What are you like?
You’ve had a right life and taken a long ride,
But oh what a cost…
And all of your life, staring at white lines
Reading the road signs,
And oh what a loss…
Sleeping late in the afternoon, playing your guitar,
Born under a bad sign.
Sunday
Woke up early and checked on the whereabouts of my bike repair stuff; the tracking suggested it’d be mid-afternoon before it arrived; there was no chance of a ride today. Instead we pottered around the house, which has been increasingly untidy, starting to get things into some semblance of order. After lunch I took the kids for a walk, which was nice – not too warm and not too many people on the streets.
Got home and started to prepare dinner – kebabs and chicken wings cooked on the barbecue, and took delivery of my bead jack. Once the kids were in bed I set about trying to mount the tyre; instead of doing what I’d hoped, the tool snapped in two. These are particularly tough wheels, it seems. Eventually, using a huge amount of tape to hold the tension in the tyres in place, I managed to both get the tyre on and inflated. One down, one to go. The second one went on slightly faster, but only slightly, and started to inflate, pinged into the rim, and then went down again. Now I had a tyre that had a flat tube and I couldn’t get it off no matter how I tried to prise it. Gave up and went to bed frustrated, not managing to get to sleep until gone midnight.
Monday
Woke again ridiculously early, annoyed by the tyre, getting back to trying to remove it; in the process of doing so to change the tube I tore the rubber. Annoyed doesn’t even begin to cover it. Replaced the original tyre on the bike; fitting that one was a doddle, and watched some TV with A while we waited for everyone else to wake up and head downstairs.
I’ve been wanting to get out on the bike ever since the exploding inner tube incident, and today I finally had the chance, but setting off much later than I’d originally planned. Left at 10am, heading up through Mitcham, Streatham and Brixton to Blackfriars Bridge, then along the Embankment and home by way of Battersea and Tooting. I’d forgotten how many traffic lights there are on that route, especially in central London, and the number of people out on bikes was somewhat ridiculous too; seemed like half the city was out for a ride. Got home at 12, then a brief chat with the neighbours before lunch, and lighting the BBQ to slow-cook some ribs.
Spent most of the afternoon in the garden; it wasn’t until dinner time that the next disaster struck. I went to the garage door, pulled it to close it and with an almighty clunk it stopped and refused to budge. Had a good look at it and found the problem, but couldn’t fix it myself; I ended up having to call a locksmith to help with the mechanism. He couldn’t repair it either but he could at least secure it until I can get it fixed properly.
Tuesday
Back to work! Had a rare morning of quiet in the house as J took the kids to Banstead Wood for a walk. In between meetings I managed to get hold of a garage door company to come and take a look at my problem in the afternoon; other than that the day was pretty unremarkable. Helpfully the garage repair guys turned up while I was in the middle of a meeting with another team; I had to leave W to fend for himself while I went to sort the paperwork. It’s fixed now, but that was another chunk of cash I’m not too pleased to have had to part with.
The kids were both exhausted by evening; I wonder if there’s something in the air? Got them both into bed at a reasonably early hour, then took the laptop out to the garden, where I had a pleasant evening drinking beer and chatting with friends on Zoom. Tomorrow will hopefully be similar; the sun is shining and all’s as well as can be.
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