What’s different about one day in the year? If you’d wanted to give up smoking, then the morning after a Marlboro mainlining session would have suggested itself as the ideal time. Same for alcohol, chocolate, goat molestation and Internet obsessions. In fact, a proper bender involving all of these sins could trigger a monk like abstinence of the whole bloody shebang.

And yet it it’ll all be radically free salads and pointless Gym membership for, oh, about a week before paper resolutions are crisped by the fiery power of anti-commitment.

This year – as for every year since I stopped kidding myself I was going to play on the wing for England – I’m promising nothing but to laugh at other people failing.

So my non resolutions include:

1. I am not joining a Gym.*
2. I am not going to ride every day.
3. I am not giving up alcohol.
4. In fact, I am not giving up anything that I enjoy doing.
5. In terms of avoiding needling people, puncturing pomposity, refusing to accept dumb rules and lampooning anything regardless of correctness, political or otherwise – see 4:

Like anyone with more ambition than a spoon, there are many things I’d love to do as I rumble into my fifth decade. But writing it all down and sticking it on a wall, so come this time next year it can mock me with its’ complete not doneness? That way lies madness or at least a very depressing end to 2008.

I’m as goal focussed as the next man, woman or hedgehog. But I’m a bit more tactical so while some of you will be planning great things, I shall go in search of another drink.

So come on then, what have you promised yourself?

* Any organisation that has a business model which assumes 90{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} of it’s customers won’t turn up has my admiration. But not my money.

Right first past the post with the pop artist who sang that un-comered title receives… something. No goggling, because I’ll know, and anyway it’s like falsifying your golf scores so you’re only cheating yourself. Although playing Golf* automatically cheats you out of most things anyway, except possibly life membership of the social cripple and comedy jumper societies.

Anyway enough of silly pastimes. And no, not for a minute could Mountain Biking ever be labelled silly. Bikes that cost more than cars, figure hugging lycra barely constraining middle aged spread, riding round in circles, getting muddy, spending the family savings on pointless pimpery and occasionally breaking out into “Dude, I railed that berm, pumped the jump, sent it over the drop and would’ve shredded the switchback except the rebound spiked the rotor arc. Bummer“. Whereas golf, don’t get me started.

New Zealand sits behind nine weeks of winter darkness, the liver damage triggered by in-law angst and New Year resolutions. Now the latter are funny, Icarus like in the face of a blazing sun, born in alcohol, crafted in imagined degrees of separation from the last time and burned in the fiery death of the real world. January brings train journeys long in faces and radically free salad, but short on joy. Roll forward a month and the comforting fug of pasties and Silk Cut once again envelopes the carriage.

Right the point. Don’t get excited, it is hardly worth waiting for but it does have novelty hat content. Because the concept of a package holiday – embedded with schedules, cracked out smiley guides and an atmosphere of Brian “grumpy as fuck” from Wolverhampton – resonates with a happiness frequency similar to the sticks and ball brigade, we’re pitching for a camping experience.

Without the actual camping of course. After a day of the ‘world is the wrong way round’ jetlag, we’ll be taking 14 day possession of this confused truck. Is it a car? A caravan? An integral part of a Blitzkrieg armoured brigade?

A truck mates with a caravan.

No this Mercedes is the latest in touristy mobile homage, with an upstairs bedroom to banish the kids, LCD TV, DVD Player and some cooking stuff. And a fridge to keep my beer cold. It’s also the thick end of eighteen feet long which suggests I may need to practice with my car towing the trailer, and Carol’s wagon roped on behind.

So I’ve taken soundings from my friend Martyn who is all things camper van. His sage advice can be distilled into this:

1/ There’s a lot of truck out back. Think about that when turning, reversing and – most importantly – overtaking

2/ Keep an eye on the “dirty water“. The consequences of a high pressure blow back are really too horrible to contemplate.

3/ Procure a Driving Hat. On donning said headgear, a chain reaction of packing outside stuff, expensive electronic goods, and – if time – the children shall be triggered. Anyone not on board in 60 seconds is hitching.

Sounds good to me. And the kids are belted in so far back from the cab, they could easily be in a different country. And while I like the sound (or lack of it) of that, I’m hankering after watching TV while I’m driving.

I mean, really, what could go wrong?

* I refuse to accept that Golf is a verb. My American colleagues insist on twittering on about “I’m off for a weekend golfing”. But – because I ensure that Bad Grammar Hurts – they never make it. Honestly, if we taught English with a copy of the light program and a baseball bat, the world would be a simpler place.

… for cheese* and other medicinal foodstuffs purloined from the vomity bucket of hangover cures. Before the onset of slow death that is hitting forty, all manner of voodoo and superstition acted as a crutch to prop up a crippling hangover. The experience, that comes with a holistic approach to liver failure, has subsequently proved that the the efficacy of the emperors’ new clothes pales when compared to the sure fire approach of not drinking the night before.

Sadly this option wasn’t available to me. Firstly I was suffering from the kind of bottomless depression that only the phrase”for the next two days I’ll be in Reading” can engender. Secondly our hotel greeted each guest with “Welcome to the Renaissance Reading, where the local time is 1973“. Rarely has the price of something so completely failed to reflect its’ value. And I’m including boutique bike accessories, strippers and council tax in that list.

The whole Life On Mars experience extended from the tired frontage, unlit reception, wheezy lifts and a room last decorated during the Silver Jubilee. The wallpaper was peeling flock, the bed an unpleasant blend of threadbare sheets and groaning springs. And don’t get me started on the bathroom where a nascent civilisation – homed in mildewed grout – was about ready to explore the world.

Apparently there was an executive floor but a brief inspection of a friend’s room showed little for the cream of business to be cheered over other than slightly less flocked wallpaper**. What awaited in the ‘Presidential Suite” can only be vaguely imagined – but even the Malawi Head Of State would surely have taken one horrified look before swiftly booking his entourage into the Holiday Inn opposite.

It may be unsurprising to hear that events from this point perfectly plotted the spiraling narrative of “Right who’s up for a whiskey chaser to get us started” through “A club? After forty seven bottles of wine? Spirited idea” and plummeting further downwards via “Yep, another double vodka red bull for me” and “What do you mean we can’t get another drink? It’s barely 2am?”

Forty is not a good age to start experimenting with youthful alcopops. Especially ones stuffed full of caffeine and industrial strength alcohol. You’ll laugh at this – oh I know I did – my rationale for drinking deep from the bonkers mixers chalice was because starting on lager might give me a hangover. What kind of crazed nutter first mixed Red Bull with Vodka anyway? Had they tried Crystal Meth fused with laudanum and felt it was missing a bit of a kick?

So drunken and spiked with sufficient caffeine to stimulate a person long dead, the remainder of the night passed in drunken channel roaming and occasional groans. The upside was I forgot to be miserable about staying in Reading’s equivalent to Alcatraz – however this was of little measure when the grizzly combination of an absolutely bastard hangover and two hours sleep played out during the following day.

The final irony in all this, is my consumption of hop and grape has taken a steep nose dive lately. I seemed to have collapsed a month’s drinking into about three evenings of serial debauchery. Maybe it’s time to reinstate lager for breakfast.

* From “Top Bun” which, when dealing with a hangover sharp enough to shave with, is best filled with greasy bacon and lashings of brown sauce.

** I have been waiting to do that joke for ages. C’mon it was worth the wait.

Swinley December 2007 (8 of 8), originally uploaded by Alex Leigh.

Outside of the house is a stream fed by a million rain drops and threatening to break the curbside banks. Trees are bending in the wind and much loved pets are passing by the window at head height. The forecast predicts the weather will worsen as the day progresses. How? Tornados? Hails of trout? Snow?

Whatever we’re in the eye of the storm and all my first line waterproofs are either being repaired or downgraded to occasionally. Most normal people would take the opportunity to find good reasons to stay inside. Even the slightly deranged would scream “YOU CAN’T MAKE ME GO OUT THERE“.

Mountain bikers practice an evil grin, lube chains, dig out sufficient gear to provide water resistant tentage for a family of five and, head out to get muddy.

And even with the skewed perspective of the terminal hobbyist, you know it’s going to be slippery roots, multiple impact bruises, no flow, all grunt, silly bikes and trails below the water table. Even the mud is going to be muddy.

It’s just silly. Even with Cake and Medals for afters, it’s still a bloody stupid way to spend your time. My car will take on the appearance of Flanders and my body will turn blue and wrinkly.

But you go anyway. Drive through fronts of damp with even wetter ones behind. Turn the wipers onto max and pretend this is a clearing up shower. Cower under a leafless tree and wait for the latest shower to pass. It doesn’t of course and you’re out of excuses.

It’s ace of course. Within five minutes we’ve crashed on frictionless glass pretending to be wood. The puddles extend for miles on the fireroads and the singletrack is a muddy mess. We head out to quieter trails and find a grippy gem hidden in a little used part of the forest. It’s a mile of whooping, sinewy MTB heaven spitting us out laughing on yet another damp track.

Two hours is enough. Tired legs from pushing knobblies through sludge , tired brains from controlling slides with razor sharp reactions, tired smiles hidden by mud.

And then the promised tea and cake. And, with it, the reinforcement of the mandate that riding in any conditions is always better than not riding at all.

After many more tears this morning, the old cat was cast off life’s slipway in a fog of lethal cocktails. Carol, understandably a bit upset, sent me a text explaining “going to bury her in the garden and plant a tree“.

I replied back cautioning her to be careful digging burial mounds in the garden, what with all that body excavation going on in Kent. It’ll only take one net twitching neighbor to send in a police airstrike.

Somewhat worryingly, I have just received a message blandly stating “went a bit mad with the shredder but everything ok now“. Does this mean she’s buried the cat AND THEN shredded some waste, or have we fully recycled the poor dead mog into organic bark?

Still as someone kindly pointed out: not many cats get to bark. As an encore, you could cremate it and make it go woof.

And Lo, through the power of comedy, the healing process begins.

I’m stopping now. This post is dead and buried. Or possibly shredded.

Ours has clearly been living it up for the last 18 years. It is absolutely on its’ last one and so rapidly accelerating towards back garden burial.

Basically at 18, the poor old bugger has gone loopy. Shitting everywhere, lost the use of her rear legs, howling at the moon, refusing to eat. The vet has handed her back for one last night before administering a lethal injection first thing tomorrow. No point in any tests or treatment, too much stuff broken inside apparently.

The kids have never experienced dead pettage before. So I’m wondering what approach to take:

– Give ’em the facts. Cat dies tomorrow, make your goodbyes now.
– Pretend it might get better
– Offer up alternative cattage in forms of a kitten each when the old lass finally shuffles off to the great catnip in the sky.
– Throw loved family pet under a passing truck, dispense with vet bills, explain to children it was someone elses cat they’ve played with for the last 6/8 years, and now they want it back.

Tears all over the place in there. God knows what it’ll be like when a grandparent hits the buffers.

This is proving to be a trying 24 hours. I’ll explain why once the current crisis is over.