Fat Bloke on a Bike

Things are improving every day. It's rare to feel cold whilst out on the bike now.  I have not been on her indoors, the magnetic trainer, for the last month.  So she will be going back in the garage and packed away for next winter sometime next week [no that it not my attempt at next week's weather forecast]. My legs?  Wow, a sudden change.  It's as though the leg fairy descended on me overnight and took away the mass of weak wobbling jellied eels that I used to ride with and replaced them with Arnold Schwarzenegger's spare bits.  As though his parting words to me last October, when he robbed me of my LEJOG legs, were 'I'll be back'.  Never thought of it that way before but yes perhaps Arnold Schwarzenegger is the leg fairy?  My legs not only feel so much stronger, they look different too.  Popeye muscles are returning.  Legs starting to feel and look like those I rode atop to the top of Scotland on my Ferris Bueller's Day Off crazy LE-JO...

The world is full of dishonourable types and fake news abounds. I watch agog at what's happening in the UK parliament where 600 plus dishonourable idiots are mangling the process of exiting from the EU, making it impossible to do.  It's a ragged circus of unfunny clowns carrying an infinite number of custard pies wobbling around on wonky unicycles arguing over who has the cleanest face. Or of the shenanigans in the USA.  Politics via social media.  Reporting, talking, shouting, showing, living everything on their sleeves.  RAW stuff.  Meat grinding pornographic stuff.  No filtering, no control, no standard; we are forced to watch as though our eyes are jammed open with broken cocktail sticks. Strong polarisation is everywhere.  People have seen how Putin and other dictators operate and now want a piece of their cake.  The World is stirred up by fake news proliferate across all anti-social media which is being fed to big thumbed folk on small...

I'm giggling to myself.  Have a look at my latest profile photo on the top right.  You know, my mug shot... which is a shot of my mug.  Look like Donald Trump don't I :-) Anyway, some good news to start off with. Firstly the ultrasound was all clear and whilst I still have the finger of fudge in my pencil sharpener episode to look forward to I'm feeling less stressed.  It's likely that Bee and Hairy are causing problems with the drainage since getting down and dirty with each other.  Bee's no Brooks for sure but letchery defo runs in that family, the dirty little bugger.  Balloon dog is feeling a bit better and the nut allergy has cleared up so, as the thoughtful Howard penses, I'm ultrasound perhaps? I am now starting to do big miles on the bike.  Earlier this month was regular 30 milers.  Last week / this week I am back up into the over 50 club and back into the hills.  Last week included a run through Leavening and up the category 4 ...

It's been a glorious week.  Fantastic weather with light winds.  Three things struck me this week. The first whilst riding a new route from Selby to Cawood [recommended by a couple of chatty cyclists] took me alongside a large grey field absolutely loaded with DPM camouflaged pigeons.  All of them took off with thundering applause resulting in thousands of small grey bombers flying low overhead into a picture postcard blue sky.  Horizon to horizon stuff.  There I was, a fish looking up through shallow warm waters at a net as it descended through the crystal blue towards me.  Fantastic! Secondly on the way back home riding down Church lane heading into Askham Bryan I looked to the west at a low slow Sun meandering across a field of newly sprung wheat with leaves prematurely aged gloriously golden, turned so by the setting Sun as though sharing a glimpse of its future. And finally again of my shadow.  A regular companion on all my rides; a tall ski...