“Two years ago we arrived in Santiago di Compostela!” I just had the text through from Luisa, my frequent walking buddy.
So we did. 11/11. And last year I was heading down to the valley of the giants, north of San Francisco, to commune with big trees and nature and a bear and with solitude in a place that might be nothing but ashes now. Remembrance Day has frequently been a day of spiritual things. A day about remembering…
Today, a day I’ve been told is perhaps the most powerful day of the year for manifestation and positive change, I went on a bike to Falmer with Lou. Better than sitting at home.
I say it was a bike ride… My steed was one of those Godawful public bicycles. Three pence a minute with a one pound unlocking fee. The machine itself cost Brighton Council £1700. What the heck did they spend that money on? Backhanders for their buddies most likely, and software development. Honestly, apart from the software, I could have made a better bike out of toothpicks and leftover meat. But I was on a mission to get to green stuff, so I filled my knees with lactic acid as I hauled the fucking thing five miles on gradual gradient away from the sea. Lou has her own bike and couldn’t compute how I was being so slow until she had a go on the thing herself and lasted about two minutes before swapping back. Good exercise though. By the time we hit the woodlands I didn’t need any walking.
I’ve booked the car into an MOT tomorrow in Eastbourne. Likelihood is that it’ll fail too spectacularly to make it worth trying for a pass but I’m kind of on a mission to squeeze another year out of it now. It’s been so valuable to get me to and down to Brighton and to shuttle things to Tennants. This write off of a year would have been even more of a washout without it. I liked having a car in London even before it was complicated and stressful getting on the tube. I want the wheels to continue to be possible. I’ve even got a couple of little shuttling jobs I could be doing in the near future.
But a bike does at least help you move. On the way home we found one that was less of a tank as well. I started to enjoy the cycling going downhill. You can’t carry boxes of antique plates in a bike but you can at least get around. If I have to, I’ll drop the Nissan and get around London on a bike. But I couldn’t go to Brighton on it. Or to Yorkshire with a box of stuff.
AlBarclay 