My day went like this:
0500 – get up.
0600 – Leave for work.
0700 – Start shift in A&E.
1000 – Quick Break.
13:45 – Lunch & Teaching.
15:00 – Leave work and ride home.
I had a fantastic ride home, and quite possibly deeply upset someone on a much bigger bike by repeatedly being next to them at each set of traffic lights. He only made it through one set by a process of ignoring the road markings and burning through the lights at the very end of the orange phase. But he was pleasant if somewhat suprised by my repeated presence next to him.
15:45 – Get home. Shower, shave legs ready to go swimming…
…get phone call from my mum. My dad’s operation is tomorrow. Scratch swimming. Sit down for 10 minutes, find map of Oxford, put bike gear back on, around 16:30 I headed off.
As I rode down the motorway, the reflected glare from the road burning into my already tired eyes I felt myself sruggling. After only an hour I was starting to wander, and having to concentrate very hard on my riding; in a remarkable fit of sense I pulled over, and had a relaxing burger king (don’t ask me why, I just have a thing for whoppers) at Melksham services – looking out of the window, watching the rabbits or hares, possibly, bouncing around in the distance and contemplating stealing a Cafe Crapola mug (I didn’t, okay!).
Revitalised, I set off again this time covering the stretch to Oxford without incident; although I fucked up my navigation of Oxford and it took probably a further 20-30 minutes for me to disentangle myself and find the correct place.
Whereup on babbled incoherantly at my mum and my sleeping father for a full hour and a half. Scarily, possibly the last hour and half I’ll spend with him. That thought terrifies me. I should have spent that time talking about something worthwhile, meaningful, telling him how much I remember of my childhood, what a fantastic father he was…
…but I don’t think it’s his time yet. I don’t think he’s ready; so I hope it’s not. He should chose when he wants to go.
After an hour and a half I decided I needed to head back. So at 2030 I clambered back on my tired ETZ and headed back down the A34 (a road which appears to consist entirely of patches and ditches) and the M4 – staggeringly the bike maintained a steady 70 the whole way back, and managed nearly 200 miles on a tank of petrol (17 litres – giving a staggering 53mpg flat-out; now tell me small two strokes are inefficent). Eventually only getting home when my bum had reached a stage of numbness previously only attained in time-share conferences.
At any rate, I’m home, I’m tired and my bike definately needs some maintainance tomorrow. Like oil in the gearbox, probably, and chain tension adjustment, and maybe some grease on that chain.
