“How was your ride?”

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding3 Comments

A question somewhat superfluous if you consider the physical evidence. Since I bought these waterproof shorts, less than one month ago, they accompanied me in a dry arse capacity for the next six rides. That sequence remained unbroken today.

And while we’re covering off pointless questions and phrases, Tim’s “Weather looks good, fancy a ride? ” text at 11am has at least two things I’d like to take issue with. Firstly, Tim and I have ridden together lots over the years, he’s younger, quicker, braver and technically way more skilled than I, but nevertheless I still enjoy riding with him. Because for all those annoying attributes, he’s a man who can string together trails just far enough outside my comfort zone that every ride is always a belter. And yet, experienced MTB’r as he is, he still MADE A POSITIVE COMMENT ABOUT THE WEATHER.

That’s the mocker on the ride weather then, and my second issue is the accuracy of his forecast was somewhat at odds with the sheeting rain smashing against the windows of our house. As it had been for about a week. Still riding is always better than not riding, so off we went into a cheeky rain shower that followed us round most of the loop, joined by some finger numbing chilly winds, and the day fading away at the speed of night.

Better get our skates on then. The Malvern ridgetops are beguiling in this weather because the superb – for Mountain Bikers – sponge like geology guarantees hard packed trails. But the wind on top today essentially took your already boat like bike and attempted to add a sail to it. So we stuck on the muddy margins, climbing through the murk and descending on slippy edges with 6 inches of greasy path between you and a short – yet eventful – plunge into the valley bottom.

The last of which was superb. Having the hills to ourselves, we briefly took our bikes for a nice walk in the rain as nobody was looking, before remounting with a sackful of gravity desperate to be unleashed. Tim picked an exposed trail, clinging on the lee side of the hill offering occasional grip, significant rock and the aforementioned fall line plummet for any rider showing a lack of commitment. In the dry, it’s just fast, silly and too damned busy on a hot, summers day. Now it was a study in concentration, body position, real care with the brakes, and one second choices for the only ridable line.

Proper mountain biking then we decided some ten minutes later as we hit valley bottom, gloves sodden, feet moist and – in Tim’s case – a rather wet arse from the look of things. I tried hard not to gloat on the properties of Endura’s finest plastic pants, but I may have gone on about it. A bit.

Anyway, the bike is washed and lubed, the horrid stuff is in the washing machine, the rest of it is steaming gently in the workshop and I’m off to see exactly how much pie a honed athlete such as myself can consume in one sitting.

Riding in the dry and warm is fab. It really is, but this last few weeks have convinced me that proper mountain biking happens in the less popular seasons. All good I’d say.

Second Life

On By AlexIn Other stuff2 Comments

I’ve said before that anyone playing Second Life was quite obviously lacking a first one. And so surprised I wasn’t to read that the Internet generation has vigorously waved a virtual “V” at Lindon Labs’ cyber-asylum. With the attention span of the Internet generation being similar to that of an attention deficit goldfish, it’s hardly an real-earth(tm) shattering news story that they’ve moved on.

Because that’s what they do, from Texting to Twitter, from email to MSN to Facebook. From deskbound personal computers, to funky laptops, to netbooks to iPhones and then hopefully miniaturising themselves up their own arse. The cool cats* twit and book between free application spaces distributing random content and demanding immediacy. They don’t need a second world to inhabit because they’re already trying to exist in too many of their own lives. Once it stopped being about forging long term cyber relationships through the bloody hard work of being something your not, and switched to broadcast channels where people you’ve never met are apparently interested that you’ve shit blue poo, Second Life was looking like a life support case.

But what is BRILLIANT is the way the not-so-cool-cats hang on to stridently tell those who’ve already left what they are missing. Allow me to quote a couple:

“have a reason to go there – like real life, Second Life is not Facebook, which is simply about keeping in touch with people in your network. I was lost at first, but quickly found new friends and new things to do. I help run a travelling vaudeville theatre group and write & perform comedy acts – something I’d never have thought of doing in real life.”

Oh do fuck off, please. You don’t help run a theatre group you deluded idiot. Nor do you “perform” unless that includes a toe suckingly cringy electronically generated parp broadcasted to a bunch of saddos eating pizza off their underwear. Here’s another:

“I do not consider myself to be a weirdo and I am certainly not looking for cheap thrills or an extra-marital affair”

Two things here: A) you’re a weirdo, ask anyone but yourself and b) you wrote that in case your wife read that. Or maybe you are one and only person whose not looking for CyberWank+. A good thing because if you ever meet the honed sword throwing latex clad godess in real life, she’s a 19 stone trucker from Northampton with a broadband connection, and a hard spot for pretty boys.

There’s even a bloke quoting the Gartner Hype Life Cycle which has sadly intersected with my working life a few times. I never really got the Slope of Englightenment as it always faces upwards, and any cyclists knows this to be a bad thing. Anyway he’s missing the point by a few million miles, because once the mainstream and the corporates have moved on, only the weirdos remain. And they may have many attributes including stapling cats to their ears, but hard cash is not one of them.

So while Second Life may now be yesterdays’ news, still millions flock to on line cyberworlds, notably if they involve stupid quests and edged weapons. “Sorry dear, I can’t come and talk to the kids, as IT’S REALLY IMPORTANT that right now nine of us are storming fuck-buckles castle, and I’m lead Orc in the fight against WhaleJaw the Mighty and his army of terrifying stoats“. You need to play that back. Probably at the divorce court.

And just in case anyone tries a counterpoint to my derision by pointing out that writing this blog is an escapist broadcast channel, then let me tell you this: I am sane enough to know exactly what it is. “Broadcast Channel?” I think not – load of old shit I enjoy writing way more than I expect you enjoy reading. And I don’t want to have sex with any of you either. I’m sure the feeling is mutual 😉

* That is definitely not me. It’s probably not you either.

Bugs in the software..

On By AlexIn Other stuffLeave a comment

… apparently my version of WordPress is of an age that is no longer well supported since the fire-of-creation went out. Or something like that. I’ve got the Nano-Bots working on it, but we may be off line for a bit !

EDIT:

Lordy that was scary. We’re sort of back but everything has changed in here. I’m all a flutter and more hoghedge than hedgehog right now. I’ll fix it later, it looks like a three beer problem.

MORE EDIT:

I thought we’d have a change of theme, I know of few of you shall be delighted to hear that SnowKnob(TM) is still available. Just say the word on the poll over there. I’ve dumped the tag cloud as it’s so July-2008 in terms of what the current unclothed emperor is wearing, and the flickr widget is currently unwidgeted. I know not why.

For a second the whole thing just expired with a sad “phut”, which could have been a sign that I should crucify electrons no more. But the old IT hammer trick re-started the hedgy heart, so we’ll limp on for a bit longer. This new Admin interface tho, God only knows what’s going on. He may with all him omniscient power, but I’m clueless.

Same old, eh?

SNAP

On By AlexIn Other stuff3 Comments

I need to file and Health and Safety report from my trip this morning.

Location: Quiet Carriage located on a train travelling between Hereford and London
Time: 07:47

Situation: Two vacuous women of Black Country descent have spent the last 90 minutes variously discussing shoes, useless employees, how clever their children are, and are now debating the finer points of when it’s okay to lose your knickers in public.

Event: Kindly gent with upright aristocratic bearing seated opposite was riled beyond breaking point. Being English nothing more than raised eyebrows, almost imperceptible shaking of a well groomed head and the odd angry rustling of The Times had so far signalled his displeasure.

I think it was the knickers. A man of a certain age and standing probably has a genetic trigger that cannot be stayed when dippy women gush in not very hushed whispers, and indulge in verbal water torture. It’s been a while since I’ve seen someone mentally explode, so it’s worth reporting the full conversation.

Kindly Gent: “Madam, would you mind please keeping silent, as you have obviously failed to notice this is the quiet carriage. And you are not”
Vacuous Brummie: “Oooooh well it says Quiet, not silent and we’re speaking very quietly and I don’t think we’re disturbing anyone”
(30 papers shake vigorously signalling the communal rustle of disagreement with that last statement)
KG: “Madam, you are. And you have been for over an hour”
VB: “Well I don’t know. You should have mentioned it earlier”
KG: “I was hoping I wouldn’t have too”
(Beginners mistake here, those of us who live in the real world know that manners and politeness rarely break out on this train. That’s why I won’t sit in the cock’s carriage which does allow mobile phones and ego to ply their nefarious trade)
VB: “Well I suppose we can try and be a bit quieter”
KG: “Or you could move to another carriage where I’m sure others would enjoy your conversations as much as I haven’t”
(not sure I got this quite right, but it was an rapier thin insult that punctured the air of the tense calm so far enveloping this conversation. Sharp intakes of breaths and supportive “Yes, Get in there” from the non-bloody-annoying side of the carriage)
VB: “Well there is no need to be insulting”
(Oh I dunno, I think there is more than just cause but KG ignored the comment)
KG: “I hope I have got my point across, really your crass behaviour is totally unacceptable”

And then before the Midlands Super-Gob could respond or strike him down with her terrifying pointy handbag, he stood up, modestly acknowledged the almost silent – yet heartfelt – thanks from all of us, and de-trained* at Reading.

Leaving us with that kind of shocked silence that is gradually filled by people needing to examine some papers very closely and for a long time STARTING RIGHT NOW.

We’ve been here before. Thankfully it wasn’t me today. I was very, very tempted but had inadvertantly left the Heavy Shovel Of Righteousness at home. And obviously, if we’d been in America, someone would have been shot. Ying and Yang, struggling to see the downside of that one.

* Scorpion Pit Alert. Find the man who felt the urge to add this to the Train Manager’s script. Assume he’s the same bloke who talks about us being “re-platformed”. Dunno what this is, but sounds painful.

In The Grim.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Road Riding2 Comments

I may have mentioned before how I quite like riding bikes, but always struggled to distill the why from the how. Take this morning, I haul weary arse from warm bed before the cock* has struck six, peer out into the gloomy, wet and general filthy conditions thinking “Yup, looks perfect conditions for a ride”

A sidebar here: At work, I castigate all and sundry for over-designing stuff, building in layers of redundancy and pointless planning for the extremely unlikely. And yet, so terrified of missing my train, I buffer 20 minutes when I should still be sleeping in case of punctures, mechanical disasters or badger attack. Which in eighteen months of commuting has happened exactly once**, and I still missed my train. Meaning I had to wait almost twenty minutes for the next one. Bonkers.

As you were, anyway there is something righteous about riding this time of the year, as so many treat cycling as a three season activity. Instead of keeping calm and carrying on , they worry away at escalating girth, nibble on ugly looking food and – most of all – miss the hidden joy of two wheels always good.

I see them – more so in London – choosing a commuting alternative which includes compression tubes, grimy pavements, multiple delays and frustrations all to be borne in a suit. Then these very same people disappear into the Gym at lunchtime oblivious to the superb cycling facilities right next door. I can’t quite work that out.

I don’t miss riding in London though, except for the odd bout of commuter racing. Too bloody dangerous – whereas now I have the roads to myself and some rather fetching moving pictures as the sun struggles over the horizon. This does not appear to be the happy experience of uber-obsessive cyclist Samuri who seems to be conducting his own daily “DeathWish“ survey.

And while the weather may be filthy, I am dry in breathable fabric, layered in warmth and driven on by the shuffle of a thousand tunes. I arrive at the station, smiling and ready to cash in some hard yards at the bank of the Bacon Butty, while my fellow commuters shiver, snivel and stamp. They are adding clothes as I’m stripping off, breathing in big lungfuls and assuming this is the best part of my day.

It’s always a bit less enthralling heading home, tired, lacking the energy of twelve hours before, but still content to be sandwiching my day doing the stuff I love. Even when bits of that stuff are attempting to blow me off my bike, rip traction from my wheels and blow hard rain into my face. Most of the time, I find myself laughing, I’ve no idea why. Probably early onset dementia.

Tomorrow we’re nightriding in conditions that trigger multiple weather warnings depicting diaster and travel chaos. Not for me, no roads where I’m going. Saturday and Sunday I’ll be out again under thunderous skies and lashing rain although that has more to do with the onset of multiple in-laws. And today was a marker for at least one commute a week until the onset of BST.

I’m starting to think November is the new July.

* Lazy sod seems to be having a lie in. I’m going to get him a new watch.
** Those Badgers are nasty bastards. Lie in wait and then “mwwwaaaaah, eat the human“

Got a Wii?

On By AlexIn Other stuff2 Comments

You’ll be needing some of these then. Possibly. Before I share the web site with you – which is somewhat coy regarding the exact use of these rather suggestive items – it’s worth first explaining how I intend to use them.

We have a number of in-laws visiting very soon to celebrate the fact that most of their adult life, they’ve been married. Not sure that’s much to celebrate, and certainly at least one of them gives the impression of being more than adequately cheesed off about the whole thing. So to spice it up, I was thinking “Right then, who fancies a game on the WII, there you go Mr. W that’s one’s yours, Yes you can hold it like that if you’re feeling frisky and Mrs. W? Grab a load of that puppy”

Then “KIDS, OUT, NOW” and “Okay I’m loading the game now, on your marks, set….”

I think it’ll go well. Although possibly not end well. If I’ve spiked your interest, check them out here, and thanks to Samuri for finding them. The man’s a porn-hound 🙂

Rumination.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Road Riding5 Comments

It’s quite a collection isn’t it? Of the eight bikes on that wall over half of them are mine. And while that’s a ratio tending to the static over the last few years, two things have recently changed. Firstly, I’ve singularly failed to add to the collection in over a year, and I’ve started to worry I may still have too many. Because at least three have become nothing more than wall art. Maybe I should frame my un-ridden frames.

The problem is somewhat mental but largely fiscal. A terrified peep from behind clasped hands worried out a figure barely short of six more – committed and mostly spent on this Dragons’ Horde of a house. I can only assume we have some fire breathing scaly pet in the cellar because – while there have been some big ticket items – It’s beyond my grasp to understand how we’ve spend so much.

Okay we’ve installed a satisfyingly fuck-off oak clad RSJ in one room, chased out every ground floor lintel and raised it four inches, ripped out the entire shell from the base of the house and re-stacked it with insulation, under floor heating and an oak floor so eye wateringly expensive I barely dare stand on it. And we’ve skipped a heating system based entirely on fire-bricks, and replaced it with a room full of stuff that converts cold to hot through a process of elven magic.

And yes, those elves run amok in 400 metres of garden buried pipes, atop of which a garden has crystallised from a car park and a couple of eneveloped drawings. Labour is a big part of this cost* because I am far too lazy/busy/useless to shovel/paint/nail – although the breathtaking scope creep of the bloke whose spent most of the last four months doing stuff I cannot begin to understand reminds me of being back at work. He came to build a dry stone wall for three days in June and has yet to leave.

Other men have drunk deeply at the bucket of of our disposable income fitting, grinding, plastering, wiring and painting. Which means we should be finished, right? Wrong, wander outside for a breath of fresh air and stand in a place where a porch may be, look through a 30 foot wall of shit windows that all need replacing and revel in half the garden barely retrieved from the triffids. And don’t get me started on upstairs. Mainly, because we haven’t either.

What has this to do with bikes then? Well my normal N+1* rationale suddenly feels profligate. Examine that photo and from the left we have the lovely, carefully restored Kona that’s been ridden twice since Christmas. Next to that is my happily deranged sidekick equipped with the shortest chainstays in the free world. I spent a lot of time throwing that off stuff but lately it’s just hung on the wall. Next up is the Cove and we’ll be back to that. Then Carol’s bike which I’d better not consider selling, tempting as it is.

Moving along, we’ve the fantastic Pace 405 a bike that needs more terrain, more commitment and more rider that I’ve been able to give it. Except possibly once. Then there is the faithful Jake, commuted like a demon, but rarely switched from tarmac to dirt.

Five bikes, and the only one that gets ridden a lot I want to swap for an ST4. Don’t ask for reasons, we’re way beyond that now. So I look, and I ponder and I think all I really need is a single MTB and a road bike. Something that is everything I am not, honed, fast and light and mostly carbon. Sell the rest, to hell with a second hand market which pays nothing for emotional value, go minimalist. Ride what you have, don’t leave it on the wall.

But, but, but one MTB isn’t enough. And if you’re going to have a spare, make it a good one. And that DMR has given me so much for so little, why sell it for buttons? And the Kona MTB is brilliant really, an icon, an anchor on what’s important about riding. But I still need an ST4 and one of these which has somewhat holed my rationalisation plan below the waterline.

I might sell the cross bike although even that feels like a betrayal, but it’ll free up a space on the bike wall for 18lbs of Carbon Ego Boost. And then, if that doesn’t feel too bad maybe the Kona. Or the DMR. Not the Pace though, that’d just be wrong. And even if the ST4 is as brilliant as I remember, I can’t get rid of the Cove.

So N+1 just became N+2. That’s not rationalisation, that’s bloody madness.

* Not the One Eyed Wonder’s Labour who merely find ever more innovative ways to cock stuff up on our behalf.

** Where “N” is the current number of bicycles owned.

That night ride was brought to you by…

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike RidingLeave a comment

…

  • Zero visibility fog
  • Amusingly intermittent LED lights
  • Leaking Camelbaks
  • Cheeky rain showers
  • Tractionless wet leaves
  • Occasional mud, always in a place most likely to cause an accident
  • Bruised testicles
  • Vertical exposure

This rider would like to thank

  • The bloke who designed Avid Juicy disc brakes
  • New Zealand Merino Wool
  • Kenda Tyres
  • Giro Helmets
  • GroundEffect toasty socks
  • Endura waterproof shorts
  • Shimano boots

without which I’d be communicating from a hospital bed.

That was a PROPER night ride 🙂

Embrace the mudness.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike RidingLeave a comment

Last week, at about this time, I looked out of the window and spiteful, freezing rain glared right back at me. So I ventured outside to check whether rain’s winter* twins were physically in evidence. Indeed they were, a biting cold wind under a thunderous sky clamping the world in grey and misery.

Perfect conditions for riding a mountain bike at night then. And if you read last months Singletrack magazine**, articles abound on the joy of slogging through two seasons of mud, grit and grimness. Now we all know that such writings pour forth from the deluded, the medicated or the untruthful, and yet I find their tone worrying in that it fails to resonate at all.

You see maybe I’ve stopped being a Mountain Biker. Oh I still ride quite a lot, on different bikes in different places with different people. And yet, I enjoy being out with the kids for an hour on some play dirt, as much as I do humping up hills and scaring myself shitless going down. Maybe “recreational cyclist” is a more appropriate moniker.

That’s not good, and neither is my attitude to night riding at the best of times. Those times being mid summer, zero chance of benightment, short sleeved tops, comedy tan marks and trails of dusty grip. Even then, shifting my arse and mental state from ‘sofa‘ to ‘saddle‘ takes way more effort that it should when you consider how 99 times out of a 100, I love being out there.

My new tactic is not to go home at all. Ignore the distractions of family, warm rooms, hot food and a million things on the to-do list. Throw the bike in the car, and throw myself into a days work that’ll demand unwinding through a thousand pedal revolutions. But more than that, stop thinking it’s cold, and shit, and horrible and instead revel is the silliness of slippy trails, the joy of solace in normally crowded hills, the big deposit in the summer karma bank – all of that and all of the other stuff you can neither define or explain but makes up a big piece of the “why we do this” pie.

A difficult day morphed into a traffic stained drive home leaving me far too stressed for the gentle ribbing of my riding pals. But within the first hundred yards of splashy spinning, all that was behind and only things marked fun lay ahead. I felt good – and the older you get, the more random this seems regardless of any perceived levels of fitness and vim – and it was great to settle into the comfy armchair cadence of of the like-minded.

Better still, we bypassed the first 600 foot climb which leaves me breathless and broken every time. It’s a horror, and I wasn’t sorry to feel the shadowy presence of the big hill brood over our valley borne souls. We still put in a good shift at the climbing face though, and it was nearly thirty minutes before we commanded a high point overlooking twinkling lights of the towns and city below.

I’ve always loved this bit. Imagining the hundreds, thousands of people down there washing up, watching television, getting old by proxy and living little lives that didn’t explode a couple of times a week when mixed with mountain biking. I know this is a shallow and naive view of the world, but it warmed me as that cold wind howled over the tops. Time to go. Better still time to go downhill.

A descent through an old grassed earthen-work ditch is the only place in my riding world where two wheel drifts don’t lead directly to Accident and Emergency. A hasty discussion when we’d stopped giggling sent us onward – deep into the Malverns to ominous heights. Black Hill, Perseverance and Hangman’s point all connected with zig zagging paths and windy summits.

Below the three line, it was warm, pleasant even, to grind up the few hundred feet lost after we’d cheek’d our way down some alpine like swtichbacks. On top, the wind drove us on and back towards home taking in a descent that is so steep and so fast I’ve watched my life pass behind my eyes many, many times. Nowadays I displace the terror of the speed and the hiss of loose gravel under wheel by fast forwarding past the dull bits.

More climbing – there is so much here in such short distances. Every mile you ride, expect to climb 200-250 feet, but my legs and lungs had taken their cue from Mr. Positive Thinking up top. Which made the plunge back through steep woods with a couple of dicey chutes to finish seem more than a fair return for endless pedalling.

In fact, I was up for more up, a climb back up the bastard face of “MidSummer” to access a trail full of steep off-camber, slimy, frictionless roots pre-worried by a little drop that’s had me close to visiting endo-city for about, oh, the last year and a bit. But I was mad keen, or maybe just mad as my normal contribution to this part of the ride is a whining request for flatlander status.

But we called it a night, and also called it a damn good ride. The bikes needed a little hosing, I needed about the same when I got home, but I felt like a proper mountain biker again. And as I look outside, if anything it’s even worse right now meaning more slippy trails, more cold, more out in the grim conditions for tonight’s ride. You know what?

I can’t wait 🙂

* I know it’s not winter officially yet, but according to my internal barometer, it’s bloody freezing out there.

** Which, since I’m in it, is worth the cover price alone 🙂

Sunshine and Showers.

On By AlexIn Other stuff2 Comments

Not a terribly adventurous weather forecast for this time of year is it? A squillion pounds worth of powerful supercomputers running multi-threaded modelling software all expertly analysed by blokes with beards and yet this is the best they can come up with? So I’ve challenged myself to do better, and in no way felt hampered by having nothing more than a window, a rainfall measuring device* and many years of weather lore ingrained by being continually pissed on while commuting.

But I thought it was important to start small** and look for a niche opportunity to sell this fresh new meteorological service. So I bring to you “The Indoor Forecast” – now I accept the market is potentially only two children with no money of their own, a woman who has none of my obsession for stuff I can’t change and a dog, who while looking interested and keen, views weather as something that aids running, eating sheep shit and rolling in fox poo.

On the upside, it does give me an ideal opportunity to stop the kids’ pocket money and raid their bank accounts. The next obvious question would be “Exactly how hard is it to forecast indoor weather“. Well quite bloody hard actually Mr. Clever Trousers, especially when your heating system is essentially a NASA space shuttle only with more complexity and potential for catastrophic explosions.

We had great plans for our utility room, all scuppered by the installation of a Scud Missile masquerading as two hot water cylinders and a Swedish Heat Pump that has more than the odd blond moment. There is no room for anything other than shock and awe with the sheer quantity of stuff connecting the two. We have the output of 400 metres of under garden pipe at one end, multiple snakes of hot and cold water conduits disappearing through various apertures, electrical systems strung between the two and pumps, so many pumps pushing liquid this way and that. It is exactly like a 70s film set where the cat-stroking bad guy cackles”Ah Mr. Bond, marvel at my Destroy The World machine and see now that I cannot be beaten mwaaaahhhh”

So the bottom of the house is heated by underfloor heating, the top by big radiators, the bathrooms by huge steel towel rails all working off different circuits and powered by different, er, stuff. The hot water is another physics lesson in itself, and I’ve taken to wondering aloud if it is all really just magic, with careful examination of the darker spaces bringing elves and other magic creatures into the light.

“What has all this to do with indoor weather?” you demand. Well just this; on Monday evening, the local forecast at 21:45 hours was for a cool front passing through the kitchen (dog outside, door open), a warm channel of air being forced between two channels of high pressure (sure you can work that out), cloudy upstairs (steaming bath) and extremely wet on two walls where once there had been just dry plaster and fresh paintwork.

The outlook was not good at all. The threat of localised flooding was a real possibility, as were lighting strikes from frying electrics and definite impediments to travel unless one was packing an inflatable. At times like this, it’s important your first response gets right to the heart of the problem. Knowing this, and not much else I shouted to Carol “Probably worth knowing someting has exploded upstairs and we’ve Vietnamese boat people docking at our TV“. She instantly diagnosed the problem and dispatched me to Mission Control to shut down all systems.

Again, not as easy as it sounds. It goes like this; run into utility room and be faced with a barrage of flanges, wheels and valves, flashing me back to WWII films where the plucky brit single handedly attempts to put out a massive fire in a submarine engine room. In such films, rarely does the hero dash back into the kitchen for a chair much needed to ascend the North Face of the Scud. A riot of grunting, flipping and punching eventually created a tense quiet on the Western Front. The cascade was reduced to a dribble, which descrives well my soggy mental conditon as well.

The advent of a proper plumber brought guiltily forth a faulty “sealed for life“*** component that had decided it would rather be a hose than a pipe. We’re still awash in the sea of damp carpet, mouldering plaster and soggy floor, but had it happened an hour later, the forecast would have told of the kind of disaster that unstoppable hot water at mains pressure would create.

I am considering though a return to wood fires and tin baths. Or getting some new elves in. Elf and Safety you see – they just don’t go together. The forecast for the rest of the week is turning increasingly grumpy, with large clouds of depression and some internal wine showers at regular intervals.

* Bucket
* And work down.
*** Maybe of a mayfly. Lasted a total of four days.