19°C, heavy showers.
Rode home in a river. Raindrops the size of golf-balls striking and rebounding up from strong flowing ribbons of water. Traction was good though and it’s not cold.
Ride in the river
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Author Archives: essiep
Avian miracle II
23°C, wall to wall blue. CK:50 miles
Riding near Mawdsley Lancs., I saw a bird lying in the road. As I passed, it was obvious that it was still alive. So I turned around and went back, if left it would get driven over. It was a bull-finch, sitting in the pale sun-bleached tarmac with one leg sticking out at an awkward angle. So ( like last time) I picked it up with one hand, and suddenly it flew away towards a tree with other passerines swirling round.
Further proof that I can do miracles, as if any were needed.
I suppose it had an injured leg that prevented it jumping enough to take off. A very similar thing happened a few years ago in Leicestershire, I have blogged about it here but can’t locate it right now.
Dog guilt
18C, bright.
Home, yesterday greeted me with a big splodgy mess on the kitchen floor. One or both the dogs pulled down a bag of bananas off the fruit bowl and ate the lot. Well, okay, they left the skins, but still… In a stern voice I ordered “come here”, Rosie came over while Bessie’s tail dipped between her legs and she walked outside. The body language said “guilt2 to me, which was frankly rather surprising. I can’t imagine the old dear getting up high enough to reach the bag. But still
Later, it turns out, Rosie’s face smelt of bananas, she had an upset stomach and needed to be let out twice in the night. So that confirms it- the dog who cheerfully came over the previous evening, wagging and interested was actually the villain of the day. Bessie’s performance was little more than that- an act. I’m still puzzling over her motive for that.
I have to remind myself as a pet owner, that they are at heart- scavengers and I keep two of them in my house. Seen that way, we should expect trouble every once in a while. It’s a bad mistake to expect human values even though they clearly do think. It’s the way they think that is puzzling me. But think they do.
Here is a fun link
Heavier than air
27°C, humid & oppressive. Thunder later?
The air presses down making the drawing of breath an effort. You heart beats harder under the exertion and all because of an air full of menacing dark clouds. This may be one of those days were we long for a cracking thunderstorm but maybe don’t actually get one. Sleep could take a long time to achieve tonight, it takes the body to long to cool enough.
The dogs are really struggling with this one, especially old Bessie.
Index joy
28°C, crisp sun. CR:80.5 miles
The efforts on Tuesday have borne fruit; the Campy gears are not indexing perfectly but they have stopped slipping unpredictably. That does mean the summer bike is a pleasure to ride once more. How long has it been?
True Grit
14°C+, getting warmer.
Film: True Grit (Cohen brothers). Good to see that dreadful John Wayne western based on a Charles Portis book has been updated with one that really is based on the book. Why was John Wayne ever famous? The lead role, Mattie Ross, a strong and articulate character made her way through the story, much to my relief, unharmed. Is it conditioning that led me to fear something dreadful would happen to her?
This film was interesting for the usual Cohen reasons, but more so because of the language. Despite struggling with the clarity of the dialogue, the characters were not just articulate- more eloquent I would say. Phrasing and vocab were of the period and intriguing to me. shame the sound wasn’t really that clear on the screen I watched it on. Finally, was it just me that failed to spot Matt Damon until the credits rolled?
Cabled
16°C, showers.
Another one that I can’t name. It’s a climber with coiled up tendrils that hold onto other plants. The flowers are striking, though only about 1/2 inch long, shaped like little pitcher plants.
Gears’ index: I removed the cables and cleaned out every little connector, end stop and so on. It feels smooth now and the gear changes work properly. Caution though, they’ve been perfect while changing gears in the shed in the past. But on a longer ride, difficulty develops. Frustrating and mystifying in equal measure.
Drowned Rat
18°C, SW light, some sun. CR:55miles
Drowned rat is usually a metaphor used on days of heavy showers. Today, it’s actualy a rat that drowned.
Poor little chap, he must have swum around that pond until exhaustion pulled him under. That suggests a design fault with my pond, the shallow end must have, somehow, prevented the little chap getting out. These animals aren’t stupid, unless he was doped up with rat poison, that seems unlikely to me. What a way to go.
Follow that link though and some interesting stuff emerges. It turns out that rats use a creful strategy to protect themselves from poison. A strategy that makes them difficult to poison because thay take precautions such as eating only a little from the scavenged food, then return if they don’t become unwell. Presumably that must be a serious problem to a species that scavenges a large proportion of its food. Rat poison has to be tasteless & odourless so the animal will return and comsume more rather than treat the area as ‘no-go’.
Gears: the racing bike has a brand new cassette on, and it’s made not the slightest difference to the indexing problem I may as well put the old one back on since it wasn’t actually worn out anyway. Next- the rear hanger: if I put an allen key in the hanger-bolt, it’s clear that it’s out of alignment. So, I’ve ordered a tool to bend the thing true.
Ruby sparks
17°C, some showers.
They’re tiny, perhaps only 5mm across but the colour is so intense that they loose none of their eye-catching brilliance even in fading evening light.
The name: Dianthus Deltoidus.
Milk & landfill
21°C, clouds & sun.
Just a question, I can’t offer an answer though: that smell that comes from the landfill site on the way to work… what gives it that smell. It smells like off milk, could it be? There is so much skimmed milk in western food, it’s even in medicines, sweets, pretty much everything that people eat- even hot-cross buns. I heard that the Japanese can smell us, they don’t eat ingest anything like as much milk as us, could that be it?
Micycle 