Adventure Rocket Ship

I woke up at 3am on Friday, mildly desperate for the bog-block at the other end of our field. The roof of the tent was an odd sort of mottled cream, bellowing back and forth in the wind. The brass chandelier wasn't moving though, which was odd. I tried to recall where I'd left my boots and which pair of trousers were closest to hand, so I could pile on enough clothing not to scare any other shambling campers making for the same destination. There was something still wrong with the tent roof though. It was too far away and too rectilinear.

Then I woke up a little more and remembered I was in a room at the Columbia Hotel and the bog-block was an avocado thing about three metres away from my head.

The unconscious theme of SHA2017 was random electric vehicles.

I didn't so much wake up this AM as become upright and start shambling about while looking for the damp weather gear. I stopped shambling and started swearing when pushing the Courier towards the door resulted in a splop splop splop noise as the front tyre wriggled flatly on the rim.

I stuffed my officewear[1] and towel in the leaky rucksack, wrapped it the piss-yellow raincover from the pannier and steamed off into the rain on the Nice Bike instead.

Quicker, but damper. The Courier has rider and other-cyclist friendly things like a crud-catcher and a length of cardboard gaffered along the top of the carrier, which serve as good-enough mudguards. (The Audax mob will gob in yer tea if you don't fit real mudguards for the winter season) The N-B, um, doesn't. Thus I arrive in Bath with a wide streak of mud up my back where the raincover hasn't caught it and one boot full of water because I went through a large puddle on a left-hand curve, which soaked one leg of my winter strides. Through the magic of unnatural fibre, that water piddled into my boot.

Waterproof boots are great things as long as the water stays on the outside. This AM, however, I was able to perform that comedy staple of tipping a boot out in the sink.

Still, all good fun, and I think I'd rather be out in that than travelling cattle-class.


Elsewhere, this Django business is deceptively simple. Although the only good documentation is their own. The bolt-on bits are a bit 'RTFS or GTFO' .



[1] I've watched labbies spend the day clattering about in road-shoes and lycra. That's not for me, if only out of a sense of common decency and to save the eyes of the populace.

Ha. Stymied.

Can I be unreasonably pleased that where once there was an off-white blob of lardy beergut, there's now (some) muscle definition? Jolly good. Farewell, love-handles. You won't be missed.

(There was actually a reason other than pure vanity for this. It seemed somehow asymmetric that other people were attractive (in the Western European mode) while I remained globular and misshapen. Call it a very odd street-art project.)

I should write some words, instead of staring uselessly at a computer or the telly. Still, I'm looking forward to the OU programme on non-Euclidean geometry. Hopefully presented by a visiting professor from Miskatonic University.