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I'm really very pleased. We made it to Brighton. I'm not that experienced a cyclist and we still got there. 4 hours at an average of 12.5 mph and a few interesting things to see on the way. I'm grimy and sticky and my front brake was scraping almost all of the way. But I feel great now.
8 weeks of cycling and 28% of the total miles in those 8 weeks was today :o) Time to scoff pizza :o)
[[51 miles - [[183.5 miles]]
Steph's closes its doors for the last time on Saturday night (thanks for the heads-up on that J), so we went for dinner there last night. Man, was it busy! I had garlic bread with Stilton, chicken and bacon pie and the "famous" bread and butter pudding ("please be aware there is a 40 minute wait if you order this") for dessert. And then felt really pretty ill on the train on the way home and pretty horrible this morning.
I've been sipping tea a bit and had some plain toast so far today. Hope my stomach is settled enough for our cycle ride tomorrow (not gonna say where we're going in case I jinx it somehow). I'm a bit apprehensive about the trip as it is quite a long way and the route isn't exactly flat. I'd love to complete it, but there are opportunities to get a train home pretty much all along the route so there are lots of get-out points if it is just too much for me. The weather forecast has at least improved from "thunderstorms" to "slightly cloudy"; which is a good thing.
Kinda accidentally tried to keep up with a really uber-gnarly, super-fit-looking cyclist on the way over to my house. Thankfully, for me not him, his chain broke just before the weird junction near Putney. I would have had a hernia if I'd had to keep up any longer. It's been a poor fortnight for cycling for me as I left my bike at N's and only just brought it back home today. I'm hoping we'll go for a monster ride on Sunday, but after hurting lots today (average 14.5mph, top speed 29.6mph and I think the computer is quite off as it's now saying a 7.5 mile journey is only 7.1 miles) I'm not sure I'm in the best shape for it. We'll see.
Oh and my number is now ported to O2, so I am fully en-iPhoned. Oh gosh it's great. I don't have to carry a phone, PDA, compact camera and mp3 player all separately. Plus, it plays nice little games really well as well and some of the free apps are brilliant; like Remote which controls iTunes libraries remotely. *beam* Thank you, thank you, thank you to N! The best presents are things you wouldn't have bought for yourself but you'd really quite like. Even more so if they are unexpected. And following that, it was perfect.
[7.5 miles - [[132.5 miles]]
The orchid I bought around Christmas last year has finally kicked the bucket. Not bad I reckon, given that the label said it would flower for 3-4 months and it's had almost 7 months. All of the flowers went kinda brown and limp and then fell off. I'll get a new one soon 'cause it was lovely.
I was driving back to my house last night and thought I glimpsed a big, fat moon through gaps in the buildings in Putney. By the time I got home and ran up into the loft for a look, it had got a bit higher but was still looking great for a photo. Of course, I have only a very cheap Canon 75-300mm f5.6 lens that's anywhere near going to be able to take a photo of the moon and it is quite a struggle to get a decent shot. I'm not tempted to get a big, fat zoom lens at all. Oh no. (well, actually I'm not 'cause I can't afford one, so.)
I've been working from home today (due to surveyor visit) and what did I hear at about 08:30 this morning? The rubbish and recycling collection happening! I'm so glad I left the boxes outside the front door rather than bringing them inside like I really ought to have done. I'm reckoning the last two days collections and today's were all caught up today. Wonder how they managed that and whether it involved overtime pay (which might neatly balance out the two days docked pay for striking on the last two days if they were doing 3 days work in just one).
Still. I now don't have a pile of rubbish outside my house, so I can stop caring and get back to my comfortable, middle-class life.
Council workers in very many councils have been on strike today, over pay. This has meant a lot of rubbish hasn't been collected. I'm particularly unimpressed with this because the recycling collectors "forgot" to take my card/plastic/cans recycling last week. Now I'm left with two weeks-worth of that crate of recycling and another week to wait to see if they can be bothered to take it away. Seriously; I didn't get a pay rise this year, do you see me on strike? Do you see me causing stress and discomfort for others because of it? These guys get it pretty easy, to be honest. No expected an unpaid overtime; final salary pension; the possibility of a 3 year sabbatical after working for only 6 months; 26 days leave, rising to 31 after 5 years service. Like the tube drivers, council workers get little sympathy from me for their cause. If the rubbish/recycling collectors, in this case, could be a bit more reliable when they aren't on strike, I might be less harsh on the subject. But they're not.
Sunday saw a little bike ride to Putney Heath, to The Telegraph for lunch with I, M and little S. It was absolutely lovely. The weather was good, if a teensy bit chilly after the short cycle, and the food was tasty. Paying for things was a little tricky though as the card payment machines weren't working too well. It took three attempts for me to pay for food and beers and there were a few irate punters eyeing up the one mine went through on when it was successful and theirs still wasn't. *grin*
S was cute, very very well-behaved and not grizzly at all until he got a bit hungry at about 5pm.
And then we cycled back to Richmond. *ahem* *wobble*
(7.5 miles - [125 miles])
I wasn't going to bother. And I didn't. But I got a surprise present. *dies of teh yay*
It's just been filled up with my tunes and a few free apps; calendar synced but 2 of the 4 email accounts are refusing to work for some reason. Not on the O2 network yet, but that'll come.
Makes the best ice-cream I've ever tasted. Yes, he's a chocolatier, but he has more than half a clue how to make fantastic ice-cream. The "salt caramel" flavour is a dark chocolate ice-cream with pockets, or seams if you will, of salt caramel. God, it's good. And worth the £3.50 for one largeish scoop in a tub.
The day after I whinge about stupid platform markings at Waterloo on the Jubilee Line platforms, they disappear! All gone this morning, but people were still queueing up along where they were yesterday.
Oh and still "tsk!"ing and huffing at people who actually stand in a sensible place.
Mad!
In other news, I will not be queueing up anywhere tomorrow morning or getting an iPhone. I just don't want to go through the queueing and stress only to find there aren't any left. Orange gets to keep me a while longer.
Dear TfL,
these don't work. People queue up along the arrows themselves, staying pretty much within the white lines, right in the way of people trying to get off the tube and streaming out of the platforms and back up into the corridors; the complete opposite of what you intended.
No Love,
TOTKat
Seriously. They don't work at all. People do exactly the opposite of what TfL wants them to do due to these arrows and lines. What they should do is stand behind the white lines, allowing people off the tube train along the yellow arrows, boarding the train once everyone who wants to get off has done so. What actually happens is people queue along the arrows, backing up out into the corridors beyond the platforms, leaving the area behind the white lines clear, blocking up the place and then when anyone approaches the tube train from behind the white line, they "tsk!" and huff, loudly as if said person were queue-jumping. It'd be hilarious if it weren't just obstructive to smooth travel in the morning.
It'll be even more fun when the new buildings out on Canary Wharf are finished and occupied by an extra god-knows how many thousand workers. Hopefully TfL will figure out the platform markings better by then.
That was a good weekend. Oh yes. Even getting soaked and muddy on a little cycle ride was fun.
More please!
(17.5 miles - [117.5 miles])
Fun and games with ntp this morning as all of the computers at work (I use that word carefuly, as I mean PCs, servers, storage applicances etc.) had their clocks set back an hour for no apparent reason. Entertainment was had with fixage while people were whining about calendar entries, "can't you just turn automatic updating off?". No. So ner. Anyway, fixed now.
The weekend starts here (almost) and as I appear to have pretty much completed on the transfer of equity on the house (the payment has left my account as of this morning), that calls for a wee drinkie I think. And if the weather holds, there will be cycling over the weekend as well as lounging about, drinking tea, reading and generally doing bugger-all. Isn't it great? :o)
Did a quick 4 miles on my bicycle just now to get me up to 100 miles since I got my bike. No bad going, I think, as I've only had it since 7th June; less than a month :o)
(4 miles - 100 mile mark!)
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