Steal softly through sunshine…

+1°C, cold stiff wind from East. Sunny and snow on ground.

I rode Mustang with MapMyRide+! Distance: 22.24km, time: 01:23:28, pace: 3:45min/km, speed: 15.99km/h.
http://mapmyride.com/workout/2735446345

Steal softly through sunshine, steal softly through snow.
~Captain Beefheart.

We should aim to do things never tried before. This afternoon, I cycled in snow for the first time in half a century. It’s the black ice that scares me most but today’s snowfall is still quite powdery. It’s only as slippery as soft mud, but cleaner.

I’m not very good at this yet, I’m not brilliant in mud either. The problem for me is pushing away the fear of crashing. It’s good to remind yourself to relax arms and your grip. Push your shoulders down so your movement over uneven ground is fluid and sooth. However, it certainly was fun. The times I stopped, the beauty of this weather was obvious. That deep cobalt sky filled shadows which set against the golden sun. There were puddles of ice crusted puddles in fields, and puddles of cobalt in any dip in the clean white snow.

Wind chill is fierce, cold eats through your clothes and your nostrils. Best to keep the ride short. A long outing in this takes a long recovery to warn back up after. At least the sun has warmth, especially in wind shadows.

Appreciation.

4°C dry and sunny.

Drive south to collect stuff for my new house. The wait should be over early next month.

Music has meaning again. During the ugliest most stressful stage in my last job, I would listen to music. But it had lost something. I no longer got the shivers. My senses were dulled so much by the accumulated tiredness.

Anyway, I drove home with the iPod set on shuffle. It seemed to be in a good mood. It played interesting tracks with hardly any need to skip any. Even the difficult types of music showed its magic. Fred Frith came up a good few times as well as Zena Parkins.

I have only bought a few discs in the last 12 months but the desire is coming back. Hurry along the time I can set up my stereo.

In the neighbourhood..

7°C, brisk SE, building rain.

Marshside Beach only 1km from my new house. Between here and my place are some brackish lagoons administered by the RSPB.

What a bleak and melancholic day. This panorama shows the empty feel of the beach a few hundred metres from the sea defences.