In contrast to last week's portly mileage of 138ish, this week has been extremely lacklustre at around 38 miles spread over two ill-fated commutes.
The past two days have been spent with my head convincingly up my arse, while tomorrow's usual utility ride likely won't happen on account of the weather, so today was the only opportunity to address the week's pitiful distance covered.
A utility ride to Chippy was settled upon as a leisure ride really didn't appeal, while it would potentially knacker multiple birds with one stone. After much procrastinatory mincing I was off on the Fuji, one pannier bag packed with charity-shop-destined books, the other egg boxes, cheapo-knock-off Tupperware and security measures.
The air was muggy and stiflingly thick like treacle; combined with a convincing headwind this meant I was drenched in sweat within a few miles of departure. The experience continued to be not a whole lot of fun as I meandered through thankfully typically quiet country roads, upset beyond usual limits only by the odd Chelsea tractor.
Arrival at the chosen destination hardly re-affirmed my recent life-choices. The fair was in town, the traffic was chaos and some dopey mare cut across me as I headed into town - thankfully I was going that way anyway - otherwise it might have been messy. The place was crawling with a disproportionate amount of vacant, obese people with inflated faces in varying unconvincing shades of orange.
The butchers had been effectively shuttered off by the visiting spectacle, and I had to drag the arse-laden Fuji through the entirely-non-situationally-aware crowds to reach my destination. The butcher was in a crap mood; presumably because the fair had buggered his day's trading with a constant slew of '90s Euro-pop likely only to further incentivise putting his head in the meat grinder.
I requested my order and thrust my non-Tupperware in his direction, he countered with the defence that his special meat bags were leak-proof.. I insisted that he filled my box with his meat. Why wouldn't he want to fill my pseudo-sustainable box and save himself the however-many pence his landfill-bags had cost him?
Meat procured I headed towards Oxfam; pushing my way through the onslaught of bright lights, terrible music, aspiring oompa-lumpas and screaming children. The bike was locked to the railings near the gents and the books deposited; the presumably well-read bloke behind the counter seemingly shocked by my immunity to his wares as I marched out oblivious, like a eunuch from a brothel.
I left the bike where it was and scuttled first to the blue cross chairty shop (nope) then to Sainsburys for essentials in expected leiu of the usual Sunday foray. Salad, scratchings and a litre of gin hastily acquired I was relieved to find the bike still where I left it, and once its back end was painstakingly loaded I dragged it to the last two charity shops of the journey.
Katherine house offered a very friendly member of staff and sadly oversize mid-grey Dunn wool suit jacket; Helen and Douglas house touted a lot with a three-piece grey and red windowpane tweed suit (too big) and an initually promising, but ultimately disappointing selection of brown-based Houndstooth suit jackets that would have excited any '70s-era geography teacher..
Leaving empty-handed from the charity shops I was back on the bike and GTFO of dodge. As the noise, theft-anxiety and general air of knuckle-dragger softened into the distance behind me, I felt a palpable sense of relief and calm descend upon my weary corpse.
I continued back along the way I'd come for a while; eventually diverging slightly onto a more pleasant route with some wood content and tree cover. Carried on the now-tailwind in the slightly-less-oppressive air; content that all weight of expection had been removed beyond making it home in one piece. I stopped along the way to pick some blackberries; my fruit-packed water bottle reinforcing my decision not to use it for an impromptu G&T for the road.
Until close to home progress had been sedate and presided over by a soundtrack of Radiohead and Dead Can Dance; it took until smashing it back into the village to the sounds of the Prodigy's "Full Throttle" after a quick, unsuccssful egg foray before I actually felt alive, present and improved for my outing - an unprecidented 2.5hrs and 30-odd miles required to extracte my head from my arse on this occasion.
Never mind, not an afternoon wasted and no doubt I'd have been in a far worse place had I not got out. Joints were twatty but manageable and a bit of hanging when I got back was rewarded by some good cracks from my mid and lower back. Writing off the evening since I'd achieved something more than simply sitting here and turning to dust over the afternoon..
The past two days have been spent with my head convincingly up my arse, while tomorrow's usual utility ride likely won't happen on account of the weather, so today was the only opportunity to address the week's pitiful distance covered.
A utility ride to Chippy was settled upon as a leisure ride really didn't appeal, while it would potentially knacker multiple birds with one stone. After much procrastinatory mincing I was off on the Fuji, one pannier bag packed with charity-shop-destined books, the other egg boxes, cheapo-knock-off Tupperware and security measures.
The air was muggy and stiflingly thick like treacle; combined with a convincing headwind this meant I was drenched in sweat within a few miles of departure. The experience continued to be not a whole lot of fun as I meandered through thankfully typically quiet country roads, upset beyond usual limits only by the odd Chelsea tractor.
Arrival at the chosen destination hardly re-affirmed my recent life-choices. The fair was in town, the traffic was chaos and some dopey mare cut across me as I headed into town - thankfully I was going that way anyway - otherwise it might have been messy. The place was crawling with a disproportionate amount of vacant, obese people with inflated faces in varying unconvincing shades of orange.
The butchers had been effectively shuttered off by the visiting spectacle, and I had to drag the arse-laden Fuji through the entirely-non-situationally-aware crowds to reach my destination. The butcher was in a crap mood; presumably because the fair had buggered his day's trading with a constant slew of '90s Euro-pop likely only to further incentivise putting his head in the meat grinder.
I requested my order and thrust my non-Tupperware in his direction, he countered with the defence that his special meat bags were leak-proof.. I insisted that he filled my box with his meat. Why wouldn't he want to fill my pseudo-sustainable box and save himself the however-many pence his landfill-bags had cost him?
Meat procured I headed towards Oxfam; pushing my way through the onslaught of bright lights, terrible music, aspiring oompa-lumpas and screaming children. The bike was locked to the railings near the gents and the books deposited; the presumably well-read bloke behind the counter seemingly shocked by my immunity to his wares as I marched out oblivious, like a eunuch from a brothel.
I left the bike where it was and scuttled first to the blue cross chairty shop (nope) then to Sainsburys for essentials in expected leiu of the usual Sunday foray. Salad, scratchings and a litre of gin hastily acquired I was relieved to find the bike still where I left it, and once its back end was painstakingly loaded I dragged it to the last two charity shops of the journey.
Katherine house offered a very friendly member of staff and sadly oversize mid-grey Dunn wool suit jacket; Helen and Douglas house touted a lot with a three-piece grey and red windowpane tweed suit (too big) and an initually promising, but ultimately disappointing selection of brown-based Houndstooth suit jackets that would have excited any '70s-era geography teacher..
Leaving empty-handed from the charity shops I was back on the bike and GTFO of dodge. As the noise, theft-anxiety and general air of knuckle-dragger softened into the distance behind me, I felt a palpable sense of relief and calm descend upon my weary corpse.
I continued back along the way I'd come for a while; eventually diverging slightly onto a more pleasant route with some wood content and tree cover. Carried on the now-tailwind in the slightly-less-oppressive air; content that all weight of expection had been removed beyond making it home in one piece. I stopped along the way to pick some blackberries; my fruit-packed water bottle reinforcing my decision not to use it for an impromptu G&T for the road.
Until close to home progress had been sedate and presided over by a soundtrack of Radiohead and Dead Can Dance; it took until smashing it back into the village to the sounds of the Prodigy's "Full Throttle" after a quick, unsuccssful egg foray before I actually felt alive, present and improved for my outing - an unprecidented 2.5hrs and 30-odd miles required to extracte my head from my arse on this occasion.
Never mind, not an afternoon wasted and no doubt I'd have been in a far worse place had I not got out. Joints were twatty but manageable and a bit of hanging when I got back was rewarded by some good cracks from my mid and lower back. Writing off the evening since I'd achieved something more than simply sitting here and turning to dust over the afternoon..
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