Cake Baker Extreme

Thanks to a broken down train I spent a vaguely enjoyable 20 minutes sitting in a carriage just outside West Croydon station today. For entertainment I had several copies of The Metro. Normally I wouldn't even sully my backside by using this drivel as bog paper but, needs must!

I found this in there (the Metro - not the lav), and I kinda liked it:

China: A husband has left his wife after she forced him to eat cake for every meal. Cheng Yu said he was happy with the sugary treats at first but now just mentioning the word cake made him feel ill. "Egg cake (whuh??), fruit cake, chocolate cake. I felt like a bakery dustbin" he said. The 31 year old from Beijing has threatened to divorce Tian Mae, 27, if she doesn't stop baking.

I reckon she should've married a cyclist.

Fireworks Display

Haven't been by for a while. Here's a little poem by K - brought home from school yesterday.

The Fireworks Display

Zooming rockets sometimes imposebel to see
because they zoom around all night

Roaring fireworks magnificently shooting up in the air

Sizzling sparcelers make me want to laugh because they
are like fairys dancing in the sky

Spinning catherine wheels sparkling in the sky like a ferris wheel

Good work kiddo ;)

The Summer, A Poem by Danny Dork

So I'm sitting in the park doing some work, escaping the noise and dust of the builders. It's a beautiful day, I'm the only one in the park, I must have the largest office in London, cool.

I look at the bench I'm sitting on and it has been signed by Danny Dork. I look at the paving around the bench and in the same handwriting is a poem. It reads:

The summer is getting shorter each day
We are not gonna change until it's away
Forget the routine and live life your way
Just like it's the last hot summer day

Not bad Mr Dork, could have tried a bit harder with the rhyming thing, but not bad.

Volcano Island, a poem by KJ Shaw, age 6.5

Volcano Island

Furious fire bursting with lava
Dark wild water scaring me away
Dark scary clouds touching my head
Scary flashing lightning

The Power of Poo

Damn! Seems those darn critters are good for something after all. K, I bow to your superior intellect.

Remnants of Romance

Hippy the Hippo and Hugger the Bear had a date round our place earlier today. It didn't work out too well as Hippy has gone home and Hugger went to bed, softly crying. I'm not sure why love didn't blossom, for sure it can't have been the dinner.

The flowers were hand picked from the garden. What was on the hand written menu?

Pasta, Lazana, Spageti, Salard, Rise + Chicken, Lobster, Lamb-chap, meringue ice-creem, Yogaut Drink

I spied the waiter's pad. They ordered Two meedem porshens of lobster and meringue ice creem.

I'm lost. I have no idea why they are not still together, have you?

Roll the tanks, call up an airstrike

I was in the garden picking veg for our tea. On the fence I saw the airforce waiting for their orders to swoop. On the broad beans I saw a fleet of red and black tanks, rolling over the green hills, laying waste to the blackfly hordes.

In my bowl, I see the prize. I'm hungry, not for long.

Midweek Mile Munching

Tuesday morning 09.30. Four men meet outside Purley Tesco. Their interest is not mid week food shopping or club card points, it’s mile munching.

They wheel their steeds across Purley and the first shower starts. Macs on, chocks away. Peeing down in Purley, wet in Whyteleafe, worse in Woldingham, cats and dogs in Crowhurst. The men laughed. The rain was warm and the roads were quiet.

Lingfield, Dormansland, Marsh Green and Edenbridge all fall by the way side. The miles are munched, the rain stops, the macs are packed. The sun comes out.

This countryside is like a jigsaw, they all know bits of it and it fits together quite beautifully.

The lure of refreshment in Westerham is strong. So a hill must be conquered. A big one. The men fix each other with steely gaze through plastic lens and ride on. The choice is made. Toys Hill looms and the four grind on, each at their own pace. The mighty Toys has more false flats than a bankrupt property developer, it’s grim. Past the phone box and it kicks up again from grim to brutal in about ten yards. And like all great hills, it’s over. Conquered.

Swoops and sweeps, drags and digs, Westerhams’s Tudor Tea Room is calling. The men walk through the door and step back in time. Sandwiches, coffee and tea. The world is put to rights with consummate ease.

Onwards and upwards, the bunch breaks and goes separate ways, Coulsdon, Caterham, Selsdon, Carshalton.

50 miles in the bank, the highest quality miles in every sense.

Rock and Rule

I'd been due to go to London today to celebrate a friend's birthday. Marco turns 30 and he's heading to St James' Park to kick things off this afternoon.

Yesterday I found out that the mum who usually picks up K from school (when Mrs Snoop is not around) is herself busy and could do with a little help. Not much, just needs someone to pick up her daughter. What's a boy to do?

I dropped marco a note explaining I had a kindness I wanted to repay which meant I could no longer attend and to say sorry about that.

Here's marco's lovely reply:

"It is important to repay kindness, as without mums we'd be lost. There was this old saying (19th century perhaps) that goes: the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world."

I reckon marco's party will be a real blast, and I can't wait for a walking home from school ice cream come four o'clock.

Three Strikes and You're Out!

Ouch! That was a lot of walking for one day. A total of 18.5 miles or so left me with very sore feet.

If you fancy a look at the stats, plus the GPS map, plus a 1.5 minute vid then you know where to look.

Thanks for all the messages of support I received, it was a fun journey.

There are Heroes Everywhere

Last Saturday Carole, K and I took a train into the fourth dimension. Well actually we went to the Smithfield Nocturne. It's a great evening of full on cycle racing, with beer, great company and good food to boot.

Team Addiscombe had two racers in the support race. Sylvain Garde and Toks Adesanya. The race takes place on a very tight 1.1km circuit around Smithfield Meat Market. Right from the off there was trouble as a Rapha rider took the very first corner way too wide and smashed heavily into the barriers. A Dulwich Paragon rider couldn't avoid the crash but he eventually got up and rode on to much applause. All the other riders avoided the incident though Toks very nearly fell victim to it, some sharp bike handling saved his skin.

The race soon settled with Sylv among the front runners. The pace was relentless with an average speed in excess of 40 km/h. After 40 minutes there were five laps called to decide the winners. Sylv was still close to the front, Toks further back in the main bunch. In the final couple of laps, Sylv held on in 6th place before coming round the outside in the final turn. He belted for the line and was just caught, finishing in fine style with a fourth place. A great result. After the race we caught up with Sylv and he said "It was a great race and I thoroughly enjoyed it, the course was brilliant just what I like, and the crowds awesome!"

So, there's two heroes for you, Sylv and Toks. I met more cycling hero buddies, including Huw, Chloe, David, Sean & Ajay.

Just when I thought it couldn't get any more heroic, I turned to find myself face to face with Johnny Green. Johnny roadied for The Clash and wrote a fantastic book about his experiences with them. Several years later he wrote a great book about following the Tour de France. What's a boy to do? I approached him and we enjoyed (well I did and I think he did) a few lovely minutes mixing up The Clash and cycling. Friendly guy, seemed surprised to be recognised and happy to talk. Great fun, one of those special moments.

There are Heroes Everywhere.

Mr Snoop Walks to Work

48 hour tube strike starts tonight, talk about doing dumb things to your customers. I have to be in London on Thursday. My bike has a flat tyre and a busted spoke. I could fix it. I'm not going to, yet. Instead of cycling into St Pauls I'm going to walk. It's only around 15 miles. I'll plan a route that follows as much river and parkland as practical, it should be fun.

I called into Radio London and told them about my planned adventure. Paul Ross asked me if I would skip at least part of the way. I will do just that. The plan will evolve on my Stop Doing Dumb Things to Customers site so why not check in and see how I get on? Any route suggestions, must sees, must not sees that you would like to recommend please go ahead.

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

The rain came down. The four horsemen looked at each other, eyes cold as steel. The Internet Millionaire raised his right hand and they were off. The Whippersnapper broke from the front and led the way. He had to be told where to turn left.

In twos they stalked the Surrey lanes. Neddy drove past in his little car and proffered the one fingered salute. The Engineer said something about a highway code. The others just shrugged, and the rain came down.

The Cowardly Lion felt both brave and afraid, so he took it easy, biding his time. The lanes narrowed, and the dung of a thousand nags filled the nostrils. The Whippersnapper whipped and snapped his steed through the plethora of manure, flick flack. They talked of permission slips, sausages, fortunes won and lost, and the rain came down.

Neddy rode through again, still buzzing like an angry wasp, this time The Engineer just motioned as if to say, what ya gonna do? We did nothing, more than Neddy deserved.

Little Switzerland opened her canton like arms and the horsemen rode bravely on, some more than most. Swooping, darting, and the rain came down.

At the foot of the mountains, The Cowardly Lion stole past and pushed to the bottom of the zig zags. He waited, the four regrouped. The Cowardly Lion pushed on and soon his fellow horsemen were whispers on the breeze. He eased and The Whippersnapper pulled alongside. They sized each other up, without giving anything away. Whippersnapper pushed on and suddenly, from nowhere, like a true entrepreneur, The Internet Millionaire rode past. A diet of LBP-20 was too pure for most, but he could cope. The Engineer followed, he wore a mask of indifference, and somehow he knew he would be first to the tea shop.

Treacle tart, coffee and drizzle. Talk of world domination.

Homeward bound, the lanes were devoured like long strings of tarmac spaghetti. Italian. They hit Regalinos and ordered lattes ‘n’ macchiatos. They rode on and shortly after they split. The Cowardly Lion attacked a short, steep hill which burned then he coasted home, no brakes, even some swooping. He crossed the wild plains of Little Woodcote Estate. He caught a flat, ten yards from home, and the rain came down.

Epic Ride.

With thanks to Grahame, Marco and Bryn

Excuse for Ice Cream

I finally got a resolution to the Battery Farm issue, they posted me a new phone. So, I had to return the old one. To be fair they did offer to collect but I didn't fancy a day in waiting...

I rode to the post office. Then, goods duly dispatched, I pushed on. Pootled out to Nonsuch Park and hoofed round that a couple of times. Both circuits took me near to the caff. It had some kind of people magnet thing going on and so second time around I found myself helplessly in the queue for an ice cream. The ice cream server would only let me choose one flavour, despite the fact I got two scoops, weird. Anyhoo, I went for mint with chocolate bits in. It was lovely.

I whizzed home, stopping off to collect K who had been playing at a friends house after school. She was pleased to see me but no too pleased that I'd had one of her favourite flavours of ice cream without her.

1 ice cream, 14.2 miles, average speed 12.2 mph. My computer says I hit 32.6 mph max but I think it's fibbing, I was in shade/under trees a while, jolly old satellite must've confused me with a pigeon or something.

Security Breach

Ring ring it's 7am, move yourself to go again...

I'd been awake since 6, watching and waiting for the alarm. It didn't disappoint.

I could feel my spidey sense tingling, why?

Breakfast passed without incident, then it was time to ready K for school. After tooth brushing fun I flung open the curtains.

Sirens blared, security lights whirled and flashed. Holy rodents Batman, the guinea pig hutch front door was open wider than Gordon Brown's mouth after reading Hazel Blear's monthly expenses!

Quickly I adopted stealth mode and made for the bedroom door, signalling to Mrs Snoop to contain the situation whilst I checked the perimeter. As I ran downstairs, three at a time (Bond would've been proud), I thought of the possibilities...

1 - a fox has been in. This is gonna be messy
2 - weather related door openage. If this were the case I expected to find the two girls cowering safely in the back, they're none too brave y'know.

I was outside, up the garden steps in a single bound, I could see the sleeping compartment was empty, o crap. At the hutch. Phew! I can see two live ones - all clear.

I turned to the house. In true security stylee Mrs Snoop had redrawn the curtains.

Silence in the garden. All clear, all accounted for.

Note to self: Hutch needs a new door catch.

Let's Go Racing

Step One, buy a racing bike. Check
Step Two, get a racing licence. Just off the phone from British Cycling. Check

More news when I get it...

Walk and Talk

Our darling daughter spent le weekend with her auntie & cousins. Mrs Snoop and I took advantage of this. Train to London Victoria. Walk past Buck House and across The Green Park. Strolling along Berkeley Square, ducking in and out of Mayfair's enchanted alley ways. A stop for rosé champagne and edamame at Mews, lots of talking, lots of ideas, plans.

Department hopping in Selfridges. Café stops, snack stops, glass of Marlborough Sauvignon blanc stops.

Dinner at Hush. Service, and food to die for. Another glass or two, Taittinger this time. Lots of talking, lots of ideas, plans. Good job I brought along a note book.

A late evening stroll and a brief stop at The Goring, almost too old fashioned.

Sunday brought a lovely walk through the Surrey hills and a tip top lunch at the Stephan Langton, followed by a lost hour strolling, walking, talking, planning.

Wonderful in the extreme.

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.

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

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.