Sunday 12th February, 2023

Sunday morning means buying up Nina Simone CD’s. It suits the mood. I’ve been after a copy of Here Comes The Sun for a few weeks now. £20 is not unusual, if a little unreasonable.

My eBay mails from Saturday served up one of those odd double albums – two separate releases on the same CD. Here Comes The Sun was one half of the deal.

I fired off a cheeky fucker offer of £2. PING! You’ve won. Here Comes the Sun, Here Comes Sunday.

Robert Elms opened with Kirsty’s Days – another example of the cover being even better than the original. Oh boy – I do miss Kirsty. Imagine the music she would be making now.

The bloody church bells started their Sunday morning bothering. This was our signal to bugger off. A and I rolled out on the Raleigh electrics in search of some serenity.

We passed the Weird Wiv walking fella.

“Go on, ask him what his story is”

…goaded A.

“Morning!”

That was the best it got.

Some BONKERS mad woman took us up the arse as we cycled towards the top of the town. Maybe she was also wanting to escape the bell ringers? You’re a shit driver, Madam.

We were cheating with the route. We lifted a 40km circuit from C’s Strava feed. C lives at the other end of the town. This often leads to new exit points that we weren’t aware of.

I was riding with only two bars remaining on the electric charge. This should see me through at least 80km.

It was weird riding around some of our familiar lanes in reverse. We passed some fella riding wearing a pair of summer shorts. That’s brave, fella.

Something really weird was taking place around the roads. Some were wet with visible surface water. You turned the corner and the next lane was bone dry.

Our route took us through Manningtree. The Christmas lights were still hanging; the charity shops were closed.

The run in back to base led to us both having a FFS moment together. Some arsehole fly-tipper had dumped a settee with around a dozen bags of cement also added. It looked like it could be a piece of modern art. It was shitty, shitty behaviour all round.

A lunchtime game of wiff waff at the Table of Dreams was attempted. We rocked up, only to find a father and young daughter playing at the table. It was frustrating, but equally lovely. We cut our losses and walked away.

I had a return to the rowing boat mid-afternoon. Tattoo healing and S Ldn responsibilities have kept me away for the past three months. It was the first opportunity to try the specialist rowing gloves that I bought at Decathlon last week.

I walked over to the Sailing Club and passed a couple of builders carrying out some work. They asked me if I fancied a job helping them out. You couldn’t have approached anyone less appropriate, fellas.

I met up with the crew and we prepared to launch. I went paddling down at the foot of the hard wearing my wellies. Oh. Cold feet. My wellies were taking in water. Oh dear.

As soon as we launched we noticed the shit in the water. I don’t want to get scatological. But it was rank. The trail followed us all the way out as far as the Creek. The epicentre was Shit Slick that we had to cross to make further progress.

We stopped rowing to admire a murmuration of birds circling ahead. I was the only male rower in a boat of five. I made a joke about birds in the boat. No one mentioned a word.

Whoops.

A little rowing training took place after the turn. We were asked to row blind-folded and one-handed. I decided not to explore my comic routine further.

I met up with A back at the Table of Dreams to squeeze in a game before sunset. A 4-3 defeat at least attempted to stop my appalling run of form of late.

We watched the Maddison from the World Track Championships in the evening. BONKERS I tell you. Bonkers.

Links for Sunday 12th February, 2023

Police urge against scrapping low traffic neighbourhood, saying it reduces crime | road.cc.

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