Busy doing Nothing

I spent an hour on Thursday composing what I thought was an interesting and humorous blog about my recent and latest incident. The ingredients of the story were me, my bike, a B Class road, a driver in a silver Peugeot and an overtaking manoeuvre that could be described as ‘unfortunate’.
Anyway, my blog proof reader suggested that no one wanted to read about people (particularly cyclists) having to dive into hedges trying to avoid smart French family saloons, so I ditched that petit work of literature-art and I’m happy to report I’ve reverted back to my normal state of lethargy and inane blogspeak.

During this time of year, I appear ‘busy’ at home, preparing for some mundane task such as mooing the loon or talking the wink for a dig. However, every 15 minutes or so I wander into the lounge where either the Open Golf or Le Tour is on, standing about 4 feet from the Tele with my arms crossed, feet planted, in readiness for the impending task. This stance lasts around 15 minutes on average and rarely involves sitting down. If I did that I would have to admit to the hours I’m spending watching men in colourful slacks, many of them with ‘a nice easy action’ (as the gravelly voiced commentators point out) swinging their way to a living that I would very much like. Golf. I’ll have some of that, I’m thinking.

That cycling thing looks good fun as well. Meet up with 10 or so of your mates, grab your bike and pedal around France every day, waving to the crowds, having your drinks brought to you and your legs rubbed every afternoon. They’re equally colourful but sometimes I get the impression they seem to be making hard work of those climbs. Some of them seem to take those sprints a bit seriously though. Very excitable. When I’ve finished a ride I’m chuffed and usually pleased I’ve come back without half of a hedge stuck in me jumper. Apparently, someone got asked to leave in the tour yesterday.

‘They need to take a ****** chill pill’ as Auntie Agnes occasionally blurts out from the slit in her Anderson Shelter. I knew it was a mistake letting her build that thing in the garden.

The running mileage has dropped off the scale, but I’m happy to report the bikes in daily use and to such a degree that I actually caught someone 2 days ago and I even had a puncture yesterday. Happy days.

Denying my fast twitch muscles all these years hasn’t been easy, pretending to be an endurance athlete, so this autumn I’m making a last gasp pincer movement on Two fronts. Firstly, I may have a late splurge on the track over short distances and try a few different fell runs with my rediscovered quads. I may also enter a few 10 time trials on the bike..... Hang, on... that’s a 3 pronged affair. Fighting on too many fronts. Now,that's what did for Napoleon. n-est-ce pas. What was his time for the 400m anyway? Would I want the same fate as him..mmm. Well if it means being taken to an isolated island to live out the rest of my days, could be worse. As long as it had a few hills and I had my trainers.