Thursday, 30 April 2009

April's Word Cloud

Oh Gawd. A mate of mine just sent me Wordle knowing I couldn't resist. He was right. Here's the word cloud from this blog for this month. Pilates and Pirates are the same size. He he.




Wednesday, 29 April 2009

Dimbo Goes to Town

I arrived home v late from a meeting Monday night. Checked the weather forecast and chose not to prepare my cycling gear. Next morning I took the train into London.

Financial cost: £12.60
Number of train seats sat in: 0
Pain in lower back: unnecessarily unpleasant
Zombified misery factor: Off the scale y'all

O glorious bicycle, why did I forsake thee.

Snoop

Friday, 24 April 2009

Wikkidah!

He he, K and I made a vidrap about fallin' off bikes. Click over there on the right if you can bear to. I'm gonna save it and just maybe, show it at her wedding in goodness knows how many years time.

Tuesday, 14 April 2009

Avast There Landlubbers!


I still can't quite believe it...Bank Holiday Monday saw us (yours truly and First Mate Curly) line up to compete (he he) in the Bolney Pram Race. We'd plumped for a pirate theme for some strange reason. We couldn't decide on a team name, despite a wonderful short list:

The Dalton Ladyboys
Pirates in Mens Pants
The Only Gay Pirates in the Village

It was a great fun event even though I bailed out after the first stint, sore back, yarrr. The ship sailed bravely on without me thanks to Able Seawoman Carole coming to the rescue. Lots of beer was drunk and we (they..) didn't come last. Can't wait for the next one.

Anarchy in the UK (well...kind of)

Last Saturday I turned up for my first club run since England last won the football word cup. I was on time, woohoo. There were a handful of folk at the station at 9, can't normally be like that, surely not. I mean, we got a note reminding us of start times barely a month ago. Personally I'm more in favour of complete anarchy than a half arsed attempt to set some direction and then not follow yer own instructions. So, after a lovely natter with a few mates I started to feel the cold and damp and headed off, on me tod, at 9.17.

Now when I say anarchy, I mean hard core anarchy. Y'see 9.17 is one minute after the 19 mph group is due to leave and 2 minutes before the 18s set off. There was no way I was gonna manage 18 and a bit mph average. D'you see what I did there. I broke the rules, well no one seemed to mind.

I then declared myself Chief Overlord of the C training group. I was elected unopposed and the feeling of power was awesome. I whizzed along to Reigate, getting caught by those renegades calling themselves the Training Group just as we entered town. We shared a few pleasantries, and tho I knew I could have the lot of 'em, I let 'em go. I was still feeling anarchic y'see.

On into the wilds of Surrey. I had a fantastic ride, digging in for some hard work at times and just enjoying myself, the scenery and the drizzle were nice too. I hit the caff with a 17.3mph average (do we have a departure time for 17.3 group??) and snarfed a bacon sarnie. Jon Avery and I then exchanged stories about food poisoning (him) and eating fish 9 days after it's eat by date (me - more anarchy - I just can't help meself). Time was ticking on and four of us decided to head fer the hills.

We had a cool ride back through the lanes, at one point Adrian went so fast his computer exploded off his bike in pure admiration. I was feeling good so went for it at the golf course rise. I reckon I went up there better than a drug fuelled pro cycling monkey, must've been that 7.something% beer I had last night. Avery caught me at the top, grrr. We had a quick regroup @ the church, a mere 30 sec separating us all. Off again, up and over Gatton Point and then the Merstham drag. I couldn't help myself and shot off the front again. I burned my remaining matches (see I do read the race reports) and hoofed up the drag pretty sharpish. I hit what I reckoned to be the finish and backed off. That damn Cornish Pirate came past me again and I was fresh out of Swan Vestas.

Down into Coulsdon then a blast up the steep hill to Wallyville. I managed the home leg in 16.3 average which I was pretty happy with considering the terrain. Heart rate maxed at 179, not bad for an auld get like me.

Great fun, I'm never leaving on time again :)

Friday, 10 April 2009

Tip top titfer

La famille de Snoopington took the train & bus to South Ken and went to the Victoria & Albert museum today. Visited the World Fair section, beautiful wineglasses, dainty kids shoes. The ironwork section, examined some fascinating puzzle padlocks and enjoyed some biscuit tin frippery, went to the fashion dept, really poor punk outfit, mine were better. Then we hooked up with a couple of mates and went to a tip top titfer exhibition. Had to pay a fiver a head (wa wa waaaaa) for that but well worth it. Beautiful millinery, fun, exciting, colourful.

Quick whizz on da tube to Piccadilly, where we hunted down Yoshino. It's on Piccadilly Lane. Blimmin wonderful. Amongst other things we had: tuna, Salmon, mackerel nigiri (the mackerel was just spot on). Avocado rolls, eel and cucumber rolls and prawn tempura rolls, all at the top of their game. Mahi Mahi tempura (woohoo), sweet potato tempura, mmmm. Edamame, miso soup. Tuna carpaccio (oh boy), spinach with sesame dressing (droool). Kirin Ichiban beer x 2. One of the best sushi feasts I've ever had, under £20 per head for central London. Does it ev'ry time. If you like japanese food, there was loads on the menu we didn't get to - go, try, enjoy.

Thursday, 9 April 2009

When was the last time you had a jam tart?

I've just had one :)

Why?

To celebrate two fantastic days of cycle commuting including a good soaking on the way in on Wednesday, plus on the way home a fantastic blast towards the Elephant & Castle on traffic free roads. Thanks to some kind person who stacked their lorry earlier in the afternoon the ole bill had cordoned off the area letting only us two wheeled terrors through. Hoorah!

Had a rocking Pilates class last night too.

All in all a good week so far for fitness. So, the jam tart is the yin to the fitness yang. It was strawberry. Nice but not as nice as I wish it had been. Jam tart making is a dying art it seems.

Happy Easter y'all!

Snoop

Friday, 3 April 2009

You Gotta Love it!

After a very well structured stretching session @ camp Pilates last Wednesday, I've been raring to stretch my legs on the bike. I picked up a sore back in the East Surrey Hardriders a few weeks ago, caused in part by some pretty shoddy bike set up work at Dauphins Cycles. They are helping me to put things right, but I wish I didn't ache so much. Anyway, double nurofen for breakfast and I'm off to play with the traffic. Took the road bike and travelled very light.

Bare knees for the first time in 09 and I could feel the chill air. I took it fairly easy but couldn't resist a few wind up and go moments, particularly when coming down the outside to get first off from the lights (always on green of course). I had a hairy moment coming into Brixton when a kind lady overtook me and immediately turned left, cut me out completely. Had a few tight squeezes in width restrictions too. Hit a pot hole somewhere en route and heard my rear light disintegrate and scatter across the A23. No time to stop, it would've been smushed anyway.

So - quite a scary ride. Having showered, I'm sitting here in the office finishing my coffee wondering, should I have taken the train? You're kidding right? There's no two ways about it, when it ain't raining, cycling's the only way to commute.