Jon (top) and me below at Woodmansterne Green, Saturday November 7th 2009. A nice day. The sun was shining and the ground was dry. Boxhill tomorrow!
I have to say that I'm getting a little bored of Woodmansterne Green, but it's fine if you want a quick work-out on a Saturday morning and want to be relatively close to home. It's also quite a nice place in the autumn and there's a newsagent, as we discovered last week in the rain, that sells teabags (among many other things).
The topic of conversation in the newsagents today was the two UK winners of the EuroMillions draw; they each won £45 million. Silly money in the scheme of things and once you've bought that huge mansion the only thing that really changes in life is you have a longer walk to the kitchen in the mornings. I wouldn't know what to do with such a vast sum of cash, it has to be said. I'd probably do something worthwhile with the money, like build a hospital in Africa, named after me, perhaps; I might have a statue of myself erected out front so that my name lived on long after I passed away, who knows? With the rest of it, I'd have a nice time. I'd definitely buy that Fender Precision bass I've promising myself and I'd travel. I would travel around the world without leaving the ground. I've got it all sorted: train from Victoria to Southampton then pick up a boat and cross the Atlantic to New York. I'd hang around in the big apple for a day or two and then get a train to Seattle, where I'd book into the Ace Hotel on First and slob around for a week or two, visit Pike Street Market, eat out here and there and then I'd head down to Portland Oregon where I'd book into the Ace Hotel on First and Stark, chill out for a bit, live dangerously in the Joyce across the road for a day or two and then I'd get a train down to LA, well, San Francisco first and then LA. I would chill here too, probably go to Disney World or whatever it is that's in LA, swim a bit, eat a bit and then try and find a boat that would take me out to Hawaii where i would chill even more. After that, who knows? I'd probably be a beach bum for a month or two before finding out how to get a boat over to Japan and then, after touring around there for a bit, I'd jump on a ship to China, preferably Vladivostok where I could pick up the Trans Siberian Express and head for Moscow, travelling rhrough weird and whacky places like Novosibirsk (which is probably not spelt correctly). I would then make my way through Europe and end up on the ferry from Calais to Dover. Not bad eh?
But, of course, it will never happen. The chances of winning the lottery are something like 14 million to one! Think about that! To be honest, winning a six-figure sum on five and the bonus would do me. I'm not really motivated by money.
So there was Jon and yours truly standing on Woodmansterne Green talking about winning the lottery and wondering what the green would be like in 3009. We were talking about this because Jon had said that in 1809 there was probably nothing but woods at Woodmansterne. The clue, of course, is in the title, WOODmansterne. "Of course, by 3009 we'd just be dust," said Jon, bringing the futility of life and working for a living to the fore. Talk about on a downer! As he'd left the house, his wife reminded him that going on cycles with me and Andy was a bit like Last of the Summer Wine – another reminder of our frail mortality.
But it was too nice a day to worry about dying so I tucked in to a Flake and a bottle of mineral water and then spent the journey home dying for a piss – not because I'm an old git but because I'd also drank a pint of tea before I left the house this morning. The water must have taken me over the top. I waited until I got home.
I was a lovely day, as the photographs above show, and, while Andy doesn't know this yet, it looks as if we're going to do Boxhill tomorrow. Jon reckons its nearer than Redhill. I have my doubts, but another destination is what we need, otherwise we just keep turning up at Woodmansterne Green and this blog starts to get a little samey.
