It hasn't stopped raining for months... until Saturday 14 February (Valentine's Day). It was flagged up on my iphone many days prior, and sure enough, Saturday was a sunny, albeit cold, day and I managed a ride to Oxted, 20 plus miles and a huge hill on the return ride. I wasn't looking forward to the hill, it has to be said. In fact, all the way along the 269 on the outward ride I was debating riding to Westerham instead where I knew there were power points in the Esquire's coffee shop where I could charge my phone. However, when I reached the roundabout just past Botley Hill I decided to plunge headfirst down the hill and head for Oxted where I had a choice of coffee shops: Caffe Nero (which was packed solid); Starbucks, which was fairly busy; Costa that was virtually empty. I have a Costa card and I figured I must be getting close to a free drink so I bowled in and ordered an English Breakfast Tea in a takeaway cup. Sure enough it was free! Yippee!
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| Toronto, Canada, home of the band Rush. |
I took a seat at the front of the store, pulled out my book, Remind Me to Smile by Martin Downham, and relaxed. It must be said that Downham's book is brilliant, it's up there in my opinion with Mike Carter's One Man & His Bike and I love it. Equating it with Carter's book is because it's such a life-affirming read; it's nothing like Carter's book in reality. Downham's book is about Gary Numan, plus many other things, while Carter's book is about cycling around the coast of England, Scotland and Wales, totally different premises, but they're both life-affirming.
Soon it was time to go, but I kept thinking about the hill. At one point I was going to ride towards Westerham on Pilgrims Lane and avoid it altogether but in the end I decided I would simply grin and bear it, but first, a wander around Oxted, a look in the charity shop and, on this occasion, In Between the Lines, a shop full of greetings cards and books and scented candles. I bought a book for my daughter and a (late) Valentine's card for my wife. Normally I remember. In fact, I didn't forget but one way or another I never got around to visiting a shop to buy it.
And then the phone rang. It was Andy. Rare for Andy to call me on a Saturday, he's normally cycling with Oxted CC, but call he did. He asked me where I was and I told him I was in Oxted. He wanted a lift home from Sheree's to Caterham because he had a problem with his bike that couldn't be fixed. Sadly, I couldn't help. My wife had the car and I was on my bike. I figured that by the time I'd cycled home, waited for the car and then drove to Tatsfield, Andy would have fixed whatever was wrong with his bike and would be long gone. Later I called him and all was well, he had fixed the problem.
The ride home for me was fine too. The hill is never as bad as I'd been leading myself to believe it was, and I sailed up to the top and then rode along the 269 towards home. I was glad for the long ride. The last few weeks have been just one ride a week and (on Saturday) I was looking forward to a two-ride weekend. But no, the rain returned with a vengeance on Sunday so it was still a one-ride weekend. I'm just hoping the pattern will be broken soon. It was still light at 1720hrs today, that's a good sign. It won't be long before summer comes, as Thin Lizzy used to sing.
I'm loving Rush, the rock band
Of late, I've been obsessed with the band Rush. I've bought Geddy Lee's memoir, My Effin' Life, and I've bought Moving Pictures, one of many albums. They're fantastic! And let's face it, I've known of the band for a very long time but never really bothered with them. However, now I've been listening to their stuff on YouTube, there are tunes, riffs, that I remember from parties in the mid-to-late seventies. But somehow I never bought an album and now I wish I had. I've watched way too many interviews with Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson and Neal Peart, their excellent drummer, although, sadly, very sadly, Peart died so now there's just Lifeson and Lee and this year (2026) they're touring with a female drummer and possibly even a keyboard player to allow Geddy to perform more up front with Alex. Sadly the shows (starting in June) take place in the USA only, although I was wondering if they were going to do Glastonbury this year, who knows? Not that I'd attend that gig as it''s always fully booked and costs a small fortune. Perhaps one day.
What I like about Rush is their friendship, they've known each other a long time, especially Lee and Lifeson (and Peart when he was alive) and there are many videos on You Tube that I could simply watch forever. One is them going out for a meal together, all three of them, and the laughter and love they have for one another is there for all to see as is Lee's and Lifeson's grief over the death of their drummer, Neil Peart.
I'm not sure if I say much about it on this blog, but I've always wanted to play bass guitar, and I mean I've always wanted to play bass. I used to play violin and I figured that the strings are EADG as opposed to GDAE on the violin, so surely there's a chance I might be reasonably good. Well, I guess life has got in the way, although I'd love to own a Fender Precision bass and be able to play it reasonably well. I keep meaning to go out and buy one and just start playing it. In terms of possessions, I've never been the guy with the Porsche or the designer clothes (to be honest, cars and fashion leaves me cold) but I did once have a Rolex watch. The problem with it was that it never kept time and it was one of those possessions that has the eye of the theives and, therefore, it can be risky wearing it in certain places. On the time front, if I set it for noon on, say, a Monday, by Wednesday it would be ten past twelve and so on, so I put it back in its box and stopped wearing it, using my various mobile phones as my watch instead. But I've always wanted to have something that was 'good', something of value. I mean, the whole bass thing springs to mind. I could go out and buy a cheap Fender copy or a cheap Hofner copy or a cheap Music Man copy and what have you, but I'd like to own a Fender precision bass, I really would and I can and I will, very soon. I might even buy one of those stands to put it on.
Oddly, I've met a couple of bassists, Bill Wyman I bumped into in the Kings Road, London, and I met Paul Simenon of the Clash on Kings Cross St Pancras station and none of those meetings were in any way planned. I met Wyman outside of Gail's, a bakery store on New Year's Eve around three years ago. At the moment, my favourite Rush track is Limelight but also YYZ, which is an instrumental and there's a complicated bass line on it that many a musician raves about on YouTube. I like Tom Sawyer and Working Man and Spirit of Radio and I'm hoping to buy more Rush CDs to play in the car as I know they're not everybody's cup of tea. I'll have to be driving alone, of course. I'm the sort of person who can write with background music and Rush perfectly fits the type of music I like if I'm writing anything. Right now, it's too early to be listening to Rush, it's breakfast time and I'd be met with calls of 'turn it off!' or 'turn it down! or somebody would come in and switch it off for me, but to be honest, it doesn't have to be on loud. I like the complexity of Rush music and the interesting lyrics of Neil Peart. How many rock bands' drummers write the lyrics I wonder?
A week has passed since I started writing this post and it's Saturday again, 21 February, and I'm planning a ride. It's not raining, which is good, so I'd better get out there fast and get back again*. I need to start waking up early again. I used to be up at 0600hrs and out of the house by 0700 and then back around 0930 to 1000hrs, but not today. If I leave now I'll be back before noon so I'd better be quick. Of course, I don't have to do a long ride, I could do what I call the Norfolk Nobbler (during the pandemic I gave my rides stupid names); it's a short ride of around 40 minutes, lots of hills, or a few hills, but whatever I'm going to do I'd better do it sharpish or I won't be getting anywhere. Perhaps I'd better start setting that alarm clock again... and getting an early night on Fridays instead of sitting there watching Graham Norton.
* I never got out there, events took over and now, Sunday 22nd February, it's raining.
