NEW YEAR’s day bike ride.

THIS VIDEO
This ongoing Video Diary by myself John Neal, sometimes known as John Longcroft-Neal, as the whim takes me.

TODAY’S SUBJECT is bike ride on New Year’s Day despite having put on a few pounds over Christmas.

GENERAL STUFF
I am retired from two careers of primary school teaching when I was deputy head of a Middle School and Primary School, and as a self employed Chalkboard Artist from 2002 until I reached the grand old age of 65 in 2016. Since I retired it’s like a second childhood but with more expensive toys.

SORRY BUT my website does no longer exist. Use these links below to buy my FOUR FULL LENGTH VIDEO $10.00 (approx £7.50) directly via Fastspring
1.a
’ Better Handwriting for Adults’
http://sites.fastspring.com/jwrenimages/product/betterhandwritingforadults
2.
‘More Handwriting for Adults’
http://sites.fastspring.com/jwrenimages/product/morehandwritingforadults
3.
‘Introduction to Chalkboard Art’
http://sites.fastspring.com/jwrenimages/product/introductiontochalkboardart
4.
‘More Chalkboard Art’
http://sites.fastspring.com/jwrenimages/product/morechalkboardart

I have also written a book ‘Cursive Handwriting for Adults’
published by Ulysses Press and can be purchased from:

AMAZON UK

AMAZON USA

My FACEBOOK Page https://www.facebook.com/Johnnealartist

I play guitar and write songs and have written about 14 songs for the local BBC radio station. I run a weekly (weakly) evening Acoustic session at a local pub and have been doing so for 14 years now. I also started an afternoon acoustic session in a quite large cafe in Nuneaton. Both premises were former songwriting clients of mine.

Much of the music I use on this channel is taken from epidemicsound.com free to use on Youtube for a reasonable monthly fee, and sometimes I suffer you with my own music.

Gear that I use:
DJI Mavic Mini 3 Drone.
Iphone 13Pro for camera, generally front facing so I can see myself in frame. Super quality especially if I keep the lens clean.
Go Pro11
Gimble is a Q2 Smooth by Zhiyun, I ought to use this more often because it was expensive.
Canon G7mk2
Sony IC recorder

Omnidirectional Lavalier Microphone

Rhode videomic to do voice over on computer
Video editing with Final Cut Pro X
Polarduck Mini Tripod for mobile phone. This is so good and under £10.00 I bought two.
Lamcou bendy leg tripod
Tall Tripod is a Velbon CX 540
Mono pod is a Manfrotto Compact MMC3-02 and is very useful for getting high angles that look like low flight drone shots and so easy to carry on my bike along with the mini tripod.

My bike is a e28 Estarli electric bike.

https://www.estarli.co.uk/

Money from ARTWORK SOLD will go to the MONA FOUNDATION
for details see https://www.monafoundation.org

I am a follower of the Bahá’i Faith and some of my philosophical ideas may show through in comments that I make, but, by and large, I’ll not make direct reference to my beliefs.
FACEBOOK:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/131048357093583
See www.bahá’i.org

To hear my Bahá’i INSPIRED SONGS, (and others) GO TO:
https://soundcloud.com/jrwren/sets/bahai-inspired-songs

I also enjoy gardening but lay no claims to have any expertise, and you might catch me out in the countryside of Warwickshire and nearby Leicestershire on a walk with my wife or on a bike ride.

Please comment below to inform further plans for my vlogs. I’d love to hear from you. If you don’t you will just get whatever bubbly ideas float to the surface of my slightly muddled elderly mind.

Well good morning it’s John Neil here and it’s don’t need to remember this it’s Monday the 1st of January 2024 great day for a ride look at it clear blue sky no wind and it’s not even freezing so great day to be out let’s Go well I just let his car go by oh no he’s slowing down now this is good fun this right well this selfie stick’s pretty good it’s got a tripod on the bottom and uh yeah I can hold it here quite well and it sticks out a long way it’s so go

All good stuff it’s a lovely day today look there’s not a cloud in the sky and it’s not freezing either which is a bonus as well on it yeah I’m going to take the Drone out and um one of two things I’m still not absolutely certain about uh and confident about using one

Or two particular aspects of it so I’m going to go out to a quiet Country Road and uh take it from there well I just um whoops stop for a minute and show you the state of the countryside I mean look at this it’s uh very

Wet and these fields will soon be built on as well but uh nobody today yes look at this lovely well you might say John what’s your New Year’s resolutions well I’ll say obviously I’ve not put on any weight what a liar yes I’ve got to got to lose I don’t know what’s

Happened I don’t know about you but the older I get I just got to eat you know one Min pie and should I put a stone on can’t believe it so I’m going to be working on that in my defense I am wearing a vest a

Long sleeve shirt a jumper a scarf and a big heavy fleece so you know appearances can be deceptive the plan is to use the spotlight mode so put the drone on top of the roundabout turn it around to see where I am and this is me here and then

The Drone should follow me around what could go wrong well there’s two things actually I think it wasn’t enough contrast and I was probably a little bit too far away mind you it’s a nice shot of this digger later on I tried it again and this time it seemed to work it’s always

Nice to do this at some sort of feature like the previous one was roundabout and this is going over this bridge um I like those long shadows as well oh dear look at that not not quite sure why there’s a big puddle here in home Village but uh

Yeah need sorting out it but uh it’s an opportunity for one of two interesting photographic uh shots anyway moving on there is something to be said for uh going the same route every day not every day but you know on a regular basis so you might think hang on

John you’ve just uh been along here before what’s new to see well there’s always something new to see so um particularly as you go through the seasons because now it’s very cold and it’s also very wet and the farmers can do nothing really with the fields as they are at

The moment so I think it’s Interesting for instance here we are there’s this tree there’s a gate and a field and it just sort of frames that view of the field and the field look at this it’s um not too bad here but look at this that’s a pretty wet field and uh yeah it looks like there’s

Nothing grown down in this corner there’s a crop over there look but uh nowhere else ah so it’s nice I think it’s nice just to come the same way look at the same things but see them changing in the different seasons don’t you Agree Morning And the other thing about uh coming on the same route each time it’s quite nice because you can also you know where all the seats are there’s a nice one and it’s uh reasonably dry too if John you’re saying you’re looking a bit podgy well it’s

Christmas and uh there is a shock in store I swear those scales are inaccurate at home anyway yeah I’ve got this quite a nice fleece actually didn’t cost a great deal about 20 quid but I’ve got it for gardening but it’s really really thick I didn’t realize and uh

I’ve got me two layers on here as well because it’s uh it’s bright and clear and fresh as you might say but it’s not raining which I’ve said before which is nice anyway I’m sat here in dadlington and uh for once in the last week or so

Oh we’ve had storms coming through and you know you’re in trouble when they give them a name that was the last one gillet Gill Gilly I don’t know I don’t sometimes they’re Irish names in French names cuz they’re sweeping from all over the place but we had a couple come through uh a

Lot of snow up in Scotland none down here in England though which I suppose is a a blessing mind you it is nice to see this s anyway uh yeah so the weather’s been interesting as well as been windy and overcast and coldish over Christmas and New Year so

This the first day we’ve had at some half de right must Press On N That was a flood taken care of it wasn’t too bad actually I could see from the cars going through how deep it was and uh I went through there about 3 weeks ago and it was a lot deeper I um I’ll get my feet wet but fortunately on the

Electric bike you only to keep touching the pedals when uh the two pedal are horizontal and it uh keeps kicking in a little bit of power so keeps you moving forwards but you don’t have to rotate the pedals completely all the way around you see these things I’ve [Applause] Learned [Applause] [Applause] Well that’s all folks I’m signing off on the next day it’s actually chucking it down today oh there’s so many floods I think Great Britain is going to float off into the Atlantic anyway uh I made a little subscribe button appear at the very end nearly got a th subscribers

That’ll be fun so you’ll see me next time okay bye-bye oh and by the way Happy New Year