20°C, westerly but amazingly warm.
-Have cut the steerer-tube of the fixed gear bike. It looks all in-proportion now. Shall I ride it to work tomorrow? I just can’t decide yet. See what I think in the morning. End of term is nigh. The relief, the thought of camping, mountains, walking. The ground is alive and my pond will be done soon.
12°C, windy & grey cloud.
Biggest government spending cuts, blah blah. It turns out that they have cut 0.6% off the total public spending budget according to the Spectator magazine. If the press are ot be believed- the cuts are “savage”, “deep” or “swinging”- we’re told they amount to 10% or more of Govt. expenditure.
Burning books madness: BBC -Afghanis rioting over some loony priest in the US who burned a copy of The Qu’ran. It’s not a rare book, nor was it an expensive one- you can get a copy from Amazon for about £5. So why riot so much that people get killed? That stupid pasteur is only doing it for the publicity, the stupid media are happy to give him just that and now people have died raging about it.
It’s only a book.
11°C, sunny but now- showers
All togged up, bike fixed and ready. Look outside- heavy shower- I can’t see the other end of it upwind. How long is the wait? All this after the driest March in 50 years.
Append: got 45 miles done. That was sandwiched between heavy showers & I escaped without needing a bike-cape on. oddnote: riding along by Fornby, a car full of blokes pass. One leans oout and shots “fixed-gear bike!”. A little startled, I was. A car passes and is moved by their interest in my gears.
Those bikes are rather fashionable amongst the grownup skateboard/bmx kids.
A good day.
13°C, westerly nearly made me late for work.
Last day of March, tomorrow is shorts’ weather: 19°C. And it’s D-day here. More on that purge another time. Drowning in work this week- tomorrow’s report deadline will whoosh by after 5pm. These enigmatic comments will be explained in the near future.
Singing trees can be found sometimes even at night; the voices of birds are worth stopping for. Some birds sing slowly enough to listen to. Small passerines are just too damned fast to follow by ear. Is it blackbirds that sing late into the night? He stands high in a still-bare tree, singing dis-connected melodies, shaping charming but penetrating phrases at a pace we can follow.
15C, light cloud & a little rain. No wind.
The pond is half dug. I can only find 1 hour after school each day to do it- shame it isn’t done by now. Anyway, there is a use for those wretched slabs- they are now side walls awaiting the pond liner for water proofing. Today I dug out a pair of narrow troughs to anchor the edges of the slabs. There is a strange grey gravelly layer, perhaps some old tarmac from the immediate post war time that these houses were built. At this rate, the pond could be done by the weekend. Except for one thing- marking & reports. Damn.
14°C, clear & rather nice.
Woke early, planted a few heathers before going to work. Odd that because I felt ill in the night- heart thumping and fitful sleep.Trying to place the wireframe cloche was no good this morning, a problem caused by another slab beneath the surface. Last year’s incredible slab crop came flooding back in my memory.
This evening, I got half a dozen barrow loads of soil out of the pond hole, another day like this could see it dug. It’s probably quite deep now, I’d know if I’d finished digging before dark.
Busy boy.
13°C, clear bits, warmer tomorrow
12 hours & 13 minutes of daylight today. Check for yourself: here, on Date and Time.
Strange feeling, have I got a cold all of a sudden? Headache, lethargic and a sore throat. Hope clings to hayfever which comes on with beech pollen at this time of year. Some hope.
13C, light SSW, some sun breaks through
Very good ride, I haven’t lost it after al those 50 milers- today’s 75 was comfortable enough. The new saddle is forgettable- that’s a good thing from a seat. My face is all warm, did the sun do this I exclaim?
Yesterday’s worry about the gears service were mostly dismissible. They still skip in the middle gears sometimes when under load but it feels like an indexing problem rather than worn cogs. It’s always a thrill to get out on that bike on the first spring ride, it just wizzed along with me grinning above.
Oh, and I think you should know- I had bread & butter pudding with custard in the cafe. A good day.
Yesterday (18th March) daytime was 12hours long, almost exactly. So why is the 21st March the official vernal equinox and not the 18th?
How mildly troubling.
13°C, clear, pure sunshine
A few hours preparing the race bike for it’s first outing this year (tomorrow). My suspicion is, however, that it will be no better than last year despite servicing the gear levers at Campagnolo, stripping & re-seatting the headset bearing; after all that, it could be just as annoying to ride as it was in October.
One problem is that some jobs are necessary only every few years- like the headset. That’s enough time to forget the technical details- like the bearing size in the headset.
Micycle 