5 o' clock in the morning is rarely a good time to wake up and get out of bed. Unless you are a child aged less than 10 on Christmas morning, then it's compulsory. But I have been that unfortunate position three times this week, twice because I had to get to our London office at a reasonable time. However, the third of these, today, was far more pleasant. My first Friday ride into work for three weeks, and what's more, some more very reasonable weather.
This is all very confusing for me. I'm now riding in the dark practically the whole of the ride in, and certainly for all of the ride home. So when you stick your head out of the door at that unearthly hour to see if the actual weather correlates with the forecasted weather, the task is made somewhat harder by the dark.
I've just realised that "somewhat" is probably a word banned by the Plain English Campaign. In my defence, when has being "plain" ever been a compliment? I bet they really want to call themselves The Straightforward English Campaign, but that smacks of long-windedness.
Back to the weather. At 5AM in November I can't quite bring myself to believe it is warm. So I was probably a tad over-dressed, but not so much that it mattered. I also felt pretty slow on the way in, over the hill by the airport, but when I reviewed the stats I wasn't. I've stopped taking Charlie to work, no point in mapping the same route over and over again, and I can't see the display in the dark anyway. Saves a bit of faff time pre-ride, and a job of downloading on return.
If you are that bothered about my route, leave me a comment, I'll ignore it, but you might get it out of your system. I'd say it was rather uneventful, with two things of note to report. First was the interesting (as in "may you never live in interesting times" interesting) discovery of ten tones of slippery wet mud on a downhill stretch of back road, just before a nice corner, when I was already doing about 35 mph. In these situations I find the best remedy to an impending crash is to shut your eyes and hope for the best, which I duly did. Probably of more importance in me remaining upright was the successful battle against the urge to brake.
So my resolve did not break, my bike didn't break, I gave myself a break and gently slewed around the corner, just grateful there was no oncoming traffic. Farmers eh? Got to love them.
Secondly I have now passed my total mileage target, to beat last year's total of 5107 miles, so I now officially have achieved all I set out to do on the bike in 2011. Although I have given myself another target to keep me interested and pushing the pedals that little bit harder until 31 December.
On a deeper note I went to St. Paul's Cathedral this week. A long story, but way back in pre-history, when I had half a head of hair, I used to do Banking Exam studies in Moorgate on Thursdays. My employer at the time was generous enough to give me day-release. Classes started at 9AM and went on until lunchtime, when there was a gap of 2 hours until we were finished off by Accountancy at 3PM. Sometimes I would wander up to the Cathedral and sit quietly in one of the side chapels and ponder on things, as is my wont.
So after I finished work on Wednesday, about 5.30PM, I thought I'll pop in and wander up memory lane. I also wanted to gawp at the protest camp, and compare and contrast with the folk we often see outside Heaphy's cafe in Glastonbury.
Inside the cathedral it was all very nice, but a service was going on, with a lovely choral thing going on, but not many in the congregation, and I was prevented from going up to the side chapel by a slightly officious security man. As I wandered out of the main door, the sermon started, all sorts of stuff about "we are all one church", "fellow man", etc. etc.
Outside it was a bit of a shock to hear a hippie with a large megaphone, preaching essentially the same message but to a much larger, if considerably dirtier, crowd. They were also very friendly to me, despite my business garb, maybe if I'd had lycra on, they would have kicked my head in.
I'm not sure what to make of all that, I'd be interested in your thoughts, and with this one, I will engage in some constructive dialogue, promise. For sure, the world is a crazy, crazy place. And if you've been reading my blogs you will know what I think about cliches. Just because they are doesn't mean they don't contain a truth. But maybe it's time people really did start behaving like we are just one big peloton.
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