This and that...

It's around 0300hrs and I'm lying on my back in bed, or rather on the bed. Suddenly, I'm awake and it'll take me awhile to get back to sleep. Outside I can hear the rain, that's probably what woke me up, but now I'm hoping I don't remember whatever it is that I've been fretting about otherwise I'll never get back to sleep, although it's odd how suddenly I awake, unaware that I did fall asleep, and it's something like 0630 and I should be getting up to go to work. A lot depends on what day it is: if it's a Thursday or a Friday then I can afford to lie in, but in all honesty, once I'm awake there's little point remaining in bed. I get up, go downstairs, make breakfast and then sit and watch mainstream television channels, normally GMTV between 0630 and 0700 and then possibly a bit of the hilarious Mike Graham Show on YouTube, although it's highly addictive and that's the last thing I need when work, in some shape or form, beckons.

Pricey cake from GAIL's.

I haven't written for a long time and there's no real excuse or reason why not, I just haven't. I have, by and large, kept the cycling up. Last weekend, for example, I rode to Oxted and back, 20 miles, stopped for a cup of tea at Caffe Nero, finished off Hard Rain Falling by Don Carpenter and now I'm reading another 'rock' book, this time Welcome to Your Life by Roland Orzabal of Tears for Fears fame. In fact, today, I walked around two miles or so to Filtr, a coffee shop (a bit pricey for what you get) and sat there reading. I even managed to walk back and miss the rain. Yes, despite a major heatwave which started at the end of May and continued up until a day or two ago, the rain looks as if it's coming back as we head towards autumn, although I don't particularly want to talk autumn and then, inevitably, Christmas and how many shopping days there are to go, that's just plain depressing.

So the cycling has continued. The weekend before last I'd started riding non-stop, doing what I think I once called the Slines Oak Slogger, a 15-mile 'slog' up Slines Oak Road and then through Woldingham and down towards Botley Hill before heading along the 269 to Warlingham and home. Not a bad idea doing a non-stop ride as there's no lolling around in coffee shops and, therefore, no expenditure on tea and cakes, although on the latter, I had been doing really well in not having them, I literally stopped for some time until, that is, yesterday when I found myself in GAIL's eating one of their tiny little oval-shaped cakes with pink icing (see photo above). GAIL's is too pricey for what it is, like most places, but I always feel ripped off in GAIL's because it's too expensive for a chain operation masquerading as an independent, pure and simple. In fact, we try not to go to GAIL's and were foolish to enter one in Kew Gardens yesterday when there was so much choice from the independent sector. Still, you live and learn I guess. Actually, a word on Kew Gardens. The last time I was there, I was standing outside of a music shop and next to me was Pete Townshend of the Who. The music shop has gone, much to my dismay.

The much maligned front wheel.

A key thing of late has been walking, lots of it. Take this week, for example, since Monday I have walked roughly 13 miles, last week it was even more, I think it was 18 miles. I have a local route but I also walk back from the station on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Today is Friday and I walked roughly seven miles. All I've got to do now is get the swimming started up again and I'll be quids in, so to speak.

Tomorrow I hope to be up and out of the house on the bike. It's crucial not to sit around in the morning as it gets later and later and I end up doing a non-stop ride rather than a longer Oxted ride with a cup of tea thrown in for good measure. I've got to force myself not to watch YouTube, which, I'll admit, is becoming a problem, it's addictive, and the trouble is I tend to watch a lot of people shouting the odds about the UK and how it's governed, which, while entertaining, can become tiresome in the extreme.

I wouldn't say I'm on top of the world at the moment, I'm not. Up until relatively recently I was getting a good night's sleep, but now not so much. I'm still letting things get to me, which is wrong and it needs to be addressed, but how I just don't know. I need a day or two in the capsule to get my sleep back in order, a dose of Radio 3's Night Tracks wouldn't go amiss, anything to reset the clock or get myself back to a default setting.

Upended bike on parched lawn.

The bikes have been fine, though. The Kona is used occasionally and the Specialized is still my main go-to bicycle. I did have a puncture problem the other day, one of those occasions when something goes wrong and I end up in the shop asking them to fix it for me. It started when I bought a new tyre, which was okay, but it's always a little bit of a hassle getting it on the wheel. I was doing this in the back garden during the heat, the lawn totally brown. Anyway, somehow I pinched the inner tube the tyre wouldn't inflate because it was punctured. I bought another one.  There were far too many 'leeches' on the original inner tube that's why I bought a new one in the first place, but then, I ruined the new one and had to buy another. There was another problem, however, and that involved the wheel itself. We're talking the front wheel, which is normally the easiest when compared with the rear wheel, which involves the chain. I don't know what happened. I had to make sure that the wheel spun freely, but it didn't and I had to mess around trying to get it right, which I couldn't. God knows what happened, but I ended up having to buy a new thread thingy, a quick release set to give it its technical name and the guy in the shop fixed it for me. Very annoying. I always feel defeated if I have to let somebody else fix it, but it's working well now so all is good; there's a new inner tube, a new tyre and a new quick release set. I have another one should there be a problem with the rear wheel.

As the weather has, to a degree broken, my summer habit of buying two large bottles of Highland Spring sparkling water is slowly stopping. I used to sit out in the garden sipping the chilled drink as I read until darkness fell and then I'd come in and watch TV. Well, now, instead of the usual two bottles I only buy one and I'm guessing it'll only be a matter of time before that little habit disappears altogether. I'll try not to let it die. There's nothing worse than chilled (or ultra cold) water when the heat has gone, but if I can keep it up I will as drinking water is good for you and I'm partial to sparkling mineral water. For some reason I've gone off of drinking Pellegrino.

Dr. Michael Mosley once said that it was good to drink a glass of water with every meal. Well, I have one in the morning and I'm still working on having one in the evening too.

Two great rides...to Westerham and Oxted

I've been meaning to ride to Westerham for some time and now I've done it. I had, however, intended to leave the house at 0700hrs, like in the good old days, but didn't get on the road until around 0830hrs. The weather was good. In fact, I was definitely over-dressed with a fleece and a high-viz top I'd bought for a bargain in one of those 'outdoor' shops in Redhill, £23 reduced from £60! Not a bad deal.

Bike with puncture, Costa Westerham

I followed the route of old, up the 269, turning left just past Botley Hill and heading down Clarks Lane, except that instead of simply following the road around and into Westerham I turned left on to Pilgrim's Lane and headed for the Velo Barn. I'll admit that it was on my mind to go there instead but there were so many people arriving from various cycling clubs that I pushed on into the town... and discovered that I had a puncture, the first one in simply ages. Fortunately, it was a front wheel puncture and not a rear wheel affair. The bike limped into Westerham and I parked up outside of Costa and went inside to order a large English Breakfast tea. I took it outside and sat next to the bike. The tyre had completely flattened and it was just a matter of time before I set about fixing it. The weather was amazing, bright sunshine and I spent an inordinate amount of time simply sipping tea and people watching until the moment arrived: I stood up, wheeled the bike to a spot where I had room to turn it upside and begin the boring job of fixing it.

God knows why but I discovered that I didn't have any tyre levers and felt even more deflated than my front tyre. I thought long and hard. Should I go into the Costa and ask for a teaspoon? Should I wander around the stalls of a summer fayre that had been erected on the green and ask somebody for something that might do the job, or...do I ask a fellow cyclist. I chose the latter option and was handed a tyre lever. The guy in question was going in for a coffee, he'd cycled from West Wickham and had been down in Sevenoaks. We chewed the fat about the various hills nearby, like Titsey Hill and White Lane and I think he was fairly impressed by the fact that I was able to do them both with relative ease.

Outside of Caffe Nero in Oxted on Sunday morning...

I fixed the puncture, handed back the tyre lever and headed for home via the antiques shop en route. In side I spotted two amazing-looking picnic sets from the 1950s, like something out of Enid Blyton, and a vintage hose reel, a little rusty, perhaps, but then rusty stuff is all the rage in gardens these days. I wandered deeper into the shop and spotted a 1930s policeman's bicycle, reduced from £450 to just £250. Quite a bargain. I even spotted a Tracey Island toy. 

The tree in all its glory...

The ride back was par for the course and on Sunday I rode to Oxted, going down White Lane instead of Titsey Hill. I stopped at Caffe Nero and ordered a pain aux raisin and a cappuccino and again sat outside people watching until it was time to go. My route home avoided riding up Titsey Hill which I simply wasn't in the mood for; instead I road along Pilgrim's Lane to Rectory Lane and then rode up the hill. In all honesty, the exertion was the same and I should have simply rode up the hill like I normally do. I sped down the 269, along the Limpsfield Road and home and then went out and bought a mower. 

I write this on Monday 16th September. I'm taking the week off, but today is a sad day as our tree in the back garden is coming down. We don't particularly want it to be felled but it's going to be. I really don't like taking out trees. In fact, I've never done it before but our tree is getting out of control and it can't really be trimmed. There are plenty of problems all to do with lack of sunlight, not so much in other people's gardens (or ours) but the tree is sapping the energy of everything in its vicinity; and while it's not a big deal in our garden either, the tree has expanded sideways, it's making the grass mossy and is simply has to go. It's sad.

It's now 1033hrs and all the greenery is off of the tree, the actual greenery was only a few inches in depth meaning that had we trimmed it, the tree would be brown and, we're told, would never green-up again, so it had to come down. Right now it looks like a huge magic mushroom leaning slightly to the right from where we can see it from the house. There's three guys doing the job and I have to say that I wouldn't mind being a tree surgeon. In fact, when I was a kid I used to want to be a tree surgeon. Why, I don't know, but there used to be a company called Pennell ('the tree people') and they must have been fairly active around where I lived in Carshalton, hence my desire to be a tree surgeon. It's actually quite a cool job, you spend all your time in the fresh air, up a tree with a chain saw, I love it! And it's quite cool to be able to say, if asked, that you're a tree surgeon. You could possibly start off just saying you're a surgeon and then adding the tree bit later, but hey, I love the idea of being a tree surgeon, I'd hate to be a medical surgeon.

The tree at 1047hrs on 16th September.

Any way, it's had to come down, more's the pity, but that's the way of the world, it's not down yet, but that'll be the next part of the job. They're having coffees and Jaffa Cakes at this present time, but work will resume shortly. It's 1041 and work has restarted.

It won't be long before all trace of the tree is gone; it's been part of the house for many years and we've really enjoyed it's company. We've watched it grow and we loved it and we still do but there comes a time when things have to be done and that's about all I can say. I'm now looking at rhododendrens and possibly even another tree, one that won't grown so high, but let's see. 

Yesterday I bought a new mower, it arrives on Thursday and the grass will need a jolly good cut after that, then we'll start looking at how we can improve the space vacated by the tree.

I wasn't expecting the garden to look very good after the tree came down and I was expecting to be exposed to all the neighbours in the next street, but no, thanks to other shrubs and bushes behind the tree we took down, it looked okay. In fact, it looked great. The garden was sunnier than before and there were no big shadows cast across the lawn that were there before. So, in reality, while we all thought it was going to be a mistake, it wasn't, and we're definitely going to make the area look better with a few new shrubs and bushes, but, as I say, all is fine and, when all is said and done, the tree should have come down a long time ago. Look, I hate taking trees out and I'm hoping I can put one back in now that I've actually had one removed. I'll leave it there for now, actually, I'll simply leave it there, it's done, it's dusted, the tree won't be coming back and on one level, yes, it's sad, but on another level we can fix the grass, the neighbour's happy and we're happy.