12°C, dry & springy
To take a break from blogging and make a return is strangely difficult. Time is swallowed up by work-stress, that much is unsurprising. Coming back to make a post is not as easy as it you’d expect. I may put a few thoughts that have rattled around in my head for a week in retrospective posts here on WordPress.
11°C Sun CK:44 miles.
From the same writer who gave us Remains Of The Day, this is a sad but beautifully shot film with a rather forgettable name. For me, the film stood out for the feeling of inevitable doom, and a haunting resignation in the characters who knew and accepted their fate.
I loved it, but many commentators on the web have pinned it as a poor relation to the book. I tend to feel that this criticism is unfair. A book takes, what, fifteen hours to read? To compare with a film that lasts 90 minutes is no real comparison in my view. I’d have been happy with a longer cut than this, it could easily sustain a 2 or 2½ hour film.
Can you tell that I’m reluctant to give away any synopsis of this one, so make do with the trailer
VIDEO:Trailer
8°C, clear
Jupiter and Venus blaze in the evening skies recently. They’re near to conjunction and are still striking to anyone who looks westwards.
I have a sticky throat. I shall be so annoyed of this develops into another cold. I’ve had a heavy cold followed by ‘flu this term already. Could it be early hay-fever? Beech and hazel trees to release spores at this time of year. So it could be…
9° to 4°C, rain then cleared
I didn’t mind the ride to work in the rain, it fell a little thicker than drizzle & blew my road speed downwards. However, I was comfortable. The heated pipes that can be relied on to dry my clothes, ran less hot as we approach the start of spring. Putting on a wet, cold shirt in preparation for the journey home is the bit I react to. It’s a kind of physical jolt from the part of us that does reflex actions. It only took about 3 miles before body warmth raised the temperature of the water that had soaked through every layer of clothing this morning. Body heat is good at that, and you generate more of it at speed.
0 – 6°C, Snow , wind & sun
Drove from Macclesfield to Buxton on the way to Alstonefield for a foodie feast. In the village pub has an excellent range of food including the amazing pudding pictured below. That snow shot was taken in a layby in Deryshire. I pulled the car into a stopping place and I got out with my camera-phone. Just as I was turning the snow yellow- a couple of heavily wrapped cyclists rode by on thin tire, racing bikes. They did look rather nervous at the top of what must be a big big climb, and not because they’d spotted me. The fog was too thick for that.
Here is food that I’d journeyed through snow for. Look at the photo from left to right- there is honeycomb, chocolate mousse and lemon sorbet. All of that was presented on a skid-mark of chocolate sauce on the square plate. The most spectacular part was found inside the mousse. The brown cylinder of rich chocolate was rather rich but once cut inside- it bled from the wound a yellow-orange thick sauce oozed. That alien blood was rich and tangy and countered the rich sticky body of the pud.
Most striking.
Go and try some!
+9 to 0°C, Sun, wind & snow
Rosie has a good 2 hour run on Formby Beach. She slept well in the evening but woke with a haunting mournful howl. A dog nightmare? I’ve written about them before here, but it’s impossible to confirm. I claim dog-owner’s intuition.
9°C, sunny. CR56 miles
After 12 days I am recovered. Today’s ride was far better than I expected, I have lost less form though gained some weight (it seems). Anyway, spring is in the air, flowers out and the sunshine bright enough to show up how much cleaning is required.
4°C, sunny
It’s been a week since I went down with the ‘flu. I have reached a flat plane area with no sign of improvement from one day to the next. The first 36 hours were dreadful, with me feeling as ill as I ever remember. Now I long impatiently for some change each day that I get up.
9°C, white cloud, some wind
Frustration builds when there is no sign of healing. I relented in the end and went to the local GP. she said it’s true, i have the flu’. This is no heavy cold, it’s flu. So no more stupid jokes about manflu. A big part of me dislikes that variety of sexist putdown anyway. Just because it’s aimed at men, does not make it okay.
New book to read has arrived: Zona by Geoff Dyer.
9°C, NW, light cloud
Half-term holiday is a precious time. It’s a time to re-build energy, recover from a stressful job and fix things that need repairing (the house, the car and me). It’s not a time to be set back with a devastating head-cold, running temperature and bostin’ headache. These things happen- yes. But it’s difficult not to spend time, while laid low, thinking of the good things I could be doing.
So the symptoms add up, heavy-cold + the urge to grumble = manflu.
Have I done that self-depricating joke before? Perhaps leave it then.
Micycle 