1 Dec 2016

1st December 2016 Rumours of my demise...

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Thursday 1st 45F, 7C, very heavy overcast, intermittent rain, light winds building. The threatened 45mph gusts have been downgraded for our area. Not a great day, but I shall make the effort to walk but not run. Riding may be optional. With the wind roaring in the trees all day I pottered in the shed instead.

Friday 2nd 32-38F, 0-3C,  calm and clear. Still waiting for the sun to rise [~8.25] but it should be a rather cold, sunny day with light winds. Definitely a triking day.  The forest was very drab and monochromatic today. With the brilliant, low sun barely grazing the treetops. A thin cold wind nagged at my bare extremities but the £7 recycled, Helly Hansen jacket is proving excellent value.

Rode north into the light but cold wind. My recycled winter cycling jacket is proving itself for yet another year. Only 18 miles.

Saturday 3rd 25F, -3C. White frost. Had another sickness episode yesterday. Hours of vomiting until I was empty. Head spinning, couldn't open my eyes nor shut them. Couldn't lie down without throwing up. Sweating buckets despite being under-dressed in a cool bedroom.

Feeling slightly better this morning but threw up again after sipping only a little cold water. Back to bed where I slept on and off for hours and hours. Haven't eaten for 24 hours. Chewed my way through some dry toast and a cup of tea without milk and kept it down.

Googled the symptoms: Inner ear infection came top of the list. That would also explain the deafness in my left ear. Or, it could be the toxins on the fields I wander beside. Or even the hazel nuts in my home made muesli. And, no, I am not in the habit of placing hazel nuts in my left ear. Nor eating the crops in the local fields. Can they off-gas toxins at winter temperatures to make walkers [like me] so seriously ill? 

Sunday 4th 35F, +2C. Hard, white frost. Cloudy. Still. Feeling a bit better today though still "wobbly." I even managed to sleep last night despite having slept for most of yesterday. Breakfast stayed down. Though this probably still means a long ride is rather unlikely. I managed a couple of lengths of the drive to straighten my back and un-knot my legs after two days of inactivity. Quarter of a mile isn't much but it was absolutely freezing and the ground rock hard.

Just read on the BBC news website: This week's minister in charge of encouraging dangerous driving, in Gravely Blighted, is considering raising the penalty for killing while driving by 2035 at the earliest. Fines are reported to rise to a terrifying five new pence from the previous thruppence [in old money.] Half price discounts are available to the well-heeled who can still afford a decent suit and haircut. What with the pound behaving like a drowning infant, 'n all.

The penalty for using a mobile phone, while driving, is to rise from a barely affordable one pence to an [economically crippling] two pence. Full refunds and massive compensation will be allowed on appeal if you are rich enough. Provided the driver can prove, without reasonable doubt, that drink or drugs were entirely to blame for the subsequent multiple deaths and injuries. Specialist "Get 'em off!" ambulance chasers are already licking their lips at the promise of increased income at the victim's family's expense.

The current, average sentence for causing death by dangerous driving, in the UK, is 3 days in a centrally heated, juvenile detention center with Xbox, Netflix and large screen TVs in every private room with en-suite sauna and hot tub. With time off, for good behaviour, the savings for increased tax cuts for super-rich footballers are considered substantial:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-38199720


Click on any dreary image for a bit of a let down.

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