A few thoughts on the past week...

I've slowed down on writing for this blog and put it down to writing 'other stuff'. With lockdown it's fair to say that nothing much has happened. I've been working from home for most of the day, I throw in a walk at lunch time and then after work, which is around 1630hrs, I might go for a ride on the bike. The week before last I managed 81 miles. This past week just 22 miles, but that was deliberate. For some reason I was tired and thought I'd give it a miss, which I did. I should have gone out on Saturday, to Westerham, but instead I slobbed around and didn't ride again until Sunday when I met Andy in the Northern Kent market town. Our habits are changing. For a start, we only meet once a week, on a Sunday, but we also meet at our destination rather than at Warlingham Green and now there's a new habit: not bringing tea along on the ride. For the past God knows how long I've been humping a huge Stanley flask of hot water all the way to wherever we're going, but over the past few weeks that flask is now staying in the house. Instead, a large English breakfast tea and an almond croissant and a cappuccino and almond croissant for Andy.

But nothing else has changed. Our conversations are still in good shape. In the past fortnight we've discussed Harley Davidson motorcycles, mainly because a whole bunch of them turn up and park outside the Costa. Andy doesn't like them. I do like them. Andy says they're old man's bikes. They are. Harley riders invariably have grey hair and beards or no hair and beards and they all wear the uniform, trying to look like hard men and that's where the problem arises. They're not in America and that, of course, is the issue. You have to be in America to ride a Harley in my opinion. Over here they look out of place. Andy's other gripe is that technologically they're pretty much old hat and they're heavy and, he says, the engine and gear box are separate. Andy says they've missed a trick and that their demographic is old blokes, they're not appealing to younger riders. Andy says he'd get a Royal Enfield if he did buy a bike again. Me? I like the Harley, I'm afraid. I'd probably spend more time polishing it than riding it, but I'd have an 883 Hugger with buckhorn bars. I like 'the traditional Harley rumble' and that's really it: I want to make a lot of noise on a highly polished motorcycle.

Not quite finished, I still had a lot of raking to do and the edges

Last Sunday we discussed something a little more boring: social media, well, Linkedin specifically and who knows what we'll be discussing this coming Sunday, which is still a way off (I'm writing this on Tuesday 13 April). Yesterday I went back to the office for the day, working from 0800hrs to 1700hrs with a half hour lunch break. Today I'm back home again and will be for the next fortnight and then I return to the office for a day and things will go on like that until the lockdown eases completely. It was good to be back in the office and I managed to get a fair bit of work done, which was good and when I left I felt good, which was something.

I'm still watching movies on Prime every night, sometimes two movies a night. It's an escapism thing. I'm trying to escape the monotony of everything, which is hard. I'm largely watching indie movies, American indie movies, but I've also watched a few mainstream movies too, like The Intern with Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway and Bucket List with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. It all amounts to the same thing: escapism. I sit there with my camomile tea and then hit the sack some time between 2300hrs and 2330hrs.

Our blossom tree is in bloom...

Weatherwise, things are improving. We're now operating on British Summer Time, there are blossoms on the trees and the weather is warming up, although, having said that, as I drove to work yesterday (12 April 2021) there were blizzard conditions. It snowed hard for most of the morning and stopped by lunch time. On Sunday (11 April) I managed to mow my rear lawn and managed to get it all done before the snow hit, which was good going. It's trimmed and so are 'the edges' and it's looking good. Mowing the lawn will be a major part of my life now until October. I don't mind doing it if the weather's pleasant, but we'll need a new mower one of these days.

And hopefully cycling will also start to pick up a little. The bike is fine and I've been enjoying the rides both with Andy on Sundays and alone midweek. The VeloBarn has reopened but apparently you have to log on with the test and trace app and all that mularkey so I'm avoiding it and sticking with Costa or the Tudor Rose in Westerham, the latter open for takeaways on a Saturday morning.

Not much else to report at the moment.