In Linz...

I won't say it hasn't been fraught because it has and in so many ways it's just me allowing the little annoying things in life to hit me hard. Normally, it starts with the taxi ride to the airport, but not today. He was fine, he said nothing and just drove me to Heathrow Terminal Two at the crack of dawn, 0600hrs to be precise, although I'd been up earlier. I probably hit the sack around 2300hrs or thereabouts on Saturday night, wishing I didn't have to get up early and fly to Vienna, but I did. I must have woken up around 0330hrs and decided to just lie there trying not to fret about anything. It's easy to start fretting about things and then there's no hope in hell of nodding off again. However, I must have started to nod off because, just as I did my alarm went off. It was 0500hrs.

Time to head for gate A25 and the 0905 flight to Vienna...

The first problem was there were no dishes so I had to skip breakfast. Most of them had leftover food in them and were residing in the fridge. I just couldn't be bothered. Then there was no bread so I scavenged around until I found a bag of brioche burger buns, toasted one of them but could only eat one side as the other bit was burnt. That annoyed me, so I had another one, with marmalade but not toasted. That and a cup of tea was breakfast. I did my final checks and then I was off, the taxi arrived and I was gone. Not that I particularly wanted to go. I wasn't looking forward to the flight and I'd found out that I could take a train all the way to Vienna and that it takes 16 hours, sometimes a little less. I liked the idea of a stress-free journey.

On the plane...

I started to get annoyed when I entered the terminal building. Where should I go to check in? It was zone B and when I got there I found self-service machines. Now, I hate self-service machines. I used to hate them in the supermarkets (and still do) and I hate them even more at airports. These days it seems that we're all expected to do half of the job for the supermarkets and airlines, but I note that the prices remain the same or possibly higher. I hate supermarkets with a vengeance mainly because we all know, like with all capitalist scum, they're not there for the customer, they're there for themselves. I always have this desire for vengeance but I haven't worked out how to exact it without getting myself in trouble (yet!). I fully support shoplifters, by the way, and I'm so glad that our inept Government has made so many cutbacks that our police forces are unable to deal with petty crimes like nicking stuff from shops. 

Standing a little angrily at the the check-in terminals a man asked me for a reference number. I thought my passport would be good enough and told him so. "No, you need a reference number." "Well, I haven't got one," I said aggressively and he said nothing. "What about a human being?" I asked and he pointed to a check-in terminal. I skulked over there and had my bag checked in and then went through security, which would have been fine had my bag not been sent along the track to be double-checked by a human. Normally, this is because the system detects something of interest in the case, but mine was just full of USBs and a couple of notebooks. It happens to me regularly now and it means I have to wait just a little bit longer than normal before I can chill at the café beyond the Society of the Spectacle. I waited and waited. There was a guy from Brisbane en route to Stockholm and he clearly missed the memo about liquids; he had loads of them, probably mainly belonging to his wife as he didn't look particularly cleansed (nor did his wife). The security guy spent ages checking every bottle. When my turn arrived it was fairly simple. Basically there was nothing wrong and soon I was on my way.

Time to catch the train into central Vienna...

Because I was generally in a bad mood, probably because I'd allowed a situation to develop where I would have to fly off early on a Sunday morning – forfeiting a ride with Andy – I didn't really enjoy the breakfast. I ordered granola and yoghurt with a pot of English breakfast tea and sat there inwardly scowling to myself about virtually everything. I appear to be surrounded by absolute wankers. Whichever way I turn, there they are and their sole purpose in life is to annoy me. The gate was announced at 0825 and shortly after that time I paid up and headed for gate A25. And then the next hassle. I stood queuing and when I reached the passport check lady she told me I was in the wrong queue, so I had to go back, I wasn't allowed to pass Go or collect £200, I was suddenly at the back of the queue. 

View from room 41, Dom Hotel, Linz on Sunday 17th Sept

Soon I was through and sitting in the plane. I thanked God for small mercies, namely a window seat (19F). Outside it wasn't that clear. A blanket of grey cloud shrouded England but there wasn't much of it. Soon after take-off we broke through and the flight, bar a few bumpy bits, was fine. I took the train from the airport to the centre of the city and then jumped on a train to Linz. There were a lot of people and I could already feel my hackles rising as the seats, most of them, were booked and my ticket didn't seem to have a reservation. I stood up waiting for somebody to claim where I hoped to be sitting, but they didn't so I could eat my lunch in peace, although throughout it I kept thinking some bastard was going to turn up and turf me out.

A word (or two) on the weather: it was fantastic. No cloud cover in Austria just blue skies and sunshine. It was hot and at one point on the train journey I saw people paddle boarding on a huge lake. Summer clearly hadn't left the building in Austria and, to be fair, it hadn't left the UK entirely.

Room 41, Dom Hotel, Linz

I was sleepy and kept drifting off, almost missing my stop. The train journey to Linz from Vienna took around three hours, but I wasn't counting so I couldn't be 100% sure. My taxi driver took me to the wrong hotel, although it must be a common mistake as both had the word 'Dom' in their name. I had to walk all of five minutes with that irritating sound of plastic casters on cobbled streets. It wasn't easy and at some points I pulled and yanked at my suitcase as if it was an unruly a dog on a lead, unwilling to do anything I asked. I arrived at the right hotel and checked in and then realised that none of my shirts were pressed, but there wasn't an iron in the hotel room. Fortunately there was one in reception so I spent around 20 minutes on the floor ironing three shirts and then placing them in the wardrobe on hangers, at least I'm ready for my first meeting tomorrow morning.

I went out for a wander around town. It was warm and there were lots of women with smooth legs wearing summer dresses. I stopped at a bakery and coffee shop, Bäckerei Danecker, and ordered an English breakfast tea. And for a short while I felt better. I managed to sit and read a bit more of Climbers by M John Harrison. I've very close to the end now and I don't really want to finish it, although I have another M John Harrison book, the Centauri Device, so all is well on that front. The tea was served in a clear plastic cup without a handle, it wasn't glass but it looked like glass and was hot (the tea, not the 'glass'). Towards the end of my stay, the woman behind the counter gave me a jam-filled bun for nothing. I was chuffed! Somebody DOES love me, I thought, not realising at first that it was filled with jam, not that the filling meant she didn't love me. It was pleasant and it almost prevented me from having dinner, but after getting fed up with walking around I found a café and took a seat outside under an awning. It was warm and summery and I ordered beef stroganoff and an alcohol-free wheat beer. Perfect. I continued reading and then decided to retrace my steps back to the hotel.

I ordered beef stroganoff and beer

There wasn't much open. It was Sunday and it was like being in the UK when Sundays were sacred and nothing was open. Today, of course, everything is open in England. When I reached the hotel, the lift was on the ground floor waiting for me so I jumped in and pressed the button and soon I was in my room. It's a large room but it has one of those bathrooms where the walls are frosted glass. Now that's annoying because when I'm in a hotel I like to sleep with a light on. Normally I put the bathroom light on and then shut the door so there's just a little bit of light illuminating the room, like a little jagged piece strutting out from the source. But if I put the bathroom light on here it will blast out light all over the place I won't be able to sleep so I'll have to sleep in darkness and leave the curtains drawn back and thereby rely upon the natural light of the city. I'm in Linz, I've been here a few times and I like it a lot. In fact, on my earlier wander I actually arrived at a bike shop I remember from a previous visit, but being as it's Sunday it was closed.

I'm drinking a refreshing Gasteiner sparkling mineral water, which is much needed and afterwards I'm considering using my trim wheel, which I've brought along on the trip. I might not, though. Actually I will, why not, keep it going. I've been doing it daily for at least 10 days, probably longer, but so far I haven't seen any results. But I'm carrying on with it.

Alcohol-free wheat beer...lovely!

The bed doesn't look very inviting, especially that duvet laying diagonally across it, but I won't be hitting the sack just yet. One of the wardrobe's sliding doors sounds like a yelping puppy whenever I open it. Everything is so sterile and sad but I'm hoping that I'll feel better in the morning. Time, I think, to flick through the television channels and either watch something in a foreign language I don't understand (that's fun – not!) or check out BBC World, another sterile lump of politically correct, fence-sitting rubbish, not that I'm the sort of person who's going to watch GB News or Talk TV, they're even worse!

It's just gone 2100hrs and I've yet to switch on the television. I think the trim wheel will be first, although I'll call home and have a chat. They're watching Gaslight but I'll speak to them later.

After a brief call home I hit the sack around 2300hrs. I switched off all the lights and just lay there deep in many thoughts, one of which was thinking of my hotel room as an apartment. It was big enough. I decided that I would put shelves on the far wall for books and that was basically it. There were other thoughts, many, many thoughts, but I can't remember them now. I eventually drifted off to sleep and awoke around 0400hrs. Then I must have drifted off because the alarm rang out at 0600hrs and I kept pressing 'snooze' until it was 0630hrs, then got up and showered. It's not a bad hotel room, quite spacious and bright, but the most annoying thing about it is the door key. I've always been full of praise for hotels that don't have key cards, but not in this instance. There are three keys on the ring and they all look similar so the first hassle is always finding the right key, then it's all about getting the key in the lock and ultimately it means putting on my glasses, trying one key, then the next, does it go in upside down or the right way up, what is the right way up? Just opening the door is a faff, believe me.

Breakfast downstairs on the ground floor is fine. I ordered muesli with yoghurt, sultanas and nuts, a green tea and a couple of small slices of bread with apricot marmalade, not forgetting a banana. I sat there texting and then headed back to the room.

A busy week lies ahead of me and I'm looking forward to getting home. Shame it's Heathrow and not Gatwick, but you can't win 'em all.

Heading for home...

There was a time when getting up early, being 'up with the lark' and so forth, was not impossible, but not pleasant. I distinctly remember feeling like a fish out of water, standing in the kitchen unable to do anything, and everything around me looking as if it was something I simply shouldn't be witnessing or watching or whatever at such an ungodly hour. I remember using the snooze button on alarm clocks with regularity as a kind of step-down towards waking myself up; so I'd be rudely awakened by the alarm, but would reach over and press 'snooze' and then relax and try and enjoy being in bed until the 10 minutes were up and I'd end up pushing snooze again and again until I felt awake enough to deal with what the world had to throw at me. Not any more for some reason. Nowadays I'm invariably raring to go at around 0530hrs (my alarm is normally set for 0600hrs) and I have to stop myself from just getting up, trotting downstairs and making breakfast ahead of time.

Stockholm airport, about to board...

Yesterday was a long day and was rounded off with a pleasant dinner with a colleague, not somebody from my workplace, but somebody I knew, an American from upstate New York who was in the advertising business. We parted quite late, around 2300hrs, and I then I made my way back to my hotel on foot, it took about 10 minutes and towards the end of the walk I passed Dolce Vita (see previous post) long closed and the tables and chairs left outside because nobody in Stockholm was going to steal them; it would be a different case in the UK, I thought, as I passed the darkened restaurant and headed up the street towards my hotel, the Clarion Amarantem.

I messed around on the lap top and probably hit the sack around midnight, waking around 0530 and then heading down for breakfast a little later having decided not to shave until I'd eaten. Breakfast was a cacophony of chit-chat and clattering plates, very busy, lots of people and I wasn't impressed or prepared for it. Porridge, sliced pineapple and melon, a green tea with ginger and that was about it. I sat and read Climbers for a short while and now I'm back in the room, about to shower and get ready to check out and then fly home around lunch time (1310hrs to be precise). Generally speaking, time just disappears and if I don't get up from this desk now and set things in motion it'll be a huge rush.

Leaving Stockholm...

The shower here is rubbish. It leaks water all over the floor. I watched as the small towel I had placed on the tiles quickly soaked up the water that was falling on to it. And then, because there was water all over the floor, I had to shave whilst standing in the bathtub at an awkward angle. The tap in the sink was rubbish too as it worked on a kind of overly sensitive gear stick mechanism that turned hot and cold pretty quickly at the slightest touch. Function before form, I remembered a hotel designer once telling me, function before form. Clearly the Clarion didn't read the memo. Look, the hotel was alright, but because a lot of things simply pissed me off – the room was too big, the shower sprayed all over the floor, the breakfast was loud and clattering and not that good, there was no restaurant, just a bar offering – I won't be going back even if it was just a short walk to the central station.

I trundled my way down to the Arlanda Express, bought a ticket and boarded the train, then I fell asleep and miraculously woke up as the train reached the stop for Terminal 5. I checked in, secured myself a window seat and then swanned around. I had a cheese and ham sandwich at Caffé Ritazza and a cappuccino and then I went through passport control and now I'm in a Lavazza outlet with another cappuccino (I wanted a mint tea but there was no water) so I bought a bottle of still mineral water from which I am now sipping. I can't waste too much time sitting here writing this, mainly because there's not much to write about. I'm on the 1310hrs flight to London Gatwick and then I'll be home after a short train journey. I could get a cab from Gatwick but we'll see. The train's easier, to a degree, but the taxi just means sitting there and getting home. I'll probably train it. Anyway, that's about it, better stop writing, drink my coffee, sip my mineral water and then board the plane.

At Gatwick in the sun...

The flight was full but I managed to bag a window seat (22A) and, like the outbound flight on Tuesday, it was as smooth as you like. I ordered nothing and when I jumped off the other end and into the furnace-like heat of the UK's September scorcher, I felt as if I'd just landed in Greece, it was that hot. Taking a taxi would have meant waiting around for around an hour at the airport, possibly longer - and I was fed up with coffee shops - so I jumped on the train, called Natalie, who picked me up at South Croydon station and now here I am, back home, sipping a decaff PG Tips and feeling hot and increasingly sweaty in the heat. I might nip outside and continue with Climbers, but I figure the heat outside might be a little unbearable. Either way, I'm glad to be home.

Sweden is a great place and the weather over there was warm and sunny but not as sweltering as it is here. There was a warm breeze which made all the difference. Here, it's a dry heat and no breeze, but nobody dare complain as we've had a pretty crap summer, apart from June.

To Stockholm...

I can't stand technology. Just give me a receipt, I don't want one emailed to me, Friendo! But that's what was on offer as I sat in a taxi outside of Gatwick's South Terminal about to embark upon a trip to Stockholm. All very annoying. But that said, I've done it now and I've walked through the Society of the Spectacle without even stopping for a free tester. I didn't even want to be sitting here in The Grain Store restaurant eating granola and sipping a mint tea – for some reason I wasn't hungry – but the alternative was sitting 'out there' with my lap top resting, appropriately I suppose, on my lap. Give me a table any day. 

I could have ordered a pastry or a 'breakfast bap' but in all honesty it's best that I don't. So I settled for granola, yoghurt and berries and, yes, a mint tea. Haven't had one of them for a long while and it feels good. Normally I'd order a cappuccino, but perhaps I've turned a corner on coffee, who knows? Perhaps I'm back to the delicate touch of mint tea. 

At this stage in the proceedings there's not much to say. The Grain Store has filled out. People going places, just like me.

Inside Dolce Vita, Stockholm...great restaurant

The weather's been good. Very good. Clear skies, so I'm hoping for a decent flight, although, sadly, I've got an aisle seat. Seat 13D if you please. I'll see if I can get a window, but what's the betting it will be a 'full flight'? It always is and I hate that. "Sorry, sir, it's a full flight," they'll say and I'll sit there for over two hours unable to benefit from the view outside the window. My favourite flight of all time in this respect was Miami to Monterrey in Mexico back in 2019. It was about three hours in a smallish plane, but it was great.

Room 241, Clarion Amarantem, Stockholm

The gate for my flight to Stockholm wasn't going to be called until 0910hrs so I moseyed around looking at all the consumer electronics and realising I neither need nor crave any of them, similarly the aftershave and definitely not the wines and spirits, which look a little gaudy and downmarket in the same way that bags of crisps and other potato-based snacks look cheap and nasty when I find myself in their aisle at the supermarket. As I sit here now, at my desk in room 241 of the Clarion Amaranten in Stockholm – yes I've jumped ahead in time, but only temporarily – I notice a bag of crisps and a small bottle of red wine in front of me. It's a bit of a con because, well, putting aside the fact that I gave up boozing nearly six years ago and haven't touched a drop since, I was being made to think the food and drink was complimentary and could, I realised, quite easily have turned the screw-top and 'enjoyed' a glass without noticing that it would cost me 240KR. As for the GARDCHIPS, RÄFFLADE HAVSSALT (I'm guessing ready salted), there's no price attached to them so perhaps they are free. I'm leaving them well alone. Back in the day, however, I would have enjoyed a couple of glasses of wine with a bag of crisps, even if the end result would be waking in the dead of night, heart racing and unable to get back to sleep. Apparently, it's common and nothing to be worried about, but oddly – or perhaps not oddly at all – since I gave up drinking it rarely happens.

View from room 241, Clarion Hotel

But let's go back to being at the South Terminal of London Gatwick Airport. I was wandering around, disinterested in what the Society of the Spectacle was pushing in front of me. I checked out the consumer electronics and couldn't really escape the gaudy bottles of spirits, but there was no way I was going to window shop in Superdry or any of the other clothes retailers. I simply wandered about feeling, it has to be said, slightly sorry for myself. Initially, it's always a wrench leaving home at the crack of dawn for a two-day trip or longer, so I called home and made small talk. Actually, let me qualify that a little bit, it's not always a wrench, there are many times when I look forward to a trip (and there are many) but sometimes it would be nice if I could be with my family. The flight was departing from Gate 10 so I made my way there while chatting on the phone. I was destined to sit in seat 13D and was getting that 'full flight' vibe from all the people queuing to board when I reached the gate. It turned out there were 80 vacant seats. I managed to bag myself an exit row aisle all to myself and with the weather outside the plane looking amazing I just knew the flight was going to be smooth and enjoyable: it was! I had an Earl Grey tea and a bottle of mineral water and read my book, Climbers by M John Harrison – a brilliant novel.

Once on the ground I stopped for lunch at the airport where I found a Caffé Ritazza and ordered a cheese and ham sandwich and a herbal tea of some sort that I couldn't quite identify. It didn't matter. Then I tried to find out where the hotel might be located and was told it was close to Stockholm Central Station so I jumped aboard the Arlanda Express and 18 minutes later I cabbed it to where I was staying, but only because of the cumbersome baggage I was hauling around, normally I try to walk it. When I got to room 241 I was pleased to note that I had some kind of apartment. The room had its own lounge area and two TVs, one in front of the bed, the other in the aforementioned lounge area in front of a huge sofa. I'd say it was good, but I had nobody to brag to as I was travelling alone on this trip. One thing about big rooms is that I never feel comfortable. I don't know about you, but if somebody told me to sleep in a huge grass field, I would choose a spot in the corner close to a hedge separating my field from the others. I wouldn't sleep anywhere else, like bang in the middle, as that would be too exposed. It's the same with big rooms. I found myself thanking God that the bed in my room was against the wall and not, like Victorian baths in some boutique hotels, stranded in the middle of the room. Had it been, I would have 'camped' in a corner somewhere.

A lonely table for one at Dolce Vita

I think tiredness makes me depressed – and let's not forget, I was up at 0530hrs this morning. As I walked along towards St Göran's Hospital with no particular plan in mind – I was just mooching – I found myself feeling a little pointless. I think it had a lot to do with the new buildings going up around a street called Franzengatan. New apartment blocks, a strong sense of renewal and an air of anticipation brought about by a sense of imminent switch-on, activation of the buildings and the surrounding area as a whole, it had yet to be plugged in, I thought, as I reached a kind of dead end and turned to retrace my steps. Somehow I didn't feel a part of things and it depressed me a little bit and I didn't know what to do or how to deal with it. There were no coffee shops to dive into, which would have diffused the situation a little as I could have ordered a cappuccino and resumed reading. Instead, I walked back to the hotel, hovered around in the room for a little while and then started thinking about dining (alone). There was always the hotel bar. The restaurant on the first floor was being refurbished, I was told, and the bar was serving food, but I thought I'd take a walk around in search of somewhere decent before admitting defeat and falling back on the hotel. Fortunately, I found Dolce Vita diagonally across from the hotel at Kungsholmsgatan 16. Red gingham table cloths, candles on every table, very cosy. You can't beat an Italian restaurant and I had a good feeling about this one. I perused the menu and eventually chose Bruchetta al Pomodoro to start followed by Salmone All Italiana. Sparkling mineral water and a coffee rounded off the meal and I forced myself not to have the Tiramisu (and felt great about resisting it!). I was the only person dining alone – I always am. I've dined alone in many an Italian restaurant: Da Bruno in Dusseldorf, Belini in Philadelphia, Bocconi in Brussels and countless others. In Dolce Vita, there were two other couples and a few people sitting outside under an awning enjoying the late summer heat. On my table, it was just me and my phone and I was left to my own thoughts of which there were many. 

Tasty starter at Dolce Vita

After paying the bill, I walked down to some water as the light of a great day began to fade and watched as a boat with a powerful, rumbling engine emerged like a gun ship from under the bridge I was standing on; it disappeared in to the distance a bit like that motorboat at the end of Tales of the Riverbank, a fantastic children's programme I used to watch as a kid, and I must say, re-watching the intro (especially the end bit when you see the motorboat carrying the hamster) almost brought a tear to my eye as I found myself thinking of mum, now 94, and how we used to sit and watch it together. If you want to see it, click here, and if you linger awhile at the end, you'll see another wonderful programme intro, Stingray. "Anything can happen in the next half hour!" I found myself looking at other YouTube videos including What's My Name, a track from the first Clash album which, in so many ways, summed up my state of mind when I reached the ripe old age of 19. I remember being 19 and going to the Nelson for a drink having bought an album by the Stranglers, the one with No More Heroes.

Time moves on, it's now 2123hrs and my hotel room is lit only by a desk lamp and a light in the vestibule. Now there's a strange word, 'vestibule'. It's one of those words, like 'gable' and 'buttress' that I've never really understood. In fact, I recently keyed them into Google Images to get a definitive meaning. Strange, isn't it, that you go through life not really understanding everything in front of you and not really needing to either until one day, curiosity finally catches up with you and like everything else, you wonder what the fuss was all about. Another word I have trouble with is 'cantilever'. I know, it's stupid, but this is me, it's the way I am, and if somebody said to me, 'what is a cantilever', I'd have trouble providing them with a clear verbal explanation...better check out Google Images, which I have done and I'm still none the wiser.

Main course at Dolce Vita...

There are loads of things I'd have trouble describing to somebody verbally and all the words I've mentioned above are in that ballpark and in all honesty it's not something worth worrying about. I know what my dad would say if he was reading this, he'd say something along the lines of 'you're not unique' – he said that a lot to me growing up and it helped, suddenly realising that there were always other people in the same boat and that whatever was bugging me, it was not something I was dealing with alone. It's always worth remembering: you're not unique, although, of course, in so many ways we're ALL unique, but dad was talking about day-to-day ailments and run-of-the-mill observations that everybody experiences, or thoughts we all have but often think, perhaps, that we're alone in our thinking. The reality is that whatever is on your mind, you can bet that many other people think the same way and in that sense, you're not unique. And how heartening it is when you mention something or other and somebody else says, 'I know what you mean, I feel like that too' or 'that's what I think'. I still find it pleasing when somebody says that to me as it's good to know that I'm not alone and I think that's what it's all about, not being alone, be it physically or mentally. This is all getting a little bit heavy.

Tales from the Riverbank. Stockholm at dusk.

Anyway, I suppose I ought to be thinking about chilling out and watching something on the television or even hitting the sack. I've got to be up with the lark tomorrow. I thought for a minute I'd be missing breakfast but no, breakfast will be served on a coach and you can't get much better than that, can you? Well, alright, breakfast downstairs in the restaurant would have been quite nice, but on a coach? It's an experience for sure*.

* As it turned out it wasn't so great. A paper bag carrying a small plastic bottle of orange juice, a filled croissant and a bowl of cereal none of us would eat because there was no spoon. It didn't matter, I eat too much anyway. In many ways it was a shame as most of those breakfast bags went to waste. I remember they were still on the coach when we embarked upon the return journey to Stockholm.

To Biggin Hill...

I left the house shortly after 0730hrs. Compared with yesterday, the weather was good. Outside it was bright and most importantly it was dry. But there had been rain, a considerable amount of it. Cycling down Lusted Hall Lane en route to my chosen destination there was a huge expanse of rain water spanning the road. I slowed down and rode through it very slowly, trying my best not to get wet.

Earlier, I had been in two minds about where to go; should I ride to Oxted, Biggin Hill, Carshalton, Westerham or even Tatsfield Village for a cup of tea over at Sheree's. I had an errand. "Can you get some Fairy washing up liquid, the green one?" Not a problem. There's a Waitrose in Oxted and Biggin Hill and in all the other places there are other stores, like Sainsbury's Local, Tesco Express, Nisa Today, you name it. I could have gone anywhere, but of course I wasn't riding just to get washing up liquid. I was out because there was exercise to do and I didn't get out yesterday because of the poor weather. As I said to Andy on the text, it was a wash-out.

Biggin Hill where I turn left into Sunningdale...

Andy couldn't make it today so I didn't go to Westerham. I did consider riding there, but I wasn't too keen on the ride out, never have been. I don't know what it is, but there are some routes where I don't like certain bits of the journey. The one I hate the most is the ride through the golf course, normally en route to Godstone and just prior to riding down Ganger's Hill, now there's a ride we haven't done for a while. With Westerham the entire return journey isn't good. For a start, most of the first half of the ride is uphill and it also hangs on which way I leave town. If I head out on Clarks Lane (the way I come in) there's something, I'm not sure what, that depresses me or that makes me feel weary. Not to put too finer word on it, I fucking hate it.

That said, I suppose you could say that all these routes have their bad bits. Oxted has Titsey Hill, but for some reason it doesn't bother me. Biggin Hill has Ricketts Hill Road coming out and Stock Hill going in, but again, it's not a bother, it's certainly not in any way depressing. Tatsfield's alright and so is Carshalton, although on the latter, I hate the return trip. As urban rides go, the outward bound journey is best, probably because there's less traffic, but coming out of Carshalton there are options, ie go out towards Woodmansterne and then back along Croydon Lane or cut through Wallington and the Stafford Road. 

Looking down Stock Hill on the return ride...

So I'm riding along thinking I could head over to mum's if I hang a right on Slines Oak, head through Woldingham on to the A22 and then through Purley, Foxley Lane and down through the Beeches, past the Windsor Castle and hey presto! Mum's gaff.

In the end Biggin Hill won the day. I rode along the 269 towards Botley, hung a left at the roundabout and then a left into Approach Road and down Lusted Hall Lane. It's a short downhill coast to Biggin Hill, probably no more than 10 minutes and then I found myself on Sunningdale Road, which is flanked on either side with modern houses, sixties or seventies built properties all a bit too close together for my liking. Some are nice, some aren't, but for some strange reason I like Biggin Hill, even if it is a little depressing. I can't put my finger on it. The last time I was here the Spitfire Cafe was closed, today it was open but I wanted the familiarity of the Costa Coffee, and besides, I have a Costa Card and after so many purchases I get a free drink. Unfortunately, the card didn't work in their machine so my purchase counted for nothing. I sat outside with a pot of tea and a couple of ginger biscuits. There was a man with his daughter, both on mountain bikes, Forme mountain bikes. They sat there chatting, the girl on her mobile phone checking her exam results. I simply sat there looking at passing cars and then decided it was time to get that Fairy washing up liquid. Waitrose didn't open until 1000hrs so I popped into the Tesco Express and bought what I needed, then I unpadlocked the bike and embarked upon the ride home. Left at the lights, down Stock Hill, but not before taking a photo and then left into Sunningdale, up Ricketts Hill Lane and through Tatsfield Village. I hung a right out of Approach Road, on to Clarks Lane heading for the Botley Roundabout. I turned right and rode along the 269. I'm always cautious on the 269 because there are nutters on the road, but soon I was on the Limpsfield Road, which technically is still the 269 but a little more suburban. Past Sainsbury's, round Warlingham Green, Hamsey, Sanderstead high street, Church Way and home. I must have reached home around 1030hrs and then I lay down on the wicker chair in the garden room. I've never felt so rested and I think I must have nodded off. I drifted in and out of sleep loving every second of it because I felt great. I felt rested and deliciously tired and weary. It was nice and it was past lunch time when I got up and headed towards the municipal rubbish dump. I had some olive oil to dispose of, like a whole bag of it. When we got there I was directed to a tank with a yellow hatch that needed to be opened before I could dispense with the oil. Then I drove to mum's. We helped her out into the garden and sat there for half an hour or so chatting in the pleasant breeze, talking about plants and trees whilst sipping tea and munching on two bar KitKats. I might have had three of them. And then, as we drove back, we decided to eat out rather than cook something at home. Fine, we don't do it often so why not?

Ricketts Hill Road takes me back to Tatsfield Village

It's now 2239hrs. I'm watching the second of two movies, both on Prime. The first was Red with Brian Cox, a good movie; and then The World We Knew, a crime movie, quite atmospheric. I'll probably go to bed in a minute as the camomile tea is kicking in. I didn't ride yesterday, but I got one in today, just over 21 miles, not bad.

Too weak to resist biscuits, cakes and cappuccinos...but I've been on the trim wheel!

I've been sleeping well and I put it down to Celestial tea, which I purchased back in May at a CVS in Detroit. I included in my purchase some Sleepy Time tea (known by me as Sleepy Time Bear tea because there's an illustration of a bear sitting in front of a real fire making himself cosy and warm). Not that you'd want to be 'cosy and warm' on a summer's day. Anyhow I bought the tea and I've almost finished the lot. The Sleepy Time Bear tea ran out about three to four weeks ago (I used to have one around 2200hrs and then hit the sack - and it worked!) Then there was a box of Celestial tea, a kind of assortment pack including a few sachets of Sleepy Time Bear and now they've gone except for around two, possibly three camomile teas (which are really potent). These past few weeks I've been sleeping well. Hitting the sack around 2300hrs and not waking up until around 0600hrs. That's good enough for me; an unbroken sleep, that's what counts, and it makes me feel better generally. So I'm going to buy some more of these great teas. Yeah, I know, I could simply go to the supermarket and buy some Pukka teas, but they're not as good and now I'm of the opinion that stuff in the US (and I'll include over-the-counter drugs like Nurofen and other painkillers) is a little more potent, a bit stronger than what you get over here. Anyway, that's for later on. I'll sneak on to Amazon and load up with Sleepy Time Bear teas. I might also get myself some of the camomile tea as it's great and there's nowt better than getting a good night's sleep.

"Number three crop, please!"

I woke up this morning around 0600hrs and then must have drifted off again because I awoke again around 0649hrs. Alright, that 0649 was such a precise time that I'll admit the word 'around' doesn't come into it, not one bit. I woke up at 0649hrs. The only way 'around' could have come into would have been if I awoke 'around' 0650hrs. You can be vague and precise at the same time, it's either around 0650 or it's bang on the nail 'I woke up at 0649hrs', one minute before 0650hrs. How much more precise would you want me to be?

I'll admit that sometimes when I wake up and make my way downstairs to the kitchen that I start to want some kind of change. I think it's the breakfast I eat. Every morning I have the same thing and sometimes I can't face it: Alpen with sliced bananas, a mug of tea (either green or black), an orange cut into segments, a glass of warm water and two slices of bread and marmalade (or honey). My big problem at present is bread. I've gone from eating three slices a day to eight: two in the morning, two with sandwiches at lunch time, two when I get in from work and possibly another two if I'm still feeling hungry. At the moment I seem to be hungry all the time, so much so that in addition to my sandwiches, grapes and an apple at noon, I then go out and have a large English breakfast tea and two ginger biscuits in Costa or...a large (albeit 'regular') cappuccino and a slice of carrot cake with orange icing in Busy Beans (an artisan coffee shop). Then there's always the M&S cafe where a cappuccino and an iced bun always go well together. And let's not forget the caff where I go for a cup of tea if it's raining and this week it has rained a bit so the walk was cancelled and the Pop Inn came into play. Sometimes, in addition to the mug of tea I might have a slice or two of toast with marmalade, but not this week, it was just the tea. And just when I thought it was safe to go back in the water, what about those Grenade bars? What about them? Well, first there's the cost, which varies depending on where you buy them, they appear to range from £2.85 to £3.00 per bar but they certainly do the trick. Eat one of them and your hunger will disappear. On one day last week I had a custard Danish instead of the Grenade and ever since I've been trying to work out what is best, the pastry or the Grenade? Certainly where cost is concerned, the pastry (at £1) is best, but you know what? I prefer the Grenade even if I could have three pastries for the price of one Grenade.

Coughlans Oxted... it's not a bad place. Note bike on right

With all this eating going on, I console myself with the fact that I take the bus home for nothing, reducing my weekly fares by £25/week AND I have a good walk (every night) when I get off the bus (around 1.6 miles). If there's torrential rain, as there was earlier in the week, I'll call home and see if I can get a lift.The other day, the heavens opened and I mean opened. Let's just say it was torrential. It was so bad that the bus sent waves of rain water from the gutters on to the pavements, proper breaking waves, it was unbelievable. On that day I asked for a lift and was glad when it came even if I was thinking it had calmed down enough to make completing the walk feasible. So, I've been doing the 1.6-mile walk every week day now for some time, possibly for one month and when I get home the first thing I do is make that toast and marmalade in the kitchen and then take a seat in the living room where I watch either the One Show or the early evening news on the television. Last week I restarted watching Detectorists. I reckon I've seen all series at least four, possibly five times.

Something else I've started up is a trim wheel. I've been rolling backwards and forwards on my Gold's gym trim wheel on and off all week, although I have missed a couple days too, but not today. I'm going to keep it up and I'm also considering swimming too (if I can get my act together to sign up for monthly membership. I just hope I don't have to use the app to book a slot like I had to during the pandemic, which basically meant I never bothered going. That said, a few weeks back I went to a leisure centre and they said the app thing was still the only way to get a swim, which annoyed me, so perhaps I'll stay away. 

It was too early for lunch...

Despite the lack of cycling today and the fact that it's raining and that August looks as if it's going to be just as bad as July, it's turning out to be a really nice day in other respects...although that is partly because, again, I've gone and over-indulged on the cakes. Well, an almond croissant. This morning I noticed that there was a huge Starbucks next door to and M&S Food store so I convinced my wife, pal and saviour (that's just one person by the way) that we should pay a visit, which we did. And while I should have ordered a tea and nothing more I decided to order a cappuccino and the aforementioned almond croissant. It's as if I can't help myself. In fact, less of the 'as if', it's purely a case of I can't help myself. But, forget the croissant and the coffee, it was all about the chat and relaxing and starting to feel good about things in general and now I'm home having 'done the shopping' and I'm sitting at the dining room table, lap top in front of me, another cup of tea and (dare I even mention it) a slice of walnut cake and I'm thinking about nothing in particular. While in M&S I picked up a copy of the Economist only to discover that it was their 'summer special' and cost a ridiculous £9.99. Remember 'Summer Specials'? I'll always remember the Beano and the Dandy summer specials: twice the size of the conventional comics, they invariably featured an illustration on the front cover of a Punch & Judy show on a beach with bright yellow sand and a star fish somewhere to be seen and I loved them because it always meant that the summer holidays were coming and we were off to the beach somewhere on the south coast. Happy days!

I'm hoping tomorrow will be better weather. I think it will be. The plan (as always on a Sunday) is to meet Andy in Westerham. Unfortunately, Andy has aborted the ride so it's to me to motivate myself. Let's see (let's hope). Last week I managed two rides. The first was an interesting one because it started off as just a ride around the block, but extended itself as it went along. So instead of doing the Nobbler I continued up Church Way with a view to doing a Washpond Weeble in reverse. I turned left into Ledgers Road from the 269 but instead of turning left again and heading back home I turned right on Washpond Road and then right again on to Beech Farm Road, travelled the length of it and then hung a left on the 269 riding towards Botley Hill where a stark choice lay before me: do I hang a right on to The Ridge and ride home very Woldingham OR do I go straight ahead and down the hill into Oxted? I chose the latter as I needed a haircut and figured I could kill two birds with one stone. Titsey Hill was fine but when I reached the bottom I found the road to be closed. Fortunately, it was really only closed to cars so I managed to edge past the roadworks and sail safely into to Oxted where, once again, I was tempted by Coughlans bakery and a coconut Bakewell and a cup of tea. Across the road was Oxted Barbers so I nipped in for a quick number three crop and then finished off with another cup of tea (I felt that elated!). The barber only accepted cash and the haircut was £17 - that's up £7 from what it was just a year or two ago. With the remaining three pound coins I decided upon another tea, but not another cake. Unfortunately for me, the only newspaper in the racks was the Daily Mail (exposing the political leanings of Coughlans customers) so I sat in the sunshine reading the awful Boris Johnson's rubbish column in which he stated "Get Rwanda Done" - it was an old copy.

The ride home took me up the very steep Chalkpit Lane. Once at the top I turned left, rode into Woldingham and down Slines Oak Road to the 269 where I turned left and followed the road into Warlingham and then Sanderstead.

On Sunday Andy and I rode to Tatsfield Village and sat outside chatting for over an hour drinking tea and coffee and munching some Biscoff creams (if that's what they're called). Again, I fell at the first fence and went and bought myself a packet. I munched half of it before we rode home and spent the rest of the day feeling slightly guilty.

Last Sunday I rode into Tatsfield Village to meet Andy. He had met with an accident whilst on a short cycling break to the Isle of Wight, but nothing stops Andy, which is good. Thankfully, it was only cuts and bruises, but I don't like it when he meets with an accident especially after his broken hip just over a year ago. Still, he seems fine, which is all that matters.

My exercise during the week was just walking. On one day (I think it was Monday) I walked over six miles but for the rest of the week it was the 1.6-mile walk from the bus stop to home, but that has been a regular fixture for around a month now. 

I drove to Tunbridge Wells this afternoon along a rain-sodden A21. Once there I strolled from the shopping mall down the hill to a music shop close to the station. There was a persistent, drizzling rain, but fortunately it was only around 10 minutes' walk. When I reached the store there were no bass guitars to look at; I've always had a desire to learn how to play one, but (as with everything I want to do) I simply never get around to it or have other things to spend the money on. Other frustrations include the purchase of a Harley Davidson 883 Hugger, although, admittedly, I'm rather glad that little hobby, make that obsession, eluded me as I'd probably be dead now, not that I ever had the spare cash to buy one.

Today's rain was both persistent and sporadic. As I made my way back up the hill towards the mall, the sun was shining, but later, as I drove along the A21 heading home the rain was heavy, so heavy that I had to slow right down. 

Now home I've been listening to BBC Radio London and Gary Crowley's show, all fairly chilled. I need to be chilled now and then as I spend all week working and it's good to be on the stepping stones of Saturday and Sunday before wading back into the maelstrom on Monday. And on that note, I'll sign off.

I escaped the rain

At first I dawdled. I wanted to leave at 0800hrs, or did I? I'd already looked outside and the scene that greeted me was one that said it was going to rain, even if the iphone weather app said no rain until around 1600hrs. I decided to put my faith in the phone, it had been right before and I was sure it wouldn't let me down. But where to go? A short ride was mooted, a Washpond Weeble, no tea, no stopping, just constant ride in the gloom. No, surely not, there has to be more to life than a non-stop ride to nowhere. Oxted was always on the cards, but the two people I'd hoped might be there both butted out. Not a problem. 

Costa Biggin Hill...very pleasant

When I'm riding alone or not meeting anybody it means just one thing: greater freedom. I could leave the house when I wanted to and that helped in a way. I set off with no fixed idea as to where my final destination would be, but I had started thinking about Biggin Hill. Now there's a place I hadn't been to for a long while. I had fleeting memories of the place, the modern houses that were seemingly stacked on top of one another, the Spitfire Cafe, Stocks Hill, Ozzie's Cafe where they only accept cash or are closed...so that's where I decided to go. Tatsfield and Biggin Hill are virtually joined at the hip. One second you're in Biggin Hill and then there's a sign that says 'Tatsfield'. 

On the outward route I rode along the 269 and headed for Tatsfield Village, the temptation there being Sheree's Tearoom, but it's poor value for money even if the surroundings on a decent day can be quite pleasant, what with the pond and that whole village green thing going on. But I bypassed it, heading down Lusted Hall Lane, which was far more twisty than I remembered - and a little precarious when cars are around, but soon I was there, in Biggin Hill, riding through the burbs, trying to get my bearings and soon I found Ozzie's, having forgotten they only accepted cash. I never carry cash and I wasn't going to start now. Imagine that, drawing out money from a cashpoint, say a tenner, and then just spending a couple of quid on a cup of tea and having eight quid of loose change in my pocket. 

My bike outside Costa in Westerham last Sunday...

Cash is dead money, it's already been debited from the bank account, it has to be spent when, of course, it never had to be before it was drawn. I know, silly argument, but it's the way I think, so I circled back on myself and headed up the arduous Stocks Hill, right to the top and then a right turn and a slalom on the pavement to avoid pedestrians. I was looking for the Costa. I knew it was there and I knew it was at the far end of the High Street. I passed the Spitfire Cafe and it was closed, which was good as the cup of tea you get in there is a small mug. I wanted the large Costa English Breakfast in a takeaway mug, because you get more in the takeaway cup than you do in the pot and the tea stays warmer for longer. I did consider a Millionaire's Shortbread but it was £2.50, just like the tea. In fact, it might have been £2.60 and I didn't feel that was particularly good value for money either, so just a tea. 

Andy's New forks...love them!

I sat outside underneath the gloomy skies, which got gloomier as time passed and soon a fine drizzle began to fall and it might as well have been October, not July. Suddenly everything was extremely depressing. I was sitting under an awning so I wasn't getting wet. I just sat there watching the rain fall and thinking about the inevitable ride back. The vibe was bad, there was nothing to look forward to other than a soaking, or that's what I was thinking. My bike was padlocked a little way from the Costa but I could still see it. A few women went past with dogs, well one woman. There was a couple sitting close by with a small dog and they eventually upped and left and then a thick set man with a bushy beard sat on an adjacent table drinking coffee. Not sure what he ordered but I think it was an espresso. When the woman with the dog walked by he asked if it was okay to stroke the dog, she said yes, but don't be upset if he doesn't want you to stroke him. Fair enough, and the dog seemed a little indifferent to the man. A man with a tattoo on his upper right arm walked by with his daughter and soon it was time for me to consider the ride back. 

The rain continued but it was fine, very fine, like one of those sprays you might use on delicate flowers. I unpadlocked the bike and headed off back down the high street, gliding down Stocks Hill, bearing left and finding my way to something like Ricketts Hill or Ricketts Road, which was a long and arduous hill but not anyway near as hefty as going back up Lusted Hall Lane. I always seem to meet women when I'm climbing hills on the bike and they always have something to say, like "Not far to go, you're almost there!" And I always respond in kind and then carry on up to the top. She was right, there wasn't far to go, but I always get into my stride on hills, I knuckle down if you like and just move forward without thinking. I'd gotten used to the rain and it was so light that I didn't really get soaked at all. In fact, the rain stopped and I reached home intact.

Near Rectory Lane on the return ride from Westerham recently

The rain all but stopped by the time I reached Tatsfield Village green and followed Approach Road out towards Clarks Lane where I turned right and headed for Botley Hill. Then it was just a straightforward jaunt along the 269, through Warlingham, into Sanderstead and home. The bike's been performing really well of late, especially the gears which have been changing up and down with ease. During the week I did two Norfolk Nobblers. I've been feeling so tired and weary and have been finding it hard to get my act together and ride the bike. It might be something to do with not eating a decent hot meal at lunch time. I've been living on sandwiches and to be honest it's been fine but I've noticed that I've been getting increasingly weary. 

Saving money by taking the bus home, not the train...

I've taken to getting the bus home and just buying a single ticket for the inward journey to work. This way I save £25 a week, although I've been spending the extra on tea and toast and mineral water, but it's still good. The bus means I have almost a two-mile walk from the bus stop to home and this is fairly pleasant, but when I get home the last thing I want to do is get on the bike... or rather that was the case on Tuesday when I did the first ride. As soon as I turned on to West Hill and an immediate incline I almost turned back, I was THAT tired, but I persevered and put in a time of around 38 minutes. Put it this way, I was glad when I reached home and logged the ride on Strava. But then, two days later, on Thursday, after having a hot meal at lunch time (chicken bap, apple pie and custard and two mugs of strong tea) I rolled with it and shaved around four to five minutes off my time. 

Having a hot meal at lunch time is good

The Nobbler is harder than you might think, it's like a roller coaster and if I put the effort in to it I really feel it is doing me some good. I've also been using a trim wheel that has been sitting in the garage for years, but I've brought it back into the house and have been doing around 25 reps or whatever it is they're called. It's supposed to be good for the core and the abs and stuff, but let's see.Right now it's Saturday night, it's 1936hrs and once again I'm watching the Editors at Glastonbury on the television (iplayer). They're such a good band. I'm now watching Alt-J, never listened to them before, but they sound very promising. Actually, I'm not sure they're my cup of tea, in fact I'm going to turn them off, I don't like the cut of their jib. I've switched to Pale Waves, an indie rock band from Manchester with a female singer, but they're not that good so I'm back watching the Editors again.

 

Getting my act together...slowly but surely!

It's been three weeks and one day since I drank my last cappuccino. I was concerned that the high calorie beverage was, among other high calorie foodstuffs, piling on the weight (I'm almost 13 stone, or I was when I last weighed myself). I'm putting it all down to cake and cappuccino and, it has to be said, not a great deal of exercise. Now you might think this an odd thing to say when you consider that, on average, I walk 5km per day, recently took part in a 27km walk and have recently (that's the word to watch, 'recently') got my mojo back where cycling is concerned (even if I could add the phrase 'but only just').

Things got messy...

But let's digress a little and talk about food. As mentioned, I've been off the cappuccinos now for three weeks and one day (not that I'm counting) and I've been trying my best on the cake front; in fact, on that subject, I've been doing fine and have only succumbed a little bit to the odd biscuit (Lotus Biscoffs) but no cake. Well, until yesterday morning in Oxted and it was all unnecessary. I arrived in Oxted roughly on time and cycled up the high street towards my normal place of refreshment, Caffe Nero. But there was a queue. I padlocked the bike and considered standing there as the people ahead of me ordered their complicated drinks ('Can I have two single shot soya lattes, one normal coffee with a dab of cinnamon, two English Breakfast teas...') but in the end I couldn't be bothered. Instead I walked down the high street with a view to a Costa. But I was waylaid by a colourful display of cakes from the window and servery counter of a Coughlan's bakery. In I walked with the idea of just having a cup of tea, but no, one look at the coconut bakewells and I was hooked. 

"Is that all, sir?"

"Er, it should be, but I'll have a coconut bakewell..."

And then I sat outside making a mess, the bike padlocked outside the Nero up the road. I realised my mistake as I munched through the cake. It was flaky, bits falling off left, right and centre and it was hard to get the thing in my mouth. I must have looked like a right pig and that was because I was one. I consoled myself with the fact that it was my first cake in three weeks and one day, and the fact that I'd be cycling home up some steep hills (Titsey and White Lane). Perhaps I'd burn all the calories I was putting on. Who knows? Not me and that's for sure. Anyway, I soon forgot about the cake once I'd finished it. A mild sense of guilt lingered and that all but disappeared as I found myself riding up White Lane (a major hill). Two women who were driving in the other direction slowed and congratulated me for being such a good sport. One of them said she couldn't do it to which I replied that I could only just do it. I was lying. I knew I could do it, I'd done it the week before and sure enough I completed the task and then rode nonchalantly towards the Botley Hill roundabout and the ride back along the 269 towards Warlingham and eventually home.

Getting back to my cycling record for 2023, it hasn't been a good year. I think it would be fair to say that since I started riding a bike as an adult (back in 2006 when Andy and I began our ongoing obsession with cycling). I think it's a lot to do with two things: most notably, the weather, which, during the early months of the year were a little more horrendous than years gone by. I don't know why but we were dogged with rain and snow and ice and cold and it's meant plenty of abort texts even as the year progressed from winter to spring to summer. But that's when the travelling took over. There have been weeks of it and by that I mean that I might have gone away on one Saturday and then returned on the following Saturday, that's two weeks without a ride. Then there were times when I couldn't ride my usual trip to Oxted on a Saturday for another reason (I can't remember what, but it's certainly be a problem). In essence the whole situation has been most unsatisfactory and I've noticed that my only point of motivation is Andy. Because we meet on a Sunday morning I know that, give or take, I'll be up and out of the house by 0800hrs and giving myself a 22-mile ride in the process.

Things have been slow. Once I get out of kilter everything slips and soon I found myself dipping down from last summer's high of three to four rides a week (24-milers) to this year's one ride a week at best. But there is good news. I'm getting back in the swing of things. For the past two weeks it's been two rides a week and my Saturday ride to Oxted is back, including a ride up White Lane on two consecutive weeks now. As I was saying to Andy this morning in Westerham as we sat and chatted over an English Breakfast tea (me) and a soya latte (Andy) - we had two - I might start riding the Norfolk Nobbler during the week if I can just keep my energy levels up and not succumb to the need for a couple of slices of bread and honey slumped in front of the television (which has been my thing these past few months).

Today's ride was good. When I woke up it was raining. I could see the drops in the birdbath and started to wonder - and worry - if an abort was on the cards. But it's not cold so I think rain or not I would have gone out. But by the time 0800hrs came around it was dry and there was no sign of a downpour so off I went following the usual route and not experiencing any difficulties. The bike's been performing relatively well too so I took the liberty of giving it a jolly good wash this afternoon as the sun was out and we have a hose fitted to the outside tap. To be honest, I thought the hose was broken and hadn't bothered trying to fix it because I thought we didn't have the parts. Clearly we did have the parts and that meant I could give the bike a hose down. It's nice and clean now but I need to oil the chain before next week's ride (which means I'll be oiling it next Saturday morning).

It's been a good weekend, but I need more money and urgently so if anybody out there is reading this who knows how I can make a quick couple of grand (legally), let me know as I hate being broke. I'm a good writer, I can organise conferences, I can do most things and I can write about most things too, particularly hotels and restaurants and travelling. I'm assuming I must have some 'fans' out there as recently my blog's weekly page views topped 11,500, which is pretty damn good if you ask me, an all-time high. Basically, I should be in demand! Anyway, if you have anything, let me know.

Yesterday I spent a few hours in the Glades Shopping Centre in Bromley. How boring was that? I spent most of my time in HMW and Waterstone's checking out books and albums and had a brief moment in the M&S cafe where I had nothing more than a small bottle of sparkling mineral water (mainly because I'm trying to keep debts down). I was starving by yesterday evening and was grateful for the mashed potatoes, greens and fillet of salmon. 

Little else to report. I drove to mum's in the evening (Sunday), enjoyed a cup of tea and some chocolate biscuits (yes, I know, that should have been avoided) and then drove back in the summer evening sun. Watched a bit of the elitist crap that is Wimbledon tennis and hit the sack around 2300hrs after a Sleepy Time Bear tea. Slept like a log and now it's Monday and time for work.

An unnecessary loss of life...

The loss of the crew members inside a submersible off the Newfoundland coast is tragedy in the extreme and my heart goes out to their families and friends on hearing the news of them passing. But I find myself thinking that the whole thing was avoidable if simple commonsense had prevailed.What I find particularly baffling is the fate of billionaire Hamish Harding. You don't get to be a billionaire businessman unless you know a good deal when you see one. And you don't get to have billions in the bank unless you can see a bad deal coming from a mile off.

So I found myself thinking about what I would have done had the thought of spending a quarter of a million dollars on a 'ticket' to the bottom of the ocean crossed my mind. I would have been thinking long and hard about the small and confined tubular space of a submersible made of carbon fibre. And if such a proposition was offered to me and the person offering it explained that I would be locked in from the outside and crammed in to the capsule with four other fully grown men, with just a curtain and loud music reducing the embarrassment of answering the call of nature while others listen, well, I think I would have said 'no thanks'.

That 'no thanks' you might think was understandable. You might think doubly so when you consider the cost of the trip. Think for a minute what you could do with a quarter of a million dollars. But then, if you were a billionaire, a quarter of a million dollars is nothing, it's peanuts, so perhaps money wouldn't come into it, but fine, that's understandable. However, surely sitting in a carbon fibre submersible on a hard floor with four fully grown men, heading down thousands of feet in the dark to the seabed, knowing that you're sealed in from the outside and can't let yourself out, surely that's enough to simply say no and not feel bad about it. It's simply not a good deal and at worst it won't end well. At best it'll be an unbearable few hours of hoping you won't have to answer the call of nature and you'll come away thinking you've wasted your money and could have watched the whole thing in a documentary on Netflix.

But there's more. What if, having agreed to spend the money, you were then handed a piece of paper from the company you intend to give a quarter of a million dollars to, and that piece of paper was a kind of contract that absolved them of any responsibility for you if, God forbid, the submersible met with a catastrophe and you lost your life at the bottom of the ocean along with your fellow passengers? Would you sign? Or would you come to your senses pretty damn quickly and decline the whole thing, possibly donating the money to charity instead?

And if you were a billionaire businessman, somebody who knew how to cut big deals, surely you would have conducted some background checks into the technology being employed to convey you to the bottom of the ocean? Surely you would have baulked just a little bit when you heard that the submersible you would be travelling in was controlled by a hand-held computer games controller, the sort of thing you might use to play Grand Theft Auto, and that, in some quarters, concerns about safety had already been expressed some years ago? Even if you got as far as standing on the quayside wearing a jumpsuit with the logo of the company emblazoned upon it, surely, as you were beckoned into the submersible, knowing you were about to be locked in from the outside, you would come to your senses and perhaps even advise your fellow passengers to think again and return with you to the hotel's coffee shop on the quayside and reconsider. Surely! You're a billionaire! You didn't get to where you are today by just blindly accepting everything thrown at you without asking a few pertinent and important questions.

There are many things I would rather watch from afar, from the comfort of my own home rather than actually being there: tennis and football spring to mind, Glastonbury too, and I think I'd throw in the wreck of the Titanic. I've seen footage before, I get it, I can do without going there in person. Give me a mug of tea and a slice of coffee and walnut cake and I'll happily sit there in front of the box without a care in the world. I don't need to be there and I don't need to tell others I've been there either. So what? "Oh, you've been down to see the wreck of the Titanic, good for you," or, worst still, a rather patronising "well done you."

I felt concerned for the safety of William Shatner when he, no doubt, forked out a considerable sum of money to actually experience 'space, the final frontier', similarly those who went up with Richard Branson at roughly the same time to do the same thing: look out at the earth from space. Fortunately, they all came back without so much as a broken bone and, of course, they all paid dearly for the experience. And there lies my big problem with all of this: the price of the ticket and the fact that these people are not explorers, they're not Scott of the Antarctic or Sir Ranulph Fiennes or Benedict Allen or even Indiana Jones, these are people who simply have money to burn, thrillseekers, adrenaline junkies, call them what you will. The tragedy of the Titan submersible's catastrophic implosion and the resulting deaths of the five men inside, is that it was completely unnecessary.

Leaving Dusseldorf on the train...

I am sitting in a Starbucks on Cologne railway station. I've been here before, a couple of weeks ago, and now I'm back, but the queue is long and I don't have much time because there never is any time. Even if I think I have time, like now, I don't really. There's around 50 minutes until my train for Brussels leaves and I must be on it because there's only a 20-minute margin for error when I reach the Belgian capital, just 20 minutes and then I don't know what will happen. I'd have to hope that I can jump on a later one and get home around 2100hrs, something like that.

Carpeted corridors at the Mutterhaus

I was on the 1258 train from Dusseldorf to Cologne and there was just enough time to find the platform from where the Brussels train would depart. I had 10 minutes. Fortunately the platform was nearby and I was pleased to be standing there waiting for the train that was advertised. But then, without any warning, the sign changed and I asked somebody on the platform whether they knew what had happened. "Cancelled," he said. "Cancelled?" "Yes, welcome to Germany." This I found rather odd as normally the Germans are really efficient, their trains leave on time, everything works, but not today. I was told to wait for the 1540 so I decided to find somewhere to eat lunch. I found a brewery, a kind of huge pub, dark and cavernous, but it didn't look as if I'd be served for a long time so I left only to find that the restaurant opposite the central station was the same place, the brewery, Gaffel Kölsch. I ordered meatloaf with a fried egg and sliced and roasted potatoes, just what I needed and now I'm sitting here in Starbucks without a coffee because the queue is too long and they haven't rumbled me because they're too busy to notice that I've not ordered anything, I'm just using their wifi.

There's about 40 minutes to go and I must ensure that I don't get carried away here and then miss the next train. The day started early. It always does. I remember being awake around 0600hrs just staring at the ceiling wondering how to play the day. I knew I had my expenses to do, which is a big faff, but first there's breakfast. The Mutterhaus offers a decent breakfast – because it's a decent hotel (of which more later). All week I've been having roughly the same thing: a mix of granola, porridge oats and muesli with a strawberry yoghurt on top, then a green tea (maybe two) and a couple of slices of bread with marmalade. I've also had a pastry of sorts, something that changes daily, but it's always worth it so I never miss it. Over the past three or four days the routine has been breakfast followed by getting showered and then leaving the hotel behind, jumping on a tram and going to work. Then, unless there's something else to do, like attend an evening function down by the Rhine, or take somebody out to dinner, I go back to the hotel area (Kaiserswerth) and have dinner in Casa Massimo down by the river. I did this twice, on Sunday and Monday nights, but on Wednesday I had dinner with a colleague in what I've always called 'my favourite restaurant', which is Da Bruno, a small Italian trattoria on Karlstrasse. The food at Casa Massimo is on a par with Da Bruno, but it lacks the personal touch. On Sunday night – my first at Casa Massimo – I enjoyed a mozzarella and tomato starter followed by spaghetti bolognaise and accompanied by a large bottle of sparkling mineral water and a non-alcohol beer. The latter was wonderful and I must put it on record that no-alcohol beers over here are tremendous, a million times better than Becks Blue or Heineken 00. Last week I had a few bottles (three at most) of Warsteiner 00 at an industry event on Tuesday night and that was good too. So, all is hunky dory on the no-alcohol beer front.

Chilling in Casa Massimo

The Mutterhaus is an amazing place to stay and I'd love to return some day. It's a big, red-bricked former hospital and the interior decor is immaculate, all the passageways are carpeted, all the hotel room doors are huge, heavy wooden affairs and yes, you've guessed it, you get a proper key. I was in room 213 and there was nothing to complain about other than the plugs being too far away from the desk at which I could work; this meant that I had to charge my computer on one side of the room and then, when charged, move it to the desk area. It wasn't a big faff if I'm honest, I made do. There's no restaurant here, hence my two visits to Casa Massimo, which was about 400 yards or so away, just a short walk and then across the tram tracks and down the street past quaint shops, including Schuster, the café serving amazing cakes and cappuccino. I experienced the delights of Schuster this morning as there was time to kill after I'd checked out around 1000hrs. I left my bags at the hotel front desk. There was no 'concierge' and when I returned I noticed that my bags were still simply behind the counter where I had left them, not that anybody was going to steal them. I reckon all the guests who stay at the Mutterhaus are good people. The hotel is very quiet. I don't think I ever met anybody in the lift or along the corridors and I only saw a few other guests in the breakfast room on the ground floor.

Starter at Casa Massimo

The hotel receptionist was a pleasant woman called Piros, which doesn't sound very German. I always thought the Germans were a little short on a sense of humour, but no, I am wrong. She was always laughing at virtually everything I said and did without any prompting from yours truly. Women seem to take liberties and I must say that I'm a bit baffled by it all; yesterday, a woman who had been watching my 'performance' at a panel discussion I was chairing, sidled up to me afterwards to discuss my suit. My suit! She asked me if it was new and I said no, it was a year old, give or take a few days. "Oh," said she, and proceeded to tell me that the jacket's flaps at the back were sown shut when they shouldn't be; I must say that it hadn't bothered me and, in all honesty, I hadn't noticed, but when I returned to my hotel room I checked it out and she was right. What with Piros laughing at virtually everything and this other woman offering clothing advice, I'm beginning to think that something's afoot, I'm always on their radar, I thought later as I ripped the flaps of my suit jacket loose before hanging it in the wardrobe. Perhaps I just made Piros laugh for some reason, Listen, I'll pick up on this conversation later, I've got a train to catch.

Breakfast delicacies at the Mutterhaus Hotel

I'm back! And what a palaver! Remember, I was booked on to the earlier train so my seat reservation (I'm guessing) was null and void. I, like my fellow passengers booked on the 1342 to Brussels Midi, were now wandering the carriages of the later train, the 1540, pushing heavy suitcases in front or behind of us and wondering whether to take a gamble and just sit down (as I did, only to be told 'this is is my seat'). Well, you can have it, I felt like saying, but instead I remained polite and carried on with my trek towards the front of the train. I made it to the buffet car where there were 'seats' (of a sort) that meant I could lean back behind a raised table. Perfect. I won't be moving from here in a hurry, although the woman next to me, who was on her laptop, has now packed up and gone to the washroom, leaving behind a huge purple suitcase and a smaller, bright orange rucksack. More room for me, but not much. Prior to her departure I had ordered an English breakfast tea and a large Twix, both of which are now gone (the woman is back and rubbing something into her hands, probably sanitiser). Her lap top is out again and she's back on it.

The Mutterhaus hotel from the second floor

Outside there is nothing but trees, well, not just trees, fields, little villages, the usual stuff you expect to see out of a train window. I'm going all the way to Brussels Midi and then it's the Eurostar to London and I can't wait if I'm honest, which I am.

Bookmarked books opposite reception. Why? 

Back in Dusseldorf, Klemensplatz was the nearest tram stop to the Mutterhaus. I used the U79 and went backwards and forwards along the line at different times of the day and night depending on the event I was attending or who I was meeting. Klemensplatz and the area surrounding it are very pleasant. I've already mentioned Schuster, the café where I took advantage of the outdoor seating this morning and last Sunday when I first arrived. On Sunday I had a kind of marzipan cake and today an apple tart and a cappuccino whilst reading a bit of my new book, The Full English by Stuart Maconie. It's great and I'll probably read it again shortly when I've finished this post, or when I'm on the Eurostar home. Schuster and Casa Massimo are both worthy establishments, the rest, while quaint – toy shops, clothes shops, bookshops without any English language publications, a chemist and a health food shop – did nothing for me. But I did like Kaiserswerth and guess what? Yes, I could live there, but would I? No. Why? Because it would be impractical on virtually every level. Let's just say it's a nice part of Dusseldorf and it's very close to the city centre.

Down by the Rhine in Kaiserswerth

As I mentioned before, time is non-existent. Never think you've got time for anything, just get up and go and do any loitering about when you reach your destination. Wandering around the shops of Kaiserswerth did me no favours. On the tram to Dusseldorf's central station I realised that I was cutting things fine but when I got there all was well and I managed to get to Cologne easily enough. As I said, they cancelled my first Cologne to Brussels train and now I'm on the 1540 sitting in the buffet car blogging. Since my last update on the scenery outside the train there has been little change, although it's looking a bit more built up than it was earlier. We've just gone over a river, quite a big one, and the train is slowing down. 

More Mutterhaus breakfast delicacies

My clock says it's 1545hrs and we're coming in to somewhere fairly big, I'm guessing it's Liege, so we're in Belgium, next stop Brussels Midi. The platforms are empty, there's nobody around, just a few passengers getting off. I'm trying to think of what else I can tell you about my latest visit to Dusseldorf. On Monday night I walked from the middle of Dusseldorf back to Kaiserswerth along a fairly rural footpath that kind of followed the Rhine. It was a 5.5-mile yomp with Dr. Martens shoes and a heavy case and it took me 1 hour and 49 minutes. It was one of those journeys I started to regret almost immediately as it was hot and I was ill-prepared for such a walk.I started to wish I had a bike, which would have made the journey a little quicker, but I didn't. While most of the journey was along the rural path it eventually dipped inland and followed suburban streets lined with fairly large houses. It was quiet and again there was nobody around, or hardly anybody. The houses were pleasant in the evening summer sun and there were top-of-the-range German cars resting in the driveways. Soon I found myself at the Klemensplatz tram stop. I walked across the tracks and decided to go straight to Casa Massimo and drink a huge bottle of sparkling mineral water and a bottle of Jever alcohol-free beer. It was perfect, but later I found myself wide awake (unlike now) and in need of more mineral water. I nipped downstairs barefooted (remember, the whole place is carpeted) and bought three bottles of sparkling water plus a bottle of orange Fanta, now there's a drink I haven't experienced in a long time. I guzzled the Fanta and one of the bottles of mineral water and then went back to bed... and slept like a baby. I'd already had two hours of sleep and now I slept for an additional six and a half, so eight and a half hours in total and much needed. I've just ordered a large cappuccino as I was falling asleep, hopefully it will revive me. 

Some of the amazing cakes in Schuster Café, Klemensplatz

One thing that did make me laugh, more out of bafflement than anything else, was a fairly large wooden sideboard opposite the reception area of the Mutterhaus hotel. It was baffling and mildly amusing. There were a lot of books stored in the sideboard and they all had bookmarks in them. What, I wondered, was that all about? I asked Piros and of course she laughed, but I wanted to know why people left books in reception with bookmarks in them. Why weren't the books in their rooms? Or on their person so they could read as and when the fancy took them? She laughed again, and later she laughed even more when I suggested moving the bookmarks to different parts of the books to inject a bit of confusion into the proceedings. Left to my own devices I might have moved a few around as the books in question had been in the same place ever since I arrived at the hotel and I couldn't figure out why people would leave them by reception. Fine if it was dirty boots or wet umbrellas, but books are pretty harmless, just keep them on the bedside table, surely that's the time when you're going to read them, before you hit the sack.Still, stranger things and all that.

Chilling before the journey home

It's 1722 and I'm guessing there's not much longer to go; the shutters have come down on the buffet counter and now somebody is saying something over the intercom, probably that we're about to arrive at Brussels Midi or Noord, I think it was the latter. I need to guzzle my coffee a little bit faster, but it's still too hot.

When we reached Brussels Midi it was clear that I had missed the 1756 Eurostar to London and would have to travel on the 1851 instead, which wasn't a huge problem even if it did mean arriving in the UK around an hour later than planned. I was alloted seat 44 in coach 8, right next door to the buffet car, not that I wanted anything to eat after the huge lunch I'd enjoyed in the brewery opposite Cologne railway station. But first, the Society of the Spectacle. I went straight to the perfumery section and tried out the Allure. All aftershaves smell the same, be it Allure or Eau Savage or whatever. Only Old Spice has its own distinctive cheap and powdery appeal and that's why I have some in my suitcase. Nothing better than cheap aftershave or deodorant! Whatever happened to Denim and Hai Karate? In the hot weather something is needed and that's for sure.

I found a wobbly seat and tried to use my laptop, but the wifi was rubbish so I gave up and then it was time to board. I was sitting next to Melinda from Cologne.We chatted about this and that until it was time to disembark. She was going to Nottingham to meet somebody she hadn't seen since 1997 and I was heading home.The heat of the week continued.I took the tube and then the overground and soon I was home.