the most points.

What we didn't know was that when you start the race you get given a sheet telling you that 1/4 of the stations are fake and have to adjust your route to suit. But of course your time has already started and it's time to get going, pressure anyone??

I was the navigator for the biking leg and after getting us successfully to the first checkpoint I proceeded to get us lost down a small footpath to nowhere, Rachel was not very impressed. After that it was pretty plain sailing getting to the rest of the MTB stations, even getting to add one which was up a massive hill which we had to walk most of the way up.

Onto the Run stage and it was Rach’s turn to navigate, again pretty straight forward with a diversion down nettle lane (not named for fun, my legs were itchy as) thrown in for a little bit of variety. When we got near the end we had a choice of either one checkpoint or getting a extra on in there. Rach was starting to wane a bit but she pushed on through and we made it back with 10 min to spare.

(I realize these are the copywrited versions, don't worry I’ll buy them eventually)

So all in all, 2 3/4 hours of Biking and 2 1/4 of running, some very tired bodies, a stunning day and good views.
The Yorkshire dales while not the most stunningly awesome place is still pretty cool. Just the shear scale of work that would have gone into the stone wall fences which litter the landscape in every direction is impressive in itself.

nice

Well all I can say is that it's good to be part of the Scottish Rugby Union, I signed up for the newsletter when we got tickets to the Edinburgh Sevens earlier in the year. And what a good move it turned out to be!

We'd (well me, rach didn't really care), had pretty much given up on getting any tickets to the AB's vs Scotty group game of the RWC which was being played in Edinburgh. With the only tickets left either on E Bay or over £200 ($500) through an agent. But the good old SRU sent out a late email a week before the game saying that members were to get a last ditch chance to buy up tickets for the original £38 price.

Well I didn't need too much of a push and brought up 4 tickets.

Before the game we met up with a few Kiwi mates who were in town for the game and we couldn't believe how many NZders were mulling round the city. Every 2nd person was wearing black or singing slice of heaven.

Anyway we went around to one of Rachs workmates place who lives near Murrayfeild and who was coming to the game with us and headed on down to the park.

Our seats were sweet, front row on halfway. Drinks were cheap and the atmosphere was great, well except for the 10 year old girl sitting behind us screaming GO SCOTLAND for the whole first half. But it wasn't long before the score line snubbed her out.

So good day out all and all, bit confusing who was who. We just cheered whenever points were scored and were pretty much right every time.