test please delete

[vetran]

I actually was using a bike to help get from A to B due to all the engineering works. I brought a cheap one so I can lock it up and to leave for a long time decreasing the risk of someone stealing it. It is damn heavy...

D-Lock?

[NickFitz]

I'm back to reading The Death of Grass while dinner cooks

There were a certain set of characters that always appear in these 1950s-1960s British novels: you can find them in John Wyndham, Nevil Shute, even in Fred Hoyle's The Black Cloud.

There's the chap who's got access to more information than everybody else, and has no respect for authority; he's seen by the others as being extremely cynical, but then it turns out he was right all along. Our main protagonist, and often narrator, is the husband of a couple a few years away from middle age: stable and settled, mature, but not yet staid and set in their ways. The wife of said protagonist is a very intelligent woman in her own right, and is often revealed to have understood the deeper implications of things quite a while before her husband. (She may or may not have a career of her own; for example, the couple in The Kraken Wakes both worked in broadcast journalism.) And there's a girl of school age, usually about twelve, who turns out to be sensible and capable beyond her years when push comes to shove; usually there's a younger boy, maybe seven or so, who she looks after.

I wonder if they seemed so formulaic at the time, or just an accurate depiction of middle class society. Probably the latter, because the characters and the stories themselves lose nothing of their power from spotting these stereotypes.

Anyhoo, the thing is that reading this is very like discovering a John Wyndham book you haven't read yet, which I thought had ceased to be a pleasure available to me by the time I was about seventeen; so it's very enjoyable, even if it has already involved the death of huge numbers of people before I'm even halfway through

[mudskipper]

Got out on mine this morning. Just a short spin to see how the neck was doing. 30 mins each way and a 15 minute break in between. Could feel the neck muscles starting to stain by the time I got home. This is going to take some time I think.

Consoled myself with Sunday lunch and a pint at the pub with MrsB.

This was followed by some minor DIY interspersed with watching the progress of these mad fools : Rider Tracking - Transcontinental Race

It's on my bucket list.

Perhaps time to try a bit of cross training - give parkrun a go

12 miles on my bike today - not feeling much in the way of motivation.

[NickFitz]

Roast chicken with the usual trimmings for dinner, and it was very good indeed

[mudskipper]

Roast chicken with the usual trimmings for dinner, and it was very good indeed

We had "salad" for which read pringles with quiche and a token bit of green (but don't tell the super foods thread)

[NickFitz]

In this evening's Internet weirdness that proves everything is connected: I recently backed a CD via a crowdfunding site, going for the reward that included a t-shirt; it's by Rodney Slater from the Bonzo Dogs, and the band includes John of the Rutles from the pub in Cambridge.

On the site where I backed it, they'd somehow managed to screw up the shirt size selection widget. Anyway, a couple of days ago the chap who's organising the whole thing emailed all the backers, asking for shirt sizes.

I replied to his email but he either hasn't got it or he's snowed under, because this evening a chap I used to know got in touch via Facebook. I used to work with him, in fact, but we haven't really been in touch since he moved to Wales seventeen years ago.

Anyway, the reason for him contacting me after all these years? The organiser of the CD (Mike Livesley, well worth seeing his performance of Sir Henry at Rawlinson's End if you get the chance) is an old mate of his, had found the connection on FB, and asked him to ask me for my t-shirt size

Thinking about it, I should have just emailed John in Cambridge and asked him to pass the message along in the first place; but it's interesting to see how easy it can be for a complete stranger to find a connection like that

[BrilloPad]

Got out on mine this morning. Just a short spin to see how the neck was doing. 30 mins each way and a 15 minute break in between. Could feel the neck muscles starting to stain by the time I got home. This is going to take some time I think.

Consoled myself with Sunday lunch and a pint at the pub with MrsB.

This was followed by some minor DIY interspersed with watching the progress of these mad fools : Rider Tracking - Transcontinental Race

It's on my bucket list.

My bucket list: -

1. bucket
2. fill with gin
3. drink bucket

HTH

[BrilloPad]

Final night at centreparcs

There is a water ride called the cyclone. Mrs BP and I went on it. Mrs BP fell out of the raft and was effectively waterboarded! Not good....

[WTFH]

TFBSZ

[vetran]

Final night at centreparcs

There is a water ride called the cyclone. Mrs BP and I went on it. Mrs BP fell out of the raft and was effectively waterboarded! Not good....

the ways you try to make your wife wet....

I find champagne & chocolates work.

My wife prefers red wine & smelly cheese (not of the Knob kind before you ask).