A variation on the 'Canadian musicians' game is 'Welsh bands'. Catatonia, Stereophonics, Manic Street Preachers, Magenta, GLC, Feeder, Super Furry Animals ... this was kicked off by going to see Magenta on Saturday night and a rendition (not by me!) of the Stereophonics' 'Dakota' on Friday night.

But today started off very badly. During the journey into work:
- someone kicked my takeaway coffee over me
- I tried to get off the train and a very large man tried to shove his way in before I could get off
- I nearly tripped someone up at the station on the way out

when I finally got to work I had to find someone (anyone) I knew and tell that unfortunate person that I had had it and was going to have a cup of tea for an hour.
Curiously my manager was also feeling crook and went home. Maybe it's the day.

Before all this started I was drawing up an ad for renting of the front bedroom, which could bring in some much-needed money. I've renewed my season ticket but only for a month - the annual season ticket was £1300 and I don't know where I'd find that just now. Besides, may be going to Brum for a while even though I didn't even get an interview for the latest job I applied for (and neither did the current incumbent. Makes me wonder what they're looking for).

Not that I don't like this place (I do) but I was wondering why, as I used to commute by bike every day, I moved somewhere too far to do that easily from. I was back in West Ken on Friday and remarked, "I don't know why I moved. Not that I have a great attachment to W14 - though in a way I do - but why move anyway?" "True," she said; "if you're used to Central London you don't want to move out." I do say that I only regret having moved when I have to get home from the centre of town, but that's regularly twice a week and often more. Friday night was so pretty damn good that it carried over all the way through Saturday, and I got some work done on the Work In Progress. Not like last weekend at all. And today of course it has been warm and sunny and I walked up Vauxhall Bridge Road at lunchtime.

It's just a shame about this morning.

Tags: cycling, home, music
Current Location: Living room
Current Music: Stereophonics: Dakota (Decade In the Sun Version)

Well, the path material was delivered, but there is not enough of it! My original order was for twenty bags which would have been the right amount but I cut it back. I have had to reorder, which means paying another delivery charge.
Yesterday afternoon, over to Ealing, food and drink and good conversation; then a crosstown thrash to Old Street where I find my way down to the basement of the El Paso restaurant at about ten p.m. to find a band playing and several people I havent' seen for a while (=the entire lineup of the Silver Wizard Project and
euphoric_stimuli). What a relief? Unfortunately this living-way-out-of-town means I have to leave by midnight, get the 0046 train from Vauxhall and be home at half past one (that late train is slower than the daytime ones). As I am approaching home I see the N87 bus and reckon that if I'd gone for it instead of the train that is the very bus I would have taken. So maybe no real difference in time (except that I waited fifteen minutes for the train, which I would have spent on the bus).

Today, have been on the Dawes bike to Hampton Court, along the river, into the sun, too many walkers and cyclists, all enjoying the spring day ... there is a hotel by the river, close to the bridge and I dodge into there and have coffee and a pleasantly small slice of cake by the river. Everyone is very nice. Except on the way home where I am called all sorts of things for not stopping and getting off my bike to retrieve someone's football. Perhaps I was in the wrong, but would you expect a car driver to do same? I also swing by the Honest Cabbage and see Alan who is often in there but is just then outside having a cigarette. He remarks on the henna tattoo. I consider that I haven't been in a pub all weekend - in fact the last time I went into a pub was the previous Saturday, up in Holloway Road. I cannot watch television either!!

This week I have a job interview to prepare for, and have to be up at six tomorrow - an early start as we're shifting display equipment across town for an event that starts at nine.

Tags: cycling, music
Current Location: home
Current Mood: crepuscular
Current Music: Weather Report: Fast City

People don't sell Bromptons second-hand. Why would they? It packs down into the size of a small suitcase and in that space you have a fully specced bike if you need it (well, if your idea of fully specced is 27 speeds and 26-inch wheels, then, no, you don't, but it is a proper bike).
So I rescued mine from the cupboard it had languished in pretty much since I moved here, found that both tyres were flat (not punctured as I said originally; any bike tyre will go down over time) and that the chain had slipped off; all easily remedied. Pumped up the tyres and found tonight (c. 20 hours later) that they were still fine, so off I set.
My, but it's a twitchy little thing, with those 16-inch wheels; but what you remember if you've ridden one before is not to put any weight on the front; sit up straight and pedal, backpedalling when you need to change gear (that is more anecdotal than manual I think, but it does work; otherwise sometimes the Sturmey-Archer won't change cogs. And if you're used to derailleurs, it's the opposite situation; with the Sturmey you stop pedalling to change gear, rather than having to keep going).
Recall that the B. has given me stout service in the past. The rear triangle is black rather than green because the original one was the victim of a Transit van that rammed me in Pimlico, knocking self and bike across the road and depositing me on my left hand side (the one the van hit) luckily without anything oncoming. Apart from that it did good service and only occasionally lay on the ground for't (for example do not attempt to cross a cattle grid on a B. You will get about half way and then keel over like the 'Vasa'. That was during one Little Green Ride, with every other rider on a properly sized bike I might add).
But after a few minutes of getting myself reacquainted I was whizzing about like anything. It isn't as comfortable a ride as my other bike the Dawes hybrid, no, but it isn't that bad. I am in fact considering selling the Dawes - not to keep the B. as my only bike but possibly to get one of these. I first saw an Airnimal years and years ago when it was simply called the Animal, and no, I wasn't allowed to ride it; they were few and rare in those days, I don't think it had entered production yet. They still aren't very common but with 24-inch wheels they are a different sort of folder to the B. Somewhere between the Birdy and a fullsize bike I would think.
This won't be right away and I need to go and try an Airnimal first. Perhaps it will come to nothing, like my nosing around the Bacchetta Giro a while back, but perhaps it won't. It isn't like I can't do rides on the Dawes, I certainly can and have but that Airnimal does look nice.

Tags: cycling
Current Location: home