If the Devil designed websites…

On By AlexIn Other stuff, Site Stuff3 Comments

He would look approvingly on the labyrinth of hell that is American Express Internet presence and declare his work done. After nearly converting the laptop into a discus, I’ve come to the conclusion this is a cunning ploy to ensnare you in a web of vaguely related sites until you’re forced to call the premium phone line. Never have I seen anything so under performing, so badly laid out, so bereft of any usefulness and so insanely hard to navigate. Well, except maybe for Belgium.

Old Lucifer could then turn his horns onto Valentines day which is a real triumph of marketing. Dapper gentlemen with speech impediments machine gunning each other in 1920’s America were magically converted into a multi billion pound love industry. So mainlining that grumpy vain, I decided to send Carol my Valentines wishes by email. That’s almost as good isn’t it? It wasn’t as if I actually forgot*. I mean she’s not going to think I didn’t try is she?**

Work is basically flipping between “ARRRRGHHHH” and “GRRRRRRRR“. All I will say is if you are not prepared to accept the answer, don’t ask the sodding question. It is fine timing that we are going on holiday, otherwise my frustration may lead to mugging innocent members of staff as I angrily vibrate down the corridors of cower***

Are we ready to go on holiday? In a word, no. In a few more words “has anyone invented a time machine?”. Carol is rigorously enforcing the luggage limit by ruthlessly returning what the kids demand are mandatory items. In Random’s case, this includes the house. She’s not totally grasped the concept of a motorhome and seems to think we’ll be sleeping under bridges. Which considering my Valentine faux pas, I may well be. Or with the fishes, if we’re going back to the original concept of the day.

My packing involves hiding money for beer, and unearthing cleanish shorts, sunnies and a novelty hat. And finding a way to decouple the part of my brain that is suffering from PMT ****. And between now and actually arriving in a place where email doesn’t, there are days of travel hell which represent a similar amount of pleasure as passing a hedgehog shaped poo. I expect the pain to last almost as long as well.

And on that happy note, I shall begone to warmer climbs. There is the slimmest chance of some outside broadcast hedgehog should the twin planets of sobriety and Internet access align themselves in my personal geography. Failing that, enjoy the rest of your winter and expect photographs and lies when I’m back.

Which is on March 10th. I cannot tell you how good it feels to write that 🙂

* Okay I did

** She is

*** Like power only with more terror.

**** Post Management Trauma.

Chicks digs scars.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff11 Comments

I’m sorry to disappoint all you cultivating bloodied puncture wounds, but this statement is a a bit of a porker. Oozing with unpleasant substances, bad for your health and about as sexually attractive as venereal disease. So here’s the truth – chain rings dig scars as graphically demonstrated by the grizzly tattoo on my calf. In fact, the whole leg appears to have gone ten rounds with a lunatic armed with an industrial staple gun.

This was one of the only two downsides of a weekend ride under sunny skies on mostly dry trails. Obviously now we’re off to summer at the other side of the world, I care not if it buckets with hail and snow for the next three weeks. On thinking such pernicious thoughts, a brief glance at the Internet proxied weather tea leaves informed of pissing rain in New Zealand. This is either a meteorological blip during their otherwise fantastic summer, or the start of the monsoon season.

The second downside was more a downsize. Of a chain which mistook an innocent shift to the granny ring to instead somehow escape the front mech ,and wedge itself firmly betwixt crankset and chainstay. After some scratching of heads, dismantlement of the majority of the bike and some keen action on the chain tool, my 27 geared steed was reduced to a somewhat more humble 5.

I’m blaming a combination of Gimp-on-board(tm) cackhandness, rushed builds and bad karma from silently mocking my friends’ singlespeed a few minutes earlier. “Hah when it gets hilly, I shall unleash my vast array of easy pedalling ratios” I carelessly gloated.

But this loss of cogs hardly ruined the ride – the Cove is fantastic everywhere; light and quick uphill, terrifyingly competent in the twisties and nonchalantly banzai when heading downhill. My efforts to fall off were easily dealt with until a log based endo saw the spinning chainrings of doom harvest a few inches of skin.

A spot of beer focussed research selected the easy option of throwing some money at the problem. That’s fixing the thuggery of the chainset rather than the bleeding of the leg. Although you could hear the “Cry of the Lesser Haired Wuss” for many miles when bloodied stump hit hot bathwater.

It’s a keeper this one* and I really think the selection of rather lovely bicycles may be complete for some time to come**. This may be for the rather practical reason that our offer on “Cabbage-Land” has been accepted. I’ve no idea what this means, except that I am now funding the Devil’s lawyer and financier to complete the transaction.

This calls for a beer to reflect on what an interesting year it has been already, and to wonder of the experience that decamping to a county where only out of towners have 10 digit hands.

Well not really, I just fancy a beer 😉

* I can hear you laughing. And I’m ignoring you. But taking names come the revolution.

** And don’t chortle. It’s unbecoming.

Bought!

On By PhotoIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography7 Comments
Hummer, originally uploaded by Alex Leigh.

On the nicest day of the year, I decided to abandon the family’s plea for some outdoor action, instead closeting myself in the barn to build this Titanium lovely. Ti is a frame material which has received much mullage from the experts-in-their-own head found on Internet forums. Apparently it is the silver bullet, the cookie-cutter, the pinnacle of the periodic table. That’s bollox obviously but didn’t stop me lusting after one for many years.

And years ago, I did have one but discarded it as a smelly kipper once it became apparent that exotic frame materials do not beget awesome trail skills. I know better of course now because this one was far more expensive – even second hand – so must be pretty damn begetting in dishing out those elusive inflamed wedding veg.

My friend Mike – who understands such things – tells me frame materials are largely irrelevant to how a bike rides. There is no inherent springiness of steel, stiffness of Alu or mythic ride quality associated with Titanium. And, of course he’s right but the PA and Wanga have gone, while this has taken their place. It’s already way better than the Voodoo because it has lots of gears. Which after some angst and shouting, I was able to wrest from their recalcitrant starting positions.

Mike also tells me this bike will last me for ever. Which – based on my bike rental approach – is interesting, if not entirely relevant. But tomorrow, on the anniversary of shoulder-gate, it’ll get clothed in the Emperor ‘s new mud. Of more interest to Carol is my direct return to the house without a diversion to Accident and Emergency.

Worshiping at the altar of Mong would have Consequences what with two weeks of camper van driving a mere week away. But I’m not sure I can ride any more slowly. Anyway a quick cheeky footpath test showed the bike to be both stiff and frisky.

So I’m thinking of calling it the “Penis“. Like rider, like bike eh?

SOLD!

On By AlexIn Other stuff2 Comments

Well sort of. As of about 20 minutes ago, we accepted a cash offer for our house. Now being a simple sort of chap, I naturally assumed a van load of used readies would be immediately delivered in unmarked suitcases. Apparently, this is not the case, and it shall be necessary to peruse the entire lexicon of property law between now and a mythical beast known only as “completion”

I know nothing of this journey other than it seems strewn with the kind of obstacles that may well damage my liver and add a double scoop of hair pulling* stress.

On the plus side, we’ve sold it to some friends of ours at a tad less than the asking price, which had the estate agent foaming at the mouth. “We can get the full asking price if we screw them over, lie, cheat and start a bidding war with the other interested parties” was their opening negotiating gambit. “Yes, but that will make me a cock of epic proportions and you’ve failed to factor in good manners and karma” said I chewing a lentil.

Although we have set the snarling capitalists snapping at the financial heels of the estate agent from whom we wish to buy. Because, frankly they deserve each other. Although, as this is Herefordshire, negotiations have stalled over the exact bartering value of a frisky goat. But assuming we can debug the complexities of ungulate to sterling ratio, there’s a ludicrous plan forming to get the hell out of here during the Easter holidays.

However, so many things can go wrong that an entire new field of mathematics will be required to count them. It shall be based on the “every bugger wants their cut” numeracy system overlaid with “Stamp Duty, fucking hell haven’t I given enough already?“. The prospect of dealing with both estate agents and solicitors** during a compressed period of hemorrhaging money seems devil sent to ruin our lives.

Still focusing on the positives for a second, this is a bloody great excuse to get drunk. While i crack open the champagne and open champagne over some crack***, here are a few pictures. The first two show some cheeky riding five minutes from the door and a wintery view over the Malvern hills. And because a few of you aren’t obsessed with Mountain Bikes, a couple more depict the “Welcome to Cabbage-Land” garden aspect, and a picture of the house. Which is odd, but you’d expect that.

Tallot (91)

So we’ve not really sold in the true sense of the word and we’ve currently nowhere to move into. All the detailed transactions over the next month will be carried out using whatever transmission methods are available in a camper van, 12,000 miles away from the action. And the full horror of fixing up the new house is likely to permeate my sober moments.

If anyone has any chickens that need counting, send ’em over !

* And let’s face it, that’s a pretty scarce resource where I’m concerned. Two difficult phone calls and I’m bald.

** Which is an anagram of Clitoris. Okay it isn’t, but it should be.

*** It’s a play on words Mum, ok?. Don’t call the police.

Return of the rant

On By AlexIn Bikes9 Comments

Lordy, I am pissed off. In days gone by, I would have been well within my rights as an angry Englishman to go and shoot some Welsh*, follow that up with a ten course banquet – big on identifiable dead animal and small on cutlery – before launching into an all night carousing session with a dozen floozies of my choice.

Assuming I was Henry the VIII anyway. Instead my vocational bucket is overflowing with a million things all of which have the twin characteristics of a deadline sometime in the past and being – in my considered opinion – somebody else’s fucking problem. I used to love the sound of deadlines as they whooshed by whilst I merely ducked under the desk and refused to acknowledge their existence.

Still next years’ budget is taking shape but what fucking shape I do not know. Joining the dots of our financial planning process would very likely bring the duck billed platypus into being. Or the dodo. I can say no more, so amuse yourself for a moment while I attempt to beat the All-Bucks-Swearing record (muttering darkly category)

Somewhere between a million phone calls (if God had wanted us to have 10 simultaneous conversations, he would have specified decagon heads with an ear on each plane. Not voicemail. People should remember that. And be reminded with frequent beatings if necessary) and the ongoing non sale of the house, a Customer Service Representative** took a jolly tone with me. Apparently it was my lucky day because the mighty Honda would have failed its’ first MOT had they not had a tyre in stock. But not just a pneumatic tube with a few grooves in; on no, I now am the proud owner of a jewel encrusted rotating splendor.

Because one tyre CANNOT possibly cost that much. And, of course, it doesn’t if you’re not being held hostage by the robbing bastards hiding behind a neon sign and shiny showroom. I expect the chippy dog lobber was straight down to “Ron’s Remoulds” cashing in a few extra quid on MY tyre which’d miraculously sprouted an extra inch of tread. Their invoicing system was about ready to explode as reams of paper piled up to about waist height as the bill was printed out. The final total was displayed on an extra long strip to get all the zeros in.

It’s out of warranty now which is good as I’m out of cash. That’s the last time I’ll be darkening their towels again unless it’s under the cover of darkness and I’m acting suspiciously in the vicinity of the safe. With all this and trying to complete some airily promised camp site booking for NZ, it seemed the perfect time to engage on a spot of bike rationalisation.

What this has proven – quite unequivocally – is that I am a bloody idiot. Having adopted a slash and burn approach to my inbox, the remainder of the evening has been a difficult composite of spanners, swearing and sweat as I serially dismantled, packaged, lost bits, un-packaged, banged head on wall, had stern talk about use of hammer, repackaged, tidy and wept quietly in a corner.

I am getting pretty good at buying and selling bike bits. In volume anyway, if not in any measurable commercial terms. For example, the Wanga is standing me at about£50 a ride and it was a shit ride at that. The true worry out of all of this is not the dangerous H&S situation awaiting anyone viewing the barn with bike parts strewn, hung and abandoned in every corner, but the immutable fact that my bike total has been reduced by one.

Sunday night, downstream of half a bottle of wine this seemed a really good idea. This evening, with the barn pictorially describing the phrase “Blast Radius” and my level of irritation reaching danger level, I wonder if it was. I think it is way past the time to try and find the answer in the second half of that bottle.

* My choice of victim for some less than friendly arrowing is, in now way, based on the travesty of justice that was last weekend’s Rugby result. Oh no.

** Ian, suggest you start recruiting, there’s going to be a BIG increase in “Pitters” this month.

Internet searches…

On By AlexIn Other stuff6 Comments

… are extremely useful when you need to find something out or make something up. But in the same way that “Converting a Vacuum Cleaner to a Sex Aid” solicits a million responses of which almost zero are useful*, searching for “Things to see in New Zealand” returns only the odd useful nugget. And since that’s about 10 pages behind useless sponsored links, I’ve generally mosied off to the beer fridge before getting there.

So help me out here.

Mappage

We arrive in Christchurch – assuming my limited conflict management skills in customs don’t get us deported – and collect the big family bus for 14 days. 10 of these will be spent on the South Island and four to rendezvous with a hire car at Auckland.

Milford Sound, the Maori museum in Wellington, a drive up the West Coast of the South Island and a stop at Picton before the ferry are all penciled in. I’m trying to keep driving down to a max of three hours a day and there are clamors from the lower orders for Whale watching and swimming with dolphins. Carol wants the whole thing to be as interesting but stress free as possible and – apart from Jet Boating which I have to try! – I’m happy as long as the beer is cold.

So if I search the intellectual might of H(edgeog)Oogle, what am I offered?

* But does mine a rich vein of specialist web sites. Or so I’ve been told.

More norks, less isobars.

On By AlexIn Clic-24, Other stuff1 Comment

Because I am old, the exact time and place of my first adolescent grope of a pert boob is not a fixed memory. Obviously some years had passed between this orb of delight being a source of food and comfort to being a rather more entertaining supply of teenage pleasure*. And some discomfort in the trouser department, for which I place the blame squarely at bollock tight 80s jeans.

Amazing really looking back that girls would bother with us at all. They had all the physical assets and mental maturity, while our idea of sophisticated foreplay was controlling premature ejaculation. When one of my daughters returns home shying showing off her first boyfriend, he’s going to be in the centre of a practical experiment. I’m going to ask her to touch him anywhere and when he explodes in teenage delight, I’m going to shoot him. And then place his head outside on a spike as an example to others.

Sorry Fatlad, my Neocon paternal urges kicked in there for a moment, let me get back to the point. Or points of interest, specifically the joy of poking fun at US “Weathercasters“** when compared to their somewhat more staid British colleagues.

When I worked out there, it was well understood that the Weather Channel was educational, free soft porn. All the presenters were beautiful women who could provocatively gyrate at a moments notice. Legions of gorgeous, besuited women would waft across the screen and describe the weather in a way that certainly delivered some high pressure to my lower regions.

On the downside, as they had their own channel and a whole shit load of biblical weather, it did tend to lead to excited exchanges such as:

“Hi” [Business Suit, High Heels, Size 0 and and a bit, Perfect Smile] “This is Cindy Nosemaker on the Weather channel welcoming you all to” [Toss shiny hair] “on this stormy morning in the most dysfunctional country in the world. Our roving reporter Reisling J. Pineapple the Third” [Wiggle in a way that has every man betwixt the ages of 8 and 80 reaching for the tissues] “is out on the streets of a wild and windy New York. Reisling?”

[Cut to reporter dressed in branded wind cheater against a backdrop of 10 foot snowdrifts, roofs flying past, looting in the background, sounds of murder out of shot, etc]

“Well Cind, it’s dumped another 12 inches last night” [suggestive leer] “no traffic is moving, the trains are cancelled, the airport is closed, there’s panic in the streets and the Mayor is being supplied with his breakfast truffles by Army Airlift”

Cindy [Ignores leer, wiggles again, collective grown from 60 million men] “Well that’s just swell!*** And worse to come, rains of trout are being driven in on icy polar winds and there is an 84.25{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} chance of hailing haddock by midday” [indicates galactic wall sized, interactive weather map]

“And after these messages, we’re going to the International News Desk with a breaking story that France has sunk. That’s in Yew-Rope and so isn’t important at all.”

The UK version of that goes something like this:

Michael Fish stumps onto screen wearing elbow pads, National Health Glasses and a haircut styled by backwards hedge. Removes academic pointing cane from hidden inner pocket, indicates blackboard resplendent with a crayoned version of the UK scrawled upon in.

“Good Evening. It shall be a little wet and windy. The Met Office recommends a stiffening of upper lips, a small glass of sherry and the staking out of any children left outside”

Except of course, it isn’t like that any more. The last two decades have bled us of cultural differences in the unseemly haste for globalisation. Now I watch the weather and crave the days of Wincy Willis and her sticky clouds****, 20p worth of not very special weather effects and the lackadaisical approach to forecasting “tomorrow may be warm, cold, dry or wet. We suggest you look out of the window and form your own opinion“.

It takes a special kind of mind to take an email “I’ve got quite a few American readers, fancy writing something about the weather for me?” and turn it into a discourse onto why US weather women were pretty damn hot. I can’t say it makes me proud but now I’ve finished, it’s sure to make me drunk.

I probably should end by cravenly stating my allegiance to the majority of the people I met in the US. For the first year or so, it was a Grok like reenactment of Stranger In A Strange Land as people who I could see and understand operated like aliens from a different planet. Subsequent to that and on the back of learning a culture through a culture of drinking, I found them warm, open, passionate and funny. And insular, a bit warmongery, occasionally arrogant and as shouldery chippy as a professional Yorkshireman. I liked them even more for the last one 🙂

* I do remember my second (and nearly last) day at my first proper job where a young lady – endowed in such a way you’d consider snorkel and flippers – was mammarily straining in a tight blouse. Every time she bent towards the phone, I was convinced she’d inadvertantly call the emergency services. This is not pervy – I was about 17 and everyone was like that. Probably.

** Calling Ian to the Scorpion Pit please.

*** Americans – in my experience – don’t do irony. I think it was displaced by the bombing gene.

**** Don’t try and find a simile in there. It exist only in your dirty little mind 🙂

Folded over.

On By AlexIn BikesLeave a comment

That’s like being rolled over only with slightly more authority. My frequent tirades at the knit-your-own-hair folding bicycle* owners are well known to those grazing on the lower intellectual slopes of the hedgehog. So your surprise may even surpass mine, when it becomes clear I’ve almost befriended my sworn enemy.

It was with mounting horror that I found myself nodding sagely in the manner of “Well yes Hitler wasn’t such a bad lad really and you’ve got to admire the engineering might of the Panzer“, as el folderado waffled on some rambling cycle related discourse.

My normal response to anything as unhinged as an unhinged owner is to nod sagely as I push them in front of a speeding train. And this particular chap was so stereotypical of everything small wheeled, he was surely the original mould from which the entire unholy tribe were spawned.

He was resplendent in that fashion faux pas of a suit with bicycle clips. Devices I honestly believed were to prevent those of an incontinent nature soiling their shoes. He had a beard, but not just a beard – the kind of hairy growth you’d expect David Bellamy to be climbing OUT of. There were long forgotten foodstuffs in the spiky mass which attracted admiring – if horrified – glances as they were entering a carbonised state***.

Of course, he also had the hated hinged bolt attached to a child’s bike, 1990s mesh helmet and the official handbag these lunatics insist on placing directly over the front tyre. H’mm take 20inch wheels, separate handlebar and axle by a nautical mile, stir in a super steep head angle and garnish with 10lbs of lumpy manbag.

That’s Darwinism at play right there ladies and gentlemen. Turn sharply into to a corner and apex at the afterlife. Bonkers. And he was, bonkers that is but in a very hard to dislike sort of way. He struck up a conversation when he noticed my proper bike and a careful cold war sort of discussion followed. This is the tightrope of diplomacy, one false move or imagined slight from either side and BOOM, immediate escalation to DEFCON 1 and some pretty bloody hard stares to follow.

And possibly some aggressive prodding. But no, we parted warily with him not knowing how close to death he had come, and me worrying that my intolerance gland may be blocked. I mean talking to folders, next thing I’ll be inviting Tory candidates into my kitchen and sympathising that their sons have had to sell one of their Ferrari’s.

It’s a worry as I’m sure you can tell. So if he approaches me on Monday, I’m going to get a restraining order.

This is merely filler anyway as I’ve received FatLad’s (his definition not mine!) charity commission and the next post shall be an erudite and carefully researched thesis on “A theoretical discourse on the Norks of Weather Women”.

* It is with great grudgement** that the friendly accolade of a bicycle can be bestowed on Lucifer’s chariot. I prefer “pointless transport of the terminally stupid” to be more appropriate, but I’m trying to be inclusive here.

** Adjectival deritive of the verb “to grudge“, You heard it here first.

*** Not a cabonised country state such as Chernobyl. If I wanted a lame gag to lament what happens when you mix corrupt socialism with fatal radioactivity, I would have gone with “Don’t spend any time there, Chernobyl fall off“

Want rocks?

On By PhotoIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography1 Comment
Quantocks Jan 08 (25 of 45), originally uploaded by Alex Leigh.

That’ll be the Quantocks then. From a purely geological standpoint, it’s arguable the Peak District or North Wales may better qualify. But walk for a minute in my shoes* and try rhyming anything with district. Lift Fits? Whit Gifts? Wrist Pick? Lacking both rhythmic cadence and rhyming couplets.

So, as usual, form triumphs over function on the hedgehog. But it’s not a total fib as these were rocks garnished by marketing. One minute you’d be pinballing off square edged geography idly disputing the brochure’s claim of “dry, sun dappled singletrack nestled in the beautiful hills of Somerset“, and – just before you called a lawyer or the A&E department – suddenly it would appear right in front of you**

Quantocks Jan 08 (1 of 45)Quantocks Jan 08 (2 of 45)

Legend has it that proper mountain bikers would never spend less time out in the hills than it took to travel there.. I’ve always assumed such heroes had very fast cars. But when fantastic weather and great trails intersect, even the slack can manage to ride through five snatched hours of winter daylight.

Quantocks Jan 08 (15 of 45)Quantocks Jan 08 (28 of 45)

Although we did spend approximately a third of that time in the pub. And because they serve beer, it seemed rude not to embark on some light quaffing. And because the Quantocks are a sugar loaf of steep sided valleys, the subsequent climb very nearly resulted in some projectile de-quaffing.

During the occasional brief riding hiatus’s between drinking, talking and eating, the singletrack sparkled cheekily and sparked all sorts of post descent nonsense around riding proficiency rarely seen outside professional competition. For myself, I’d like to think that “I flowed through those corners like I was on snails” treads a line somewhere between natural modesty and harsh reality.

Quantocks Jan 08 (10 of 45)Quantocks Jan 08 (21 of 45)

There was much talk of floating serenely over bumps and braking only when certain death was the alternative. Better still sometimes deeds even followed words with a death-grippy “ohshitgoingtofasttobrakebuggeryarrrggh” approach to the Weacoombe descent brought with it a weeks worth of adrenalin. Had it gone wrong though, the next ten seconds would have been packed full of hurty incident.

Quantocks Jan 08 (20 of 45)Quantocks Jan 08 (34 of 45)

Still out of the aggressively nibbling*** wind, the weak winter sun warmed our backs, and the happy noises of right side up mountain bikers could be heard all around. Riding in winter is so often wet, cold and butt shotblastingly muddy but – on days like this – you remember just how great the next three seasons are going to be.

Back at home some time later I did the numbers. Traveling hours: 5. Traveling miles: 276. Riding miles: Not many. Riding smiles: think of a big number and multiply it by close to infinity.

Forget the rigidity of seasonal accuracy. The daffodils are out, the birds are singing in the dawn, the hedgerows are sleepily awake with new buds. Spring is coming. And so is late summer for those of us heading off to the other side of the word next month.

I may have mentioned that already.

* Probably should have warned you about the smell. They are a funky set of kipper slippers.

** Insert preferred ending
– like Hally Berry wiggling provocatively out of the sea
– like a handsome man with a beguiling – yet playful – smile
– like the Shopkeeper in Mr. Ben
– all of the above.

*** somewhere between flat calm and biting

On The Grout

On By AlexIn Other stuff5 Comments

An expression coined by my friend Andy who was reveling in my DIY depression while he was out riding. And while he and Kath think nothing of building a small hamlet before breakfast, my home improvement skills normally consist of nothing more than getting a man in*.

So while I was firing the random shotgun of boredom at unpainted walls, unsealed windows and unfinished buffing**, the concept of being “on the grout” provided a moments amusement. The standard form would be “No, sorry Alex can’t come out to play on his bike, he’s on the grout” with a regional variation of “Pish, the silly prick is fecking away with the grout“.

There is a difficult dichotomy in that our house now resembles a show home that no one could live in. And yet, if you have aspirations of selling it, then this is the default stasis in the otherworld of random people coming to look at it.

If one were tending to the dangerously honest, much of the tedious graft of the last few weeks is merely mining the deep vein of marketing. Sure, we probably should have painted the kids bedrooms ages ago, but at no point should quality drinking time be diverted to the dark art of restoring grout to bright white.***

Ironically wanting to sell the house is even more difficult now because it is so uncluttered and tidy. Except when the kids see a patch of clear carpet space, they fall upon it like a dying man at an oasis. Their idea of tidying up is to throw stuff at each other until one of them falls into a cupboard.

We’re selling up for a complex but interrelated set of reasons. But cutting through them all are “living in the South East“, “Working in London“, “Rubbish secondary schools” and (whisper it quietly) “poor to poorish mountain biking”

The plan is to go West before Aylesbury comes East. The final straw was a proposal to build 9,300 houses between where we live and the badlands of a market town sponsored by concrete. We have even found somewhere to live although – in line with our random insanity of house buying – it requires some work. And a shit load of cash. And then some more work. On the upside, it has an unparalleled view of cabbages.

And in an amazing coincidence, a slew of fantastic mountain biking lies nearby. How the hell could that have happened?

Tomorrow, we have our first viewing. And while I’m not interested in sullying myself with anything vaguely customer facing, the rough end of my pineapple awaits the first person to openly question the quality of the grouting.

* No. Not like that. And don’t try any witticisms around the tradesman’s entrance either.

** I had a fantastic joke lined up around the premise of “Buffing the Vampire Slayer”. Well it was fantastic, until I wrote it down.

*** Do not be under any illusions that such a colour exists. It can be found about 30 minutes downstream from the question “have you finished cleaning that already?”