From creak to crack...

And we’re back in the room! I really am not very good at this whole writing regularly thing – suppose it’s b/c I actually have to do work at work. Terrible thing that is…

Anyway, I finally have a bike again today after two weeks going bikeless (it’s sort of like going commando but a lot less fun). The mysterious creak turned into a not so mysterious crack right there the seat-stay meets the top of the frame. Only thing holding the seat on was the seatpost through the frame. So, I took the bike back to the store, as well as writing a suitably aggrieved letter to Marin (to which they responded in suitably we’re-sorry-but-we-accept-nothing fashion). After two long and horrible weeks of having to take public transportation and do cardio at the gym (how I suffer!), I got the bike back yesterday with a new, upgraded frame. To this I added better brakes and better pedals, meaning I’m now basically up to the top of the line Marin bike. This just proves that if one breaks something, one should always blame the manufacturer, because one might just get a better product out of it! (Still though, it shouldn’t have cracked like that, and I don’t even want to think what would have happened had the seat fallen off while I was riding!).

We’ve just passed the summer solstice. Apparently, 36500 people went to Stonehenge to see the sun come up at 0457, or whenever it actually comes up, and guess what, it was cloudy! My friend Jesus (with a little doodah over the e) went there and it was still cloudy – you’d think he would have waved his hands around a little and sparkled things up. Just goes to show (and yes, I’m wearing rubber soled shoes). At the moment, it’s still light when I come out of the gym at 9, which I love (I think the sunset today is at 922 or something, and then it’s not really dark until at least 1030). Wouldn’t mind if that continued all year – I may not like heat, but I most certainly like light.

Not much else at the moment. I’m going to some piano concert this evening (it was free and I might absorb some culture). Apparently the composer (can’t even remember his name) was gay, which means that the venue (Wigmore Hall) is going to be full of all sorts of ‘oh darling’ poofs and their hangers on. Those homosexuals just get everywhere, like some plague or something. Recruiting numbers must be up.

Anyway, time to look busy again. Wow.

These Mondays keep occurring - I must look into having it...

And it’s Monday again. This does seem to happen like clockwork. I’ll have that looked into… Weekend was a bit of a mixed bag. I just ran errands on Saturday (and spent too much money, as usual). Paul and Ali came over on Saturday evening and we all blobbed out and watched Victor/Victoria. I love that movie – it really is just as camp as something that is very camp. David had, rather astoundingly, never seen it before. I do wonder sometimes if that boy is actually homosexual, or just a plant from the LDS church. The weather was absolutely crappy and horrible all weekend, and cold. I did, however, manage to get out cycling yesterday, but only made it 83 miles – wanted to do 100+. Sigh – tragic, I’m sure. I ended up having to stop 15 or 20 times to put on layers, take off layers, put on rain crap, take off rain crap. The temperature would vary 10 degrees within a couple of minutes, as it rained or threatened to rain. Oh, and my bike developed this hugely annoying squeak. I stopped in a gas station to try to find a small bottle of oil for some emergency oiling before I went insane. I ended up with a family jumbo size jug of WD40, complete with its own built-in applicator nozzle. Solved the squeak problem though, and it can now join the place of honor with the sundry other oil-based products languishing in the closet. Just as I got back to Brixton, which is always a downer at the end of any ride, the heavens opened, and a wet and generally grumpy Doug slogged into the house. Oh well.

And this morning was a Monday morning. I woke up late, after crappy sleep. Headed out late. Realized just as I got to the City that I had left my big lock at home. Had to shout at two stupid drivers. Locked the bike in the basement of Town Hall with a piece of dental floss (seat lock) – I’m very much hoping it will still be there (it probably will). Mr. Fat and Ugly was in my shower, so I had to trundle over to the next building to use the shower there. The water pressure decided to drop to zero somewhere about halfway through, so I got to try to rinse the water off with strategically placed drips. Nice. And the highlight of the day, so far, has definitely been the fat and obnoxious manager of the telecoms team shredding CDs in the paper shredder because he is just too lazy to break them himself. Maybe he could sit on them. So, it’s been an absolutely perfect Monday, and I have managed to accomplish just about dipshit at work, which is, admittedly, mostly my fault. Oh, I did manage to buy some new cycling shoes and pedals, which I think must count for something.

Maybe Tuesday will be a bit less retarded. We can only hope.

I'm tired and I want to go home.

And it’s another Monday. This does seem to keep happening, no matter how much I try to prevent it. Sigh. It was an interesting weekend (a bit of the ‘may you live in interesting times’ type of interesting…). David, Robin and I went to the zoo on Saturday. Well, first David and I went and got tickets (£17!!), and then, as Robin was farting around and taking forever (he said he had a problem at work, we suspected he was making out with his new man of the moment, but we will give him the benefit of the doubt. Anyway, David and I waited for Robin up on Primrose Hill, with its gorgeous view of London, and the occasional (very occasional) gorgeous specimen of manhood strutting about (and yes, I mean strutting). Robin finally shows up, resplendent in head to toe lycra (there is no accounting for taste sometimes) and we head off for a snack before heading into the zoo. Anyway, long story short, something didn’t agree with Our Lady of Perpetual Night, and poor Robin spent quite a while in deep negotiations with one of the zoo toilets. However, once freshened up, he was able to continue on his exploration of the (amazingly crappy) London Zoo, and then partake in a nice soup in St John’s Wood. Oh, and he still managed to go out in the evening to meet friends. I think had I spent my afternoon barfing at the zoo, I would be not entirely inclined to head off to a dance club that very same day. But you know, it’s fashion, darling…

Went for a lovely 95 mile bike ride yesterday off through the rolling wheat and soy fields of Essex. It’s strangely pretty for a county that inspires so much derision for being full of chavs and general horrible people. Granted, the folks I saw wandering around the various towns and cities I went through did look like they had spent a while paddling around the shallow end of the gene pool (and the clothes – honey, jeans shorts are so late 90’s and what’s with that tattoo??)… But I digress. Questionable locals aside, it was a lovely ride, and my heinie is only mildly sore today. I still have in mind to break the 200km barrier (about 120 miles), but my weakest link does seem to be the skin on my tender posterior. You’d think I’d get calluses or something. Eeeiuw!