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Cab
Jul. 3rd, 2008
11:55 am - Bathrooms...
Musing on renovating the bathroom.
Anyone know anyone good at such things, a company they would reccomend in Cambridge area?
Thinking about how much to do ourselves and how much to pay someone for. Tiling isn't that hard, of course, but how much would paying someone for these things cost?
Jun. 23rd, 2008
02:01 pm - Motons?
I’m sitting thinking for a moment, about happenings on the roads. Not the serious ones, where someone has swerved at you or knocked you off, and certainly not the very serious ones where a cyclist has been badly hurt. I’m thinking about all of the ‘near miss’ events. All of the times when I’ve been honked by someone behind me because they are quite desperate to be stuck behind the car yards in front of me. The times when I’ve had a dose of ‘verbal’ for simply being on the road. And naturally, my first thought is that these people are idiots; moronic car drivers or ‘moton’ as some call them. But then, who is the moton when he gets out of his car? Is he the same person in real life? When he’s walking down the street is he yelling abuse at everyone who is in his way? Or does he just fade into the background?
Theres no getting around it, some people just don’t have the same personality on the roads. Put them behind the wheel of a car and they become just a little bit crazy. Or put them on a bike saddle and they become really rather passive. So when dealing with these daily stresses, the question for any cyclist on the receiving end is how do we get past the moton and impress upon the human underneath that we’re just the same, and that taking risks with out safety or just being flat rude to us is unacceptable?
Is it that they believe that a cyclist shouldn't be there, so its okay to be threatening? Is it that they believe that a cyclist should be in a passive (dangerous) road position, that the cyclist has broken some unwritten rule by owning the road space, and that therefore the same rules don't apply? In short, whats it all about? And more importantly, how does a cyclist bridge the gap, how do you get seen as a person rather than an inanimate obstacle?
11:16 am - All quiet on the road front, then...
...while in primary on Carlton Way, looked left, looked right, car passed with space enough and then started pulling in too soon in front of me and slowing down for a speed hump. Saw it had 'P' stickers, could see the driver was flustered, thought fine, he's seen me, knows what he's done wrong, let it pass; give a small amount of space and immediately regain primary.
Then a second car came alongside within inches, like, under my armpit, tried to pass, and I had nowhere to go (parked cars on left, kids getting out for school, odds of being doored if I swerve that way exceedingly high) I yelled a warning, hit the next speed hump ahead of that car, and continued in primary. Car was then stuck behind me, and I behind the 'P' car in front, at about two cars lengths distance (appropriate enough at the slow speed of the traffic). Car behind couldn't pass, wasn't any point anyway, and then at the shops less than 100 yards further on theres a loud tirade of horn and abuse from car behind as she turned off to park at the shop; i.e. I hadn't held her up, she wasn't going anywyhere any faster if I wasn't there, I had simply pissed her off.
I stopped (traffic was stopping anyway, wasn't going anywhere !), yelled 'What?', got more abuse 'in the middle of the fucking road', etc. 'My, we ARE an angry little idiot, aren't we? Let me guess, did you get that driving license in a Christmas cracker' was my response.
Continued on... Over the junction, onto the next speed humped road of irritationl, car parked on the right pulled out without indicating right into the space I was in; either had to stop, swerve and hit the parked car to my left or out accelerate her, an emergency stop would have resulted in me going underneath her or over her bonnet, I yelled a warning, she looked shocked, broke, and shouted 'SORRY!'. Ok, mistake, but all she had to do was look before pulling out.
Got to town, to a regularly bad bit where traffic my way had right of way, stopped for a bus that was coming anyway whether or not I had right of way, scratched head, the face of the bus driver and the abuse yelled through the window were both of a interesting shade of blue.
My experience is that there are 'angry spells' on the road, where for whatever reason there seem to be more people in bad moods. So from tomorrow, its back on with the helmet cam I'm afraid.
Jun. 21st, 2008
10:24 am - Fine all week...
...and raining at the weekend. I hate planting things out in the rain, its bad for soil structure. But these brassicas need to go out :(
Jun. 18th, 2008
01:09 pm - NEVER stop to look at the cameras
Even if you HAVE been looking for cloth to make a cape and the cameras are on the way out of the big JL, just don't. Don't think about it, don't do it. Especially don't look at the moreu recent members of the Sony DSLR cameras. They're too good and you just don't need another one.
09:33 am - Got the sneezes...
...and tendonitis is playing up, and my joints are hurting... I have a bit of a cold to go along with my hayfever, so I feel all unwell. I'm not, its just inconvenient. But I hate it.
Jun. 15th, 2008
07:46 pm - Sunday - cherries, garlic, tomato plants...
Hard morning on the plot. Brought home the garlic, planted out many squashes, picked raspberries, strawberries, a few goosegogs that were ripe, and peas, mange tout, broad beans and rhubarb.
Gathered cherries and elderflowers for apricot and elderflower jam.
Dinner is on (slow roast lamb shoulder with onions, rosemary and garlic, mix of peas and mange tout and beans and of course baby new potatoes). Just plaited the garlic, having come back from another visit to the plot where I planted out a good two dozen tomato plants, including two 'blight tolerant' varieties (after last years dreadful blight). Sitting chilling before going to make gravy, glass of elderflower champagne next to me.
09:37 am - Veil of Visions
Just ordered a phantom of the opera mask (for a phantom outfit intended for a masked ball in a couple of weeks, also possibly this years halloween costume) from this site:
http://www.veilofvisions.com/
Excellent and way over the top gothy gear.
09:03 am - Events in Cambridge
Yesterday had several.
The annual 'Town and Country' thingy was yesterday and today; went along, acquired cheese, sarsaprilla, two plants (yet another sweet cicely which WILL thrive in Cambridge soil this time, and a lovely red flowered salvia that smells of blackcurrants), some chilli jelly, chollah bread, and bits and bobs. Also made friends with a piglet and admired some shire horses. Met some interesting people; some I've met before, one new one being a chilli produced from Ely.
Cycling back through town was an African choir (Ladysmith style), who were rather good so I stopped to listen for a while.
Then went home, sorted out early salad bed 1 (which will now be tomatoes) in the garden, planted out salvia and sweet cicely, had lunch, then went to the Arbury Carnival.
After that was allotment, where I got in the over wintering shallots and garlic, planted out sweetcorn and more squashes, and turned in garlic beds for next crop (yet more squashes).
Jun. 12th, 2008
10:00 pm - Todays haul of food
From the plot this evening:
Along the back are lettuce, red russian kale, chervil, sorrel, mizuna, rhubarb, a few shallots, chickweed and broad beans.
And at the front you see radishes, little round carrots, a plate with tayberries, raspberries, strawberries and redcurrants, then peas and 'golden sweet' mange tout, and on the far right a few early spuds
Ate well this evening; roast shallot and squash (we're still eating them) cous cous, with a big green salad, potato salad, cruncy mange tout, carrots and radishes (with some other bought crunchy veg too, which is cheating), and a sauteed onion/bacon/broad bean thingy. That followed with browsing on berries.
Frozen some peas and mange tout, as they'll be better frozen than stored fresh.
Jun. 11th, 2008
09:39 am - How to get sky+ cheaply
Ring up and say that on reflection the Virgin package is better. Just got a deal that saves £120 quid on the best price they would offer me before implying I would cancel Sky.
Jun. 10th, 2008
Jun. 9th, 2008
10:53 am - Weekend - Strawberry Fair etc.
Thanks to all of our gests, we had a great time.
Briefly; Strawberry Fair, annual party following it, punting on Sunday, surprise find of yellow cracking boletus, ate and drank lots, bought stuff at fair.
Jun. 4th, 2008
10:41 pm - Nat West Bank
Why is it hard for them to understand that assigning me security details for online and telephone banking without asking me, and then not telling me what they are so that I can't get any information over the phone, does not inspire me with confidence in their capacity to get such a facility right in future? Why should it be hard for them to get that while the solution 'well we can wipe that and set you new ones' may fix the immediate problem, but it doesn't change the fact that they've been crap? It doesn't change the fact that not being able to get in to my details over the phone or online meant that it took me hours and multiple phonecalls to determine whether or not a lost card had been used, and it doesn't inspire me with any confidence in their online/telephone security if they cannot tell me how this happened?
Been with them for donkeys years (16 years I think), they've done very little wrong, ever. They're extremely good at all the little things, they only cock up on the occasional big thing (like when they once randomly cancelled a standing order leaving my rent unpaid for two months... and when they wouldn't give us a mortgage because they would only lend us something like three grand less than what we needed, that kind of thing). I don't want to move my current account elsewhere, but I'll be damned if I stick with them unless they convince me that they give a damn.
Jun. 3rd, 2008
04:17 pm - At Lunchtime, St. Georges shrooms and others
Got a basket load, mostly St. Georges mushrooms, a few horse shrooms and a couple of field shrooms, and some fairy ring marasmius. A few unidentified specimens for later perusal too.
Jun. 1st, 2008
07:02 pm - Busy weekend
With the Christening last weekend, and Strawberry Fair next weekend, had to get a lot done this weekend.
So... Planted out some tomatoes, the second lot of courgettes, two sorts of pumpkin and two sqyash (why have I still got 30 or so plants left?), got in the over wintering Japanese onions, weeded the shallots, onions, potatoes, strawberries, parsnips, salsify, scorzonera and skirret, took out last of the sprouting broccoli plants, potted up the last of the assorted chillis and peppers, built a sturdy row of supports for French beans and got them out.. Heck, doesn't sound like much, but its a lot when much of the ground needs more prep. Also got shopping (the most gorgeous shoulder of lamb, ribs and bones still in, was the hilight; buchered up for kebabs/stews/curries now).
Yesterdays dinner was a novelty for us. Did fried lambs sweetbreads with bacon, mange tout, peas and broad beans (and a little garlic), lamb and rosemary cous cous with lime, and piles of green salad.
May. 29th, 2008
04:10 pm - Don't go to the garden centre while hungry...
...especially Focus. They've got an odd edible range of plants, two for a fiver. Nearly had a little pineapple plant, but instead got a coffee plant and a tiny little banana tree. Also have wild garlic in that range, and physalis, aloe, can't recall the others.
09:26 am - Long range weather forecast...
...gives likelyhood of frost weekend of the 7th. Flipping heck.
May. 27th, 2008
10:42 am - Bank holiday weekend- Tyneside, silly games, hospital
Went up North to Tyneside for the weekend. Train trips were all okay, but it takes a long time. Stayed with sister in Walker, went to Christening of new nephew at St. Helens. Only had time to briefly pop into Newcastle. Most impressed with the new Polish and Russian shops there, as well as the new organic restaurant on Clayton street. Ate pasties at Monument, watching the goths/emos/wierdos. For some reason they're not allowed to sit on the grass of Old Eldon Square at the moment, perhaps it has been reseeded or something. Disgusted by the fact that the Green Market and the Fish Market have been demolished. Startled that the picutres up at Manors has been replaced by University buildings of quite staggering impracticality. Still, Newcastle has a sense of happening to it that is lacking in some other Northern cities (like Leeds) these days.
Walker is poor. I mean, you get a sense of it walking along on a Sunday morning when you see row after row of council houses without cars parked outside. Yet it is clean, its well kept, its not in any way threatening or oppressive. In fact, it totally puts Cambridge City Councils maintenance and improvement programs for areas of housing it maintains to shame. I get that impression every time I go outside of Cambridge though. Going in to town through Byker, its clear that Shields Road is barely a shadow of what it was, it used to have Beavans, Parishes, all of the cycle shops you could ever need (who will ever forget the Metro Radio advert 'Hardesty Cycles, home of the Banana'), discount shops, weigh and save shops, clothing, the best aquarium specialist on Tyneside... But its now rather bland.
Saw little of The Fell, but was startled that the New Cannon is now the Old Cannon. Wonder whether the Old Cannon up in Deckam is now the Older Cannon. Pub name shuffle, a game to bewilder the young and give the old endless entertainment as they argue over what pubs used to be called. St. Helens is still the lovely parish church, and still as cold as ever; the old horse chestnut in its grounds has been pollarded crudely, but it will recover. Still always cold in there.
Watched Eurovision on Saturday night.
Family all seem well, although they all have a bad mobile phone habit.
Got home Sunday evening, but got little outdoors allotment stuff done on Monday owing to mingingness of weather. So racked homebrew as sorted seeds to plant. Played silly games instead of regular D&D.
Cut index finger, left hand chopping onions yesterday. Deep cut at end knuckle, thought I'd leave it, but reconsidere this morning. A whole flap is going to fall off; nurse at hospital gave better dressing than I'd applied, and advice on healing up. Not far off needing further treatment, but it'll heal up. Waited 10 minutes to be assessed, then an hour and a half for treatment. Gave me time to plough into re-reading Frankenstein.
May. 23rd, 2008
12:48 pm - Almost across the road when...
...the guy on the moped started yelling at me.
Chesterton Road, dismounted to use the zebra crossing (which is what cyclists coming towards the city and turning right are directed to do there, rather than just use the road). Started to cross, not long after another pedestrian, the traffic stopped again leaving a fat bloke on a moped at the front of the queue; well over the give way line.
Almost across, started to yell at me and the others now crossing, including some kids who were pushing their bikes. Apparently they hadn't dismounted sharply enough for him, they'd cycled onto the pavement and then dismounted before crossing.
Yelling, well, fine, he's an idiot. Then he started revving his engine which, from a moped, is a lot less intimidating than he'd intended it to be, but still enough to put the frighteners up those kids. Unacceptable.
So I explained to him loudly enough to be heard through his helmet that he oughtn't do that again. Not precisely what I said, but you get the drift. You know what? He backed down.
Bullies, every single one of them is a coward when it comes down to it.
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