A Job for Life

Summer has arrived.  Well that is how it feels.  It's as though we've bypassed spring and gone straight in to summer like I'm playing some giant life game of Monopoly passing GO without stopping and collecting dosh on my way to Jail.  With only 4 weeks to go to the S500 thing it's time to get some serious miles under my belt, now with a fully loaded bike.  Here it is.

I've tried to put it on a diet but no it's not having it.  I tried to fit the sleeping bag along with everything else in the panniers and there just isn't enough room.  A Tardis I do not have so I have no option other than to stuff the sleeping bag down the back of it's knickers which has resulted in it having a rather fat arse.  Fat arsed it now looks so Fat Arse it now is.

The miles are starting to grow.  London Alan joined me for a couple or three days last week during which we had two jaunts out.  Initially into a head wind towards Pocklington, a town for spotty teenagers, and then up to the top of Garrowby Hill on which we found that Alan could not select his lowest gear due to a stretched cable problem on his new bike.  Nonetheless, up he went.  Good man!  This was followed the next day by a gentler loop out to Selby and back to York via Cawood.  Both rides have convinced Alan that he can do the Scottish 500, especially now that some of the legs have been reduced with only one long fun run of well over 50 miles close to the end.

This week I took Fat Arse out for another shakedown ride.  Again to Pocky this time via Dunnington then hung a right to avoid the hills and away across the flat lands towards Melbourne and Seaton Ross.  I left York to get my kicks on Sustrans Route 66 where I'm again overtaken by another female cyclist.  We ride together for a mile or three and chat about how great it is to have a bike and how pleasant it is to chat.  I recall she was to visit friends at the Three Cups pub just outside of Stamford Bridge and that she was a retired Radiologist.  Again I failed to ask for a name.

'Where are you going?' she asked as she admired my packaging.  I told her about how this was a shakedown ride, a loop out of York to the east in preparation for the Scottish 500 next month.  I saw thoughts of her loading her bike with a tent and a pannier project a shadow across the back of her eyelids just before the conversation went the same way.  It's great to chat with others with similar enthusiasms.  Take note Mr Racing Snake.  It does not need to be all head down and arse up my friends.

Route 66 took me across the river Derwent viaduct at Stamford Bridge on what was before the 1960's Beeching axe the York to Market Weighton railway line.  One lone white snake cruised off into the distance but hey what's the hurry.  Legs were turning nice and smooth and it is great again to have that feeling of turning a huge earth shaped flywheel re-appear under my bike.  Smooth baby.  Getting a bit harder to pedal uphill is it?  Drop a gear then..  mmmm nice...

Pocklington was at the 22 mile mark.  A quick scrambled eggs on toast and a rather nice slice of carrot cake (hey Con, we'll have to try making that sometime...) followed by a jaunt to the south took me past the Wolds Gliding Club on the edge of the town.  Whilst waiting for the wind up merchant to put the pedal to the metal to launch the next glider I noticed a guy out on the grass with a petrol mower pushing it back and forth across the airfield.  Considering that the gliding club is on an old World War 2 bomber station a tractor with multiple cutters nailed to its arse would have been more appropriate.   'For sure', I thought, 'that's a job for life..'.

I joined post office telecommunications is 1979.  I was lucky as I was the only apprentice selected for York area out of several hundred applicants that year.  I remember the selection process and the interviews like it was yesterday.  A job for life it was.  And whilst I managed to be with BT for 39 years, cumulating as a Principal IT Manager, I had an opportunity to retire early in 2017.  Which I did.  I'm pleased to report that I am not yet dead.

I'd not done the Melbourne, Seaton Ross and Bubwith route before.  Contrary to the Garrowby route which is the other way out of Pocklington this one is a flat expanse of alluvial land predominantly used for arable farming and the production of lawn turf.  Acres of bright green grassland stretching out ahead of me, sun drenched and immaculately brushed as though a smooth green baize atop an Earth shaped snooker table.  Occasional clumps of young trees brush by, huddled together, naked with embarrassment, only partially covered with embryonic fig leaves in the late afternoon Sun.  With a gentle breeze in my back I made it to the Bubwith picnic site for a final break in the warm afternoon sun.

It's been a while but Ma Boy has come home.  He's back in his bedroom.  I know he's there as his teenage irritability is making achy breaky noises in his room again.  I do hope he leaves home again and soon like wot his sister Our Lass has apparently done.  Last thing I want is for both of the twins to come back home just before I set off on this year's long ride out.  Oh how they will be so frogged off if they do and I do too.  I fed him an Ibuprofen flavoured gripe water pizza last night hoping that he'd learnt to hate the taste of it and so likely to leave home again tout suite before the 20th May.  I'll do all I can to encourage him to go.

As I was at this side of York I decided to have a reverse run through Skipwith Common woods.  Not a sign of any dog competitions this time.  However, as I got close to Riccall I had a flashback of a bright eyed woman munching on a raw chicken thigh so decided to take my life in my hands and stay on the busy A19 and bypass the village.  Interestingly whilst the legs felt tired as I cruised along, I had no problems standing up in the pedals and powering up the occasional climbs.  I left Riccall behind in a cloud of dust.

I got home in good time.  I spent last night feeding Ma Boy another Ibuprofen pizza, an extra strong painkilling one with extra cheese, as he's decided to poke at his bedroom walls this evening.  Damn.

Anyway, tomorrow (Saturday) I'm away on the bike to Bedale (49 miles or so) with tent and food and sleeping bag etcetera etcetera for an overnight stop on a friendly camp site living on test food and bottled water.  I'm so looking forward to it :-)

Ciao.