The End of the World?

The World is coming to an end.  A new Covid variant has germinated in the south-east.  Not a surprise really cos I hear Kentish Men are dirty buggers.  Then there's the cheese eating surrender monkeys, who being very French, have unsurprisingly closed their borders.  International flights have been cancelled.  Christmas too, courtesy of the unicycle riding custard pie carrying clowns in Government and Parliament.  BREXIT talks, like the A2 / M2 towards Dover are gridlocked due to an eye-watering crash of European and UK political unicycles and subsequent custard pie throwing by the clowns on both sides of the channel.  A new star has appeared in the west.  A time of tribulation looms.  The end of days is nigh. 

Oh dear, I better go for a quick ride on my bike then before it's too late.  Well, perhaps not my bike cos its back wheel is probably now forever stuck in Hermany and all I've got left is an option to turn the remains of the day here in the UK into a rather grotesque 'n wobbly front wheeled unicycle and become a politician.  Nonetheless, it was great that Mary Jane, yes the Bingley Fakir, loaned me one of his spare bikes.  

Yesterday I went out early to do some more Christmas shopping before the Covid hoards descended on the supermarkets like a biblical plague of locusts.  Whilst out I had taken note of just how pleasant the day was so yeah, great idea, why not go for a spin.  

Mary Jane's bike had been supplied without a saddle.  I was happy with that as there's no way I'd wanna park my bits close to any part, person or place that had previously been stuck so close up to Mary Jane's bits.  So post a little bit of fettling, which saw the old LEJOG Brooks B17 saddle attached and roughly adjusted, I was away again on the Route 66 pastry in the general direction of the home of Beelzebub and his bestest dogging mate, Adolf.  I.e., Riccall.

Twice I stopped to adjust the saddle's position and height.  Also the tension on the seat-post quick release clamp.  Nonetheless, after every adjustment, and probably because a fat arse was sat on it, the seat post slowly slipped down into the frame leaving me with my knees under my chin looking like a fat clown on a rather small monkey bike struggling into the gentle headwind.  So I stop again.  I twist the quick release's screw a few more turns and lean on the lever to clamp the seat post tight.  Sorted.  That surely cannot move now?

I turn a corner just through Riccall and again the wind is against my back.  I now positively fly along overtaking other cyclists who for sure must be over 80 and on their way into York on their shopping bikes to do a late Christmas shop.  I spot another aged cyclist on another old cronk turning another sharp corner ahead joining my route and that's it, the race is on.

As my sailing instructor once said to me, 'How do you know if two yachts are racing each other?  Simple.  It's whenever they can see each other'.  It's generally the same with cycling and for sure the reason why so many racing snakes overtake me; but not at this time of the year as they're all now back in the egg.

Suddenly it felt like hard work again.  I'm not riding uphill and the wind is still helping me along, gently pushing in the middle of my back.  The road is straight and dry 'cept for a large soft plumpy long muddy cleavage to my left.  Being that Mary's bike is a big girl's mountain bike, the top tube is low and the saddle stem is long.  So I stick my head down, tucking my chin into my belly and look backwards between my legs.  I can almost see the quick release clamp.  I quickly push my testicles out of the way and get a glimpse of it just as my front knobbly meanders into the soft muddy cleavage at the side of the road.  

I have a sudden vision, just as Jesus might have had which also explains the use of his name in all future moments around the World when something unexpected like happens.  Of my front knobbly jamming hard into the soft muddy cleavage and of me doing a perfect front somersault over her handlebars, landing perfectly on both feet in the road. Of flinging my arms up and my chest out as though successfully completing a rather impressive front flip with a loud 'TA-DAAA!'.  Just before looking back at the stationary upright bike and seeing that my testicles are still attached to the seat.

I wince!  My eyes flash wide open.  I quickly raise my head and see the impending disaster starting to unfold.  I push gently on the right hand handlebar and thank God that the bike moves out into the road again from the muddy edge.  A near miss for sure.  I quickly check.  Yep, my testicles, which for sure also saw the impending disaster and their imminent demise and so had quickly whipped back up, are still attached.  Thank God!  Anyway I had seen enough to conclude that the seat post had not slipped.  Grand.  So all is okay.  Except for the sudden onset of hiccoughs, given to me by my testicles when they hit the ceiling.  

All of a sudden my legs felt good.  Mary's mountain bike felt fast.  She'd sped up as though she was really enjoying herself.  Her pedals are akimbo.  I hear the sound of her knobbly tyres on the tarmac.  With an ever increasing 'woooowooooowooooo..' I make a sound akin to a London Underground tube train accelerating hard into one of her tight tunnels.   She's being ridden fast and hard by a rampant hippo.   Without the post coitus cabbages of course.  I press on hard snorting and farting like a 'gud 'un going ten to the dozen trying as hard as I might to reach the point of an orgasmic leg explosion just as I pass the old boy on the shopper bike.

The roads are dry 'cept for huge puddles and piles of horse shit from cart horses that have for sure been on the prune juice.  So much so I cannot avoid it and so whizz through the lot.  Shit, there's shit on Mary Jane's bike wheels.  Right, ride through one of the big puddles to wash it off.  Splosh!  I lick my lips and detect a rather nutty taste.  Oh dear!  Only now do I notice the fine wet mist of mud and horse shit on my glasses.  I look down and oh feck, I'd forgotten that there were no mud guards on Mary Jane's bike.  It's knobblies, especially the rear knobbly, have acted like one of the worlds bestest muck spreaders.  Feck.  What a mess..

Aw feck again.  The old boy on the shopper is getting away from me.  Like the story my mate John, er Mary Jane once told me; about how he almost dropped a lung chasing a distant bike up a steep grade.  The cyclist eventually stopped at some traffic lights.  John pulled up next to him now a blubbering wreck only to find it was a rather fat bloke riding an e-bike.  LOL!  Funny that.  Not today though cos I couldn't catch the fecker.  I can only assume he was another one of those electron carrying Bosch powered lederhosen wearing thigh slapping old fokkers on his way home to TESCOs.

I arrive home.  Blathered in wet horse shit.  Fecked off.  I peel off my now not so high viz jacket which slumps to the floor before shuffling off with a whimper and crawling into the washing machine.  It's desperate.  So am I so off I go to have hot wet tingly sex with the shower again.  

Bah Humbug.  Biking clothes are shitty and wet.  Christmas is cancelled.  No social mixing is allowed.  Pubs are closed.  TV is crap.  Radio is worse.  I scream and shout at the news everywhere.  I'm fed up of only getting Covid and BREXIT bad news stories.  The rest of the World must be all sweetness and light?  Perhaps that's why there's nothing else to report and talk about?   I'm sure every damn reporter and news outlet in the UK is stirring the metaphorical bad news pot of hot Brexit malt and Covid liver oil with the biggest spoon you've ever seen.  Feeding it to us by the tablespoonful under our protesting pinched noses.  The end of the World for sure is nigh.  

I'm again sat at my desk.  I've decided to stay at home this Christmas cos it is the right thing to do.  The clock ticks mightily in the office.  It's reverberating all around the house.  My mind's old music box again whirrs into life and the thoughts of all Christmases past spill out.  Especially the times as a child too excited to sleep on Christmas eve and of waking up with a pillow case full of presents on the end of the bed.  Thanks mum, thanks dad, thanks sisters, all of you x.  That was the best of times.  

Nonetheless, the thought of the pre-ordained planetary alignment and the birth of a new star right now gives us all hope.  Of a Covid free 2021.  Of the return of my bike wheel from 40 days in the Hermanic wilderness.  And the purchase of another bike.  Of warmer, drier, less shittier days in the months to come.  Of the ability to go for long rides with my mates again to far away places.  And of being able to keep the innuendo and double entendres running in this blog.  

But most importantly, wishing a peaceful Christmas full of joy for everyone, especially for all the young children who are still in their eggs, many of whom will get their first ever bikes, at this very special time of the year.  

Stay safe everyone.  Merry Christmas!  

Ciao