19°C, light wind and sky. Night drawing in.
rode Arrow with MapMyRide+! Distance: 16.45mi, time: 01:05:40, pace: 3:59min/mi, speed: 15.03mi/h.
http://mapmyride.com/workout/750800701
Yes, energy is back. The fizz is anyway. Another week and my legs should feel stronger. For now, I shall ride short routes.
Doodle from a work file.
Besides, I am off to read my book. It’s Montserrat’s Cruel Sea. The language is fascinating; naval terminology and 1940’s speech.
Grey start, 19°C, grey and light W2.
I rode Fixed 16. MapMyRide+! Distance: 35.04mi, time: 02:11:08, pace: 3:45min/mi, speed: 16.03mi/h.
http://mapmyride.com/workout/748158951
I had the fizz in my legs which felt great. Split speeds were good enough, a few mph down, that’s all. Afterwards though, my legs were jelly.
Old sketch from many years ago. My new phone’s camera is able to focus well enough for little drawings.
17°C, SW2, sunny dry.
Tracked fixed with MapMyRide+! Distance: 13.82mi, time: 55:43, pace: 4:02min/mi, speed: 14.89mi/h.
http://mapmyride.com/workout/747252003
Slow ride to recover, it’s been two weeks since I last rode home from work. Not fully restored, but if I ease back in…
10°C, rain at last.
First rain of the month. The ground is very dry, dusty and hard. I have missed much of it with this persistent cold. Rain smells different when it falls on dry ground, after a while, a sweet smell rises.
I don’t know how this illness affects my annual milage; 6,000 as a target is marginal now. There still remains a few days before I can ride again.
17°C, grey still.
Still poorly, but the aches and racing heart has stopped. Today has been restful.
Just good day then, to set up a new phone. I bought a Samsung Mini 3 which seems to work far better. There are things that I miss, the device status widget, mid-word switching predictive text off. Gingerbread’s keyboard was better though apostrophe use is easier now.
In use, it runs far better: I won’t be late for work waiting for the GPS app to load. GPS reception is better, the phone latches on at home now, no more missed tracks until I am 2 miles out.
Hope I get used to this keyboard soon.
Sunday.16°C white cloud, no wind and dry.
Thumping heart, sore throat and low energy. The first cold of the new academic year has come early this time. Last year, I was clear until after mid-winter.
This means no cycling and probably no more scrumping for apples on the way home.
Today, I hope to cook the fruit for freezing. Or, maybe a crumble.
The coming winter will be that bit more bearable when you can pull out fruit from the freezer to make something warming (to go with custard).
No cycling today then. Shame. The last two weeks have been good with about 170miles average over each week.
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Posted from a mobile.
18°C NW2, crystal clear blue.
Bike ride,tracked with MapMyRide! Distance: 54.64mi, time: 03:25:38, pace: 3:46min/mi, speed: 15.94mi/h.
http://mapmyride.com/workout/722467783
Conscious of cadence, I rode in a lower gear and spun quickly with low pressure. Often, I see novice riders who are pushing too low a gear. I feel like telling them “change down and you’ll go faster”.
Such a beautiful day for a ride, the warm sunlight offset slightly cool air, visibility was vast and shadows crisp.
late start after working on the house until 2pm. The facias were all flakey with bare wood or yellow gloss visible. It looked terrible and troubled me like a stone in my shoe. It doesn’t sound much but I feel most satisfied. One part was quite inaccessible even with a long ladder. I finished by reaching out of the window. That was blind painting. I ran down to the garden to look after each bit. Most of it was done by touch, already wet sections feel more slippery under brush. There is only one small area that is out of reach.
That was quite a big job that started with something minor. In the living room, a strand of ivy has reached into the room and was growing up the wallpaper.
Done.
Happy now.
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Posted from a mobile.
Sat. 18°C,
Film- Chernobyl Diaries; a shock-horror film set in Pripyat, Ukraine. As you know, it’s the site of the Chernobyl disaster in the 1980s. The film makers have exploited the eerie atmosphere of that abandoned city and joined the genre of films like The Hills Have Eyes. The film would like you to to sit on the edge of your seat and jump frequently.
The story raises several points of note. The six characters soon break apart as a team under stress after the van is damaged. That leads to their eventual demise. My thoughts followed what could happen if they had cooperated. I suppose that’s the role filled by fan fiction. The genre requires elevated tension, fear and shocks. The characters behaved in panic at times, no calm under pressure.
There were some problems with continuity too: the reactor building featured, but it had three cooling towers, the real one has none.
Do you want a recommendation? If you have seen nothing of this genre, then you could tick off with this one. If you have though, you would probably share the criticisms held by others online. That is, there are better examples out there.
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Posted from a mobile.
Sat. 19°C white cloud. No wind.
This is the strangest stone in my possession. It’s twice the weight, for its size, compared with others. It can’t be scratched with screw-driver and is slightly magnetic.
It does have some characteristics of a meteorite, the signs of surface melting, its density and metallic qualities. However, another view shows slight layering. That discounts another possibility- magnetite. There remains one other explanation- slag. I picked it up, over ten years ago, near a railway line in Wakes.
Slag is used as ballast on the tracks on many railways around the world. Since Wales is a post-industrial montaine landscape, its origin seems less natural.
If it were a meteorite, it would be the oldest object I have ever touched. That record remains with the Lewisian Gneiss picked up in Assynt last month (2,000 million years).
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Posted from a mobile.
18°C no wind, grey sky.
Distance: 18.27mi, time: 01:10:46, pace: 3:52min/mi, speed: 15.49mi/h.
http://mapmyride.com/workout/718843607
This app is becoming very unreliable. This morning, it took 9 minutes to load, including many re-starts and a phone re-boot. This afternoon was no better.
Cycling jerseys usually have three pockets in the back. Today, I discovered that they are ideal if you have picked apples. These apples are from a tree that I pass every day coming home. It’s an old tree covered in lichen, surely a sign that the tree is clean of sprays.
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Posted from a mobile.
Micycle 