401, L2B et al.

Been another great day and largely occupied with clearing and carting away hedge, tree and shrub clippings to the local recycling dump.

I had tried earlier in the week to get a photo of the Alps for Pep, the Myeloma cancer fighter who I have mentioned a few times, but there has been a lot of mist in the distance. Today however they could be seen and it appears that the snow that was reported 10 days ago has gone again.

In the photo also the electricity pylons and some of the few electricity generating windmills around here. Bavaria is blessed with a very high proportion of regenerative energy but most of it from PV. To overcome the shut down of the atomic reactors and the excess of wind energy from the North Sea and sadly the still operating brown, surface, coal power plants in the middle of Germany, Bavaria needs to have new big power lines from the north to the south. Over the last couple of years there have been widespread protests about the two planned huge pylon "autobahns". This week the Bavarian Government announced it was now to put the whole thing underground. The result an outcry about the effect on the environment, seemingly the same people who were complaining about the pylons. I guess a "not in my backyard" phenomenon.

In the evening, checking out my Facebook, saw that Pep had posted that she had been interviewed on BBC Radio Berkshire this morning as she had some involvement in "The 401 Challenge" some may have heard about. Ben Smith running 401 marathons in as many days! He dedicated marathon 100 to Pep who is his cousin, amongst over things for her tireless work, despite her own problems, to help fellow sufferers of Myeloma. Ben is coming to the end of his venture this coming week with a final marathon in Bristol. What an incredible feat. Pep was also great on Radio, the interview can be heard at 2:38:40 on the broadcast site.

Not quite as many miles but still a great achievement was my son's second L2B (London to Brighton) bike ride. In June the road route and last weekend the off-road version. I can follow his activities on an App which shows things like time, mileage, altitude, speed, calories etc but one thing it doesn't have is the litres/mile consumption - beer that is. He did report that the next day he had a slightly sore backside, no muscle aches but one heck of a hangover!

All these shortenings such as LOL keep catching me out. I thought 401 was an internet problem and I had heard of B&B. I wonder if my old postcard "ILU" has been hijacked - probably best I don't write any postcards and stick with messaging, hoping the automatic text crator will put me right.