Grey start, 19°C, grey and light W2.
I rode Fixed 16. MapMyRide+! Distance: 35.04mi, time: 02:11:08, pace: 3:45min/mi, speed: 16.03mi/h.
http://mapmyride.com/workout/748158951
I had the fizz in my legs which felt great. Split speeds were good enough, a few mph down, that’s all. Afterwards though, my legs were jelly.
Old sketch from many years ago. My new phone’s camera is able to focus well enough for little drawings.
10°C, rain at last.
First rain of the month. The ground is very dry, dusty and hard. I have missed much of it with this persistent cold. Rain smells different when it falls on dry ground, after a while, a sweet smell rises.
I don’t know how this illness affects my annual milage; 6,000 as a target is marginal now. There still remains a few days before I can ride again.
17°C, grey still.
Still poorly, but the aches and racing heart has stopped. Today has been restful.
Just good day then, to set up a new phone. I bought a Samsung Mini 3 which seems to work far better. There are things that I miss, the device status widget, mid-word switching predictive text off. Gingerbread’s keyboard was better though apostrophe use is easier now.
In use, it runs far better: I won’t be late for work waiting for the GPS app to load. GPS reception is better, the phone latches on at home now, no more missed tracks until I am 2 miles out.
Hope I get used to this keyboard soon.
Sunday.16°C white cloud, no wind and dry.
Thumping heart, sore throat and low energy. The first cold of the new academic year has come early this time. Last year, I was clear until after mid-winter.
This means no cycling and probably no more scrumping for apples on the way home.
Today, I hope to cook the fruit for freezing. Or, maybe a crumble.
The coming winter will be that bit more bearable when you can pull out fruit from the freezer to make something warming (to go with custard).
No cycling today then. Shame. The last two weeks have been good with about 170miles average over each week.
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Posted from a mobile.
Sat. 18°C,
Film- Chernobyl Diaries; a shock-horror film set in Pripyat, Ukraine. As you know, it’s the site of the Chernobyl disaster in the 1980s. The film makers have exploited the eerie atmosphere of that abandoned city and joined the genre of films like The Hills Have Eyes. The film would like you to to sit on the edge of your seat and jump frequently.
The story raises several points of note. The six characters soon break apart as a team under stress after the van is damaged. That leads to their eventual demise. My thoughts followed what could happen if they had cooperated. I suppose that’s the role filled by fan fiction. The genre requires elevated tension, fear and shocks. The characters behaved in panic at times, no calm under pressure.
There were some problems with continuity too: the reactor building featured, but it had three cooling towers, the real one has none.
Do you want a recommendation? If you have seen nothing of this genre, then you could tick off with this one. If you have though, you would probably share the criticisms held by others online. That is, there are better examples out there.
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Sat. 19°C white cloud. No wind.
This is the strangest stone in my possession. It’s twice the weight, for its size, compared with others. It can’t be scratched with screw-driver and is slightly magnetic.
It does have some characteristics of a meteorite, the signs of surface melting, its density and metallic qualities. However, another view shows slight layering. That discounts another possibility- magnetite. There remains one other explanation- slag. I picked it up, over ten years ago, near a railway line in Wakes.
Slag is used as ballast on the tracks on many railways around the world. Since Wales is a post-industrial montaine landscape, its origin seems less natural.
If it were a meteorite, it would be the oldest object I have ever touched. That record remains with the Lewisian Gneiss picked up in Assynt last month (2,000 million years).
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Posted from a mobile.
Spirit of Turpentine 