The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed a distinct lack of cycling posts since our epic excursion to Wimbledon in mid-October. It was only halfway down an extraordinarily steep hill that I remembered that my brakes desperately needed replacing.
I could not see how to do it, and was very frustrated because in the old days, replacing brake pads was a two minute job. Eventually I sussed it out, and although Jimmy insisted on doing it, I talked him through the process. But in between were weeks of prevarication, avoidance and so on. Also, my inner Pagan was telling me to hibernate as we approached the dead time of year and its partner, depression, was brought on by an abject fear of Christmas - or is the fear of Christmas brought on by the approaching Solstice?
But Solstice is behind us now and there is a palpable sense of renewal. Slowly, sunset is getting later (half four and there is still visible blue in the sky - just). Spring is still a long way away (and wouldn't the Vernal Equinox be a more meaningful celebration than the arbitrary changing of the date!), but nevertheless, there is hope in the air. (My birthday is five weeks away).
There will be snow and gails, and dull miserable rainy grey days, but that doesn't matter. Today has been bright, sunny and dry, even if it has been cold. But never mind the cold. One can't moan about grey, wet and miserable days and then stay sulking indoors on days like today. I had finally run out of excuses, and I got the bike out.
Basically, I went there and back, and, ouch, did it hurt!
Well, sort of. I was coughing my lungs up at one point, but in a very healthy way! But I never once had to get off and push, as I had been fearing when I set out, not even on that final killer incline that leads back to Gert Cottage.
I've read so much crap that says if you miss one day's 'training' it obliterates all the work you've ever done. For all I know that may be true of elite athletes, but for someone like me, it simply isn't true.
I can feel in myself how much better I am than when I first started the cycling. I can also see and feel how I've deteriorated since, say, September. In some ways that is dispiriting, but in many other ways it's encouraging.
I'm dissatisfied with the flab, but I know what the toned strong muscles felt like in September, and I want that again. It's an achievable target, and I think even in the five weeks between now and my birthday I can make a difference.
Even though I think that now is a bad time to be resolving on self-improvement!
I went to Tooting Common and paused by the duck pond, where I discovered that my beloved camera is no longer functioning as it should - the zoom lever gets stuck, and that's attached to the button that actually takes the photos, so actually getting the photo taken is hit-and-miss. I needz new camera.
The partially frozen pond
Wandsworth Council in their infinite wisdom put up a sign
and in more detail:
I detest signs like this. It gets certain things right: black on yellow and the word 'Danger' in bold black capitals.
The rest is just wrong. What the bloody hell are 'persons'. What the feck does 'prohibited' mean. And, like, you and whose army are going to enforce it. Oh, it's Byelaw 7. Who, apart from Anoraks in Public Administration actually knows what a Byelaw is?
Obviously, someone has decided - we must tell people it's illegal to go on the ice, because one thing that surely deters anyone (you know, teenage lads, that sort of person) is the fact that it's illegal (and there are no council operatives in attendance to enforce it).
First rule of communication: be direct. After 'Danger' say 'Do not go on the ice'. Simple. Requires only basic literacy or minimal understanding of English.
Find some way succinctly to say that you'd be a fool to even try it. Okay 'Danger' has said that, but no harm in reiterating that. Say something like 'It won't hold your weight and you might drown." Spells it out in words of one syllable, starkly and unambiguously.
Hey, why bother communicating when you can behind legalese bollocks!
If they want, they can add at the bottom 'You risk being prosecuted if you break Wandsworth's Byelaw 7'.
But, actually, they don't need to. Ignorance of the law is no defence; the byelaw isn't there to increase prosecutions for the sake of it, but to deter reckless people, such as teenage boys, from standing on thin ice which might crack and leave them drowning, or at least with a nasty case of Weil's Disease.
Oh, and while I think about it. Open message to the dumb bimbo jogging along the cycle path with noise-eliminating earphones for your mp3 player.
If you can't hear a bicycle bell, please review the preceding statement from 'along the cycle path' to 'noise-eliminating earphones'.
Just out of curiosity, was I supposed to a) swerve into the quagmire to my right b) swerve into the dog-walking pensioners on the footpath to my left c) career into your back or d) do what I actually did, slam on my brand new brakes in order to avoid catastrophe.
'Sorry' is insufficient when you are, in fact, a cretin.
Perhaps rather than trying to keep your ugly anorexic body even skinnier, maybe you should focus on your shortcomings in the common sense department. I know you're blonde and posh, but, even so, the world doesn't actually revolve around you - not when I'm in the vicinity, anyway.
