'That little secret...'

This one is for my friend Yuri's canvas online...

It goes a little something like this;

Not many people know this, but a bicycle is like a book, you can take it anywhere, and vice-versa. Well, not 100% really, but almost. I would not take my bike with me to the toilet. Unless I had forgotten the lock.

For people who do not cycle; to work, for pleasure or sport, it's hard to explain what cycling is all about. Because it's like being born, or dying, or losing your virginity. It's something you have to experience for yourself. If you haven't yet, until you do so it will remain a little secret.
Cycling is not everyone's cup of tea. Like sex is not everyone's cup of tea. And here's another little secret, cycling is much better than sex. Or maybe I'm doing it wrong.

So, Friday the 31st of August, 2007, I stuffed a backpack with a couple of maps, compass, tooth brush, passport, credit card and some food. Then I left the office in Teddington, and cycled to Newhaven. That's a port town on the south coast of England, east of Brighton.

Next thing I was on the overnight ferry to Dieppe, France, and that is the truth.
I got there Saturday nice and early and my bike kept taking me along the coast to all these amazing places I had never been to and didn't even know existed. I was in Normandy by the way, and it became obvious to me that Britain was ruled for centuries by Norman kings. At times it all looked so familiar, the houses and gardens. I even found myself crossing over to the left hand lane every so often.

Now the river Seine is a well known river. Like the Thames snakes through London, it snakes through Paris then goes on to the sea, to separate Haute-Normandie from Basse-Normandie. At that point man built a suspension bridge, the architectural and engineering feat known as "Pont de Normandie", which has a cycle lane, and not many people know this.

By crossing the bridge I ended up in lovely Honfleur. It was as packed as Le Havre on the other side was empty, although Le Havre is a Unesco World Heritage Centre. I ended up in Honfleur but didn't stay there long, only long enough for a piss and I pissed like a horse, being badly in need since Le Havre but having to hold up for the lack of a suitable spot so it had to be there by the Total service station, in sight of giggling French femmes.

My bike then took me to Caen just as, if not more charming than Honfleur.
Caen has a big Harry Potter like castle, complete with moat, right in the middle of town. I stayed at the HI Hostel for the night even though I'm well past hostelling age. They didn't mind.
I splashed out a couple of euros extra on sheets and was shocked to discover that the sheets were disposable! I had never heard of such thing but in our day and age when things seem to come suitably carbon-footprinted, having read about the damaging environmental effects of intensive cotton farming, I figured that disposable sheets might be just as good as their predecessor, give or take some brownie points. As my boss said today, it's only a planet. And who am I to argue with the boss.

I ate and slept all I could and before I knew it the sheets were in the bin and I was on the saddle again. It was Sunday morning and I was riding along the D-Day landing beaches. There are five of them, from east to west - Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha and Utah.
A lot is said and known about these beaches and D-Day so I cannot add anything but I can tell you this; a couple of miles inland from the northern tip of Utah Beach there is a tiny village called Ravenoville, where the streets have no name. In the corner bar the only chocolate bar for sale is Twix. And that is the honest truth.

I had to top up the Twixes with some leftover cheese and ham - couldn't find any bread and by the time I did I was running out of time so had to keep on spinning fast till Cherbourg-Octeville to make my return ferry. That meant being ripped off on the ferry instead of buying lots of good cheap French food from the supermarket but if you believe in destiny, like me, you just have to accept it.

The high-speed ferry boat was destined to Portsmouth. It was very fast and took about five pukes to get there, not mine, a kid sat next to me.
Next thing I knew it was Monday morning and I was climbing into bed. Although it was several hours after the ferry arrived.
I cycled through lots of sleepy villages and some rain then I slept myself for a couple of hours. During my brief sleep I had a dream, a revelation. Light was cast into the dark corners and all became clear and made perfect sense. Then the alarm rang. I woke up, cycled to work and forgot the dream, so it remained a secret.

Brecon Beacons - Rhondda Valleys

As the days get warmer and cyclosportive events begin to fill the calendar - when many of us will be doing events in France, Italy and Spain - one begins to wonder, as I did, if it would not be wise to get some good climbing in, to alleviate the shock and pain of negociating a something-per-cent incline that seems to go on forever up the Alps, Dolomites or Pyrenees.

So every morning as I sat behind my desk, the four ordnance survey maps (OS Landranger Map 160, 161, 170, 171) I had bought back in the dawn of times it seemed, also sat, neatly stacked and covering the Black Mountains, Brecon Beacons and Rhoddha Valleys in not so distant Wales. Stabilo fluorescent yellow highlighter weighing them down.

And it came to pass in this year of the Lord 2007, Thursday before Spring Bank Holiday weekend I got my co-worker, Dr Alan Williams, a Wales national champion climber in the early 90's to mark me a 100-mile loop. That had been the plan all along but you know what it's like.

He seemed hesitant in putting ink to paper but once he got going there was not stopping him, all maps were spread out on the office floor and around went the Stabilo with two variations to increase distance and ascent, depending of how I was feeling on the day.

Fast forward 45 hours . I'm in a state half enlightened, half comatose, in Alan's ancestral home, eating pizza courtesy of Mr and Mrs Williams who, after six-months of renovation work, have many family and friends checking out the new extension. The pressure is on Alan and Ian, his brother, for lots of grandchildren. The Giro is on Eurosport, Simoni attacks on the last ascent, Garzelli catches up on the descent and wins the sprint. Simoni blames the RAI motorcycle. I'm back on the road.

Rewind 20 hours. I arrive at Abergavenny. The start and finish of my anti-clockwise loop.
After a pub meal with a glass of red, bed and a fry-up, I'm on my bike - Specialized Roubaix Comp - riding along the A40, heading North-West to Crickhowell. 0730h departure time. The morning is bright and chilly. I've got leg and arm warmers, plus a gillet. I brought enough food and drink to last me about six hours.

It all worked out well. Alan gave me a lift to Wales - I had been planning to catch the train. We left the office early but still hit some holiday traffic. I reviewed the route, wrote some notes - turns, roads, distances and had a deep hour's sleep. Alan dropped me at the services on the A4042, near Pontypool, with ten miles to go, due north to Abergavenny.

I'm sure lots of you have been to bikely.com by now. I plotted my route the other day after coming back, and it didn't look at all shabby. The elevation profile (Show > Elevation Profile) looks really good with lots of spikes:
http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/Breacon-Beacons-Rhondda-Valleys-tour

The first spike, from left to right, being the <...>. At Crickhowell I took the bridge over the river Usk, carried on North-West and just before Llangynidr turned South onto the B4560, which goes up the ridge in two hairpins. From the first hairpin onwards the view was postcard scenery and had "Visit Wales" written all over it.
Once on the plateau I dropped into Garnlydan then Beaufort. On the way down, about an hour into my journey, I saw a fellow solitary cyclist coming up the hill. I wondered where were all the brothers on wheels. Was it the unsettled weather that have kept them in? Or has the Rhyl Tragedy put everyone off? After those thoughts had come and gone I figured that the cycling population of Wales was a fraction of us in South London, Surrey and Kent, when on any given half-sunny Saturday morning you would have expected to see a few gangs,
and to be waved and noded by most of them, if you happened to be riding with Judith from Brixton Cycles, who seems to know them all.
I did not see Nicole Cook anywhere. Alan says she was a champion from the age of 13. She certainly falls into the category of riders I would only recognise from behind, like the Thursday Elmers End chaingang.

From Beaufort I headed South-West on the A465. The road looked busy on the map but Alan assured me I would be ok and I was. Now just a mile before Hirwaun, my exit, a fellow cyclist pulled up next to me.
"How is it going?" he asked.
It turns out his parents live in Swansea and his fiancee's near Abergavenny so she was laying in while he was streching his legs and later she would drive down to the soon-to-be in-laws.
They live in Wimbledon.
"What brings you here?" he asked.
"Training." I reply.
"What for?"
"An event in Italy." - The Granfondo Campagnolo.
"Not many places to ride in London, eh?" He stated sadly.
"Well, there is always Surrey and Kent." I said, trying to be positive.
"Do you know Box Hill?" He asked animatedly.
"I was there two days ago!" I replied almost shouting.
Silence. I guess the guy figured I was a nutter. In reality it was my boss who dragged me out there on the day. All I did was suggest we should head out to Surrey one morning before work instead of yet another few loops of Richmond Park, which for all its beauty, does become boring.

My exit came up. I wished him a safe journey while he wished me good luck in Italy and on that fraternal note our ways parted.

I turned South for the day's second climb - <...>, not as brutal as number one but compounded, it soon found out that niggle on my thigh. This was about 3 hours in and here the cyclists really started coming out of the woodwork although in the opposite direction, but Alan did not want to send me clockwise and in the end I found out why.
(...)

I bombed down the valley and as the morning shadows' shortened, I found myself in the bustling village of Treorchy, drenched in sunshine. Here I had an option to head South-East the short loop to Ferndale or South around the Rhondda Valleys, the long way. I was feeling ok so opted for extra miles. Here came climb number three and this one almost put the fear of God into me. It was an awesome view! The road heading up the mountain, a hairpin being negociated by an ant size cyclist. Alpine material. I got up fine giving me hope I might get over the Manghen pass with some voluntary leg motion and not on spasms alone.

At the top I went by another viewpoint but it didn't look as spectacular as it should. It then became obvious that most oxygen was being used up by my thighs, with not a lot left for my brain. I kept hearing Sean Kelly's voice, "You must eat, even if you're not hungry...". Something he said while comenting on this year's Paris-Roubaix.

After a few bumps I crossed the Rhondda river onto Porth then headed North-East to Ferndale, slowly approaching the town from below. Then came the shortest and sharpest climb of the day, over the <> and yet another inspiring view of Ferndale. Over the ridge, into the woods and past the village of <>, I got onto the . The weather now looked like rain and indeed the drops started falling from the sky, although the heavier rainfall would hit me on the last 10 miles.
I arrived in Nelson and gave Alan a ring. He gave me some instructions on how to get to his parents' home and it all seemed ok except for the fact that I really was not thinking straight and that my scribbled directions, so handy this far, had fallen out of my gillet pocket. He had described a two-mile hill. I went over three and only the third seemed hilly enough to be described as such, after the 4 passes. It turned out that I went about 6 miles too far. I turned around, no doubt, thinking about that hot cup of coffee, if fact it was about the only thing I could think of.
I got there in the end and my hosts were surprised that I actually turned around.
Fast forward to <>, the second variation of the day. My belly was now full of pizza chocolate mouse and coffee and the legs were spinning nicely. The options were left onto the for the last climb of the day or straight on to avoid the climb, repeating the route to Abergavenny from the previous day. I chose the climb and was not at all resentful. Although the rain was just about lashing down, it was one of those long and steady climbs, that allow you to settle into a nice rhythm and up and up you go, though copses and villages. I hit the plateau and the rain just about stopped. Then came the legendary Tumble, a brutal 1 in 10 and here I realised why Alan sent me the other way. I could see this monster, first thing in the morning, putting you off a beer. I had my breaks on practically all the way back to the valley floor. Then it was another two miles to the B&B where I left my backpack and there my adventure came to and end. Well, not really. Every end is a beginning, I say. And there is a lot more to explore. Although given the area and the terrain, I would say this was a very comprehensive loop, that would equate to the Fred Whitton Challenge, if we were talking Lake District.
Anyway my cycling friends, until next time, safe journey.


ADD ROAD NAMES!!!

WIND

Pay-per-click 4

I don't know a great deal about Jenny. What I know I found out through, well, call it stalking, call it observation. I know who her friends are. Her life schedule, her interests.
It did take hours and hours. And Mr Google did what he could but there are so many Jennifer Simpsons in this world, it is no joke, this obssession of mine. And I wish I could say now, calmly, "the moment has passed", but it has not, by a long way.
I have moved on somehow. When I fell in love with that woman I didn't know the difference between sweep rowing and sculling, or a quad and a four, or a double and a pair.
I know the difference know. I've taken to rowing. After reading so much about the milieu I decided that rowers were a very dedicated bunch and it was worth checking that scene out.
Dedicated indeed they were, as well as a tightly knit socially. But meanwhile I got deeper and deeper into cycling, and that is a much hotter burn.
I've heard about rowers practically going blind during competition, due to all oxygen going to the legs, and not enough going to the brain. Now that must burn. I don't think I'll ever reach that stage.
On the downside there is a lot of hanging around. Waiting for some tardy crew member. It's a bit like playing in a band, or travelling with a big group. You travel at the average speed of the group, never faster.
With cycling there is less hanging around, you get on your bike and your off somewhere down hilly Surrey and Kent. A few laps around Richmond Park. A night ride in London, up to Hampstead Heath to look at the beautiful skyline, then down to Primrose Hill for some of the same and with a bit of luck catch some live music if some neo-hippies happen to have a strummable acoustic guitar.
Then off to the 24 hour bagel shop. By then it could be 2am, the places starts to heave with clubbers coming back from Old Street and your head is so full of oxygen it's unreal, I'm more or less in the same state as the clubbers, except they've done drugs and I've been riding.
I took up sport as a substitute for drugs anyway, so it's a fair exchange and I'm where I want to be, takes some work to get there, but it's the same high without the come down, although you can take anti-come down drugs nowadays, that pad your crash landing. Cheats!
Five hours have gone by.
I lie in bed, hair dripping wet. Staring at the ceiling and thinking about Jenny.
I asked her out three times. Three times she declined. Not before opening the most beautiful and engaging smile. It melted me.
God it took a Herculean effort to get off my bum, walk up to her and ask if she was doing anything that weekend. It was as if I was in a dream where some kind of force kept pulling me back and it was near impossible to move forward. Still, I went all the way up to her and asked.
She was doing her streches and stared at me in disbelief. Time froze. Then the smile. I took a deep breath, my eyes must have been staring wildly. A relieved "I thought you would never ask" look on her face but she said "I'm going rowing this weekend."
"Uh, ok", I replied and started turning away, shell shocked.
"Thank you for asking" she replied before getting back to her stretches.
I was in heaven for days. Then somehow, it all went wrong. Or more likely, it wasn't meant to be.
And since then things have changed. She stopped dying her hair blonde. I keep and eye on her, I know she's doing well, I like to be near her. Her presence has a calming effect on me.
She has this sisterly relationship with her mother, who had her when she was still very young. The mother, not having any sisters, developed a relationship with the daughter to fill the gap.
I don't know how that affects both or if it's good or bad. It's just one more piece of the <> I'm sewing. And one day, maybe it will all make sense, at once. On the last page, of the last chapter, before the grim reaper appears, in the shape of a sharp bend, near a cliff in the Pyrenees, saying, "Time is up, son", and over the guard rail I fly to a violent and instant death, a few seconds away. My life flashes before my eyes. Scenes of my childhood. Me playing with my brothers and sister. Walking with my mother on the beach at night, hand in hand. She stands so tall her head seems to touch the starry sky. And then darkness. But no. Aching life continues. Off I go, to break another pain barrier, then to compare notes, with my aching friends.
Knocked down on every round. Yet, up and away. Saved by the bell, again. The referee was up to nine. A brief respite then the flying blood, the cracking bones. "Will I survive, is God watching?"

Pay-per-click 3

I hear a random gentle tapping. Rain drops on the window pane.
Outside traffic is thickening. Umbrellas appear. Darker clouds gathering above.
Lightning. One elephant, two elephant. Thunder. Six-hundreds metres away.
It may have struck a tree, a passerby, a car, on a spot never to be stricken again.
A police vehicle, followed by an ambulence, make steady progress along Victoria Street.


It's now mid-afternoon and I'm feeling very sleepy.

Pay-per-click 2

Back to my desk, in my cubicle. Eating my delicious toasted bacon sandwich on brown bread with brown sauce and no butter, to Franco's great disappointment.
He knows I don't take butter, yet he asks every time so it cannot be helped.
How many calories has this sandwich got? I think it's 3 calories per carbohidrate grams, so, probably say 100 grams of bread so 300. Then 4 calories per gram of protein and 5 per gram of fat. The bacon is pretty fatty so let's make it 4.5 times say 50 grams so total calories comes to, uhm, get the calculator, 525 plus brown sauce make it 550. I probably burnt 750 on the way in so, I'm losing weight.
I don't really need to lose any but it's good to keep track, I think. My biggest problem at the moment is flatulence. Well, can it be classed as a problem. If I had no morals and farted any time I felt the necessity it would never be an issue, but I can't really stand up in the middle of the morning meeting, let rip a thunderous one, and thunderous they have been, raise my arms to the heavens welcoming the kudos and then taking my seat again. I wish I could do it, though, now that I think of it.
It's so unnatural to try not to fart. It's against nature, are you listening people.
My dad told me never to fart. I don't know where he picked that up from - Christian upbringing?
But my mother was brought up that way, too, and never mentioned anything about farts. About sex, yes. She gave me a thick book. "Read this". She said.
But no advice on farts.
Why am I farting so much?
I lay down for my extended Saturday sleep and cannot believe the amount of gas that comes out of me. And it doesn't really bother me, when I'm on my own. So GUILT, yes, guilt, turns me into something that I am not. Still, why is it happening?
It seems to coincide with me cold-turkeying from the coffee. Maybe it was too big a shock and my digestive system is confused, expecting a big caffeine hit any moment and mal-functioning in the meantime.
And all that time ago, a woman was giving me oral sex, and I felt like farting. It is not a nice predicament.
If I really didn't give a damn I would have, but I dind't want her to stop, so had to stop enjoying oral sex and direct my efforts to avoid farting. It is almost tragic, come to think of it. But the Greeks wrote nothing of it, so it can't be.
But halitosis, yuk! That is far worse, confess. That woman I kissed and kissed not because I wanted to, but because she wouldn't stop. She had rotten breath, still we kissed for what seemed an eternity. Her eyes closed, her fingertips running through my hair. I thought I was going to faint.
And I never told her, "By the way, you have terrible breath." I should have said. "I know" she probably would have replied.
So, will I fart in my cubicle. No, I decide. Chicken. Jenny might walk by. She never does but she might.
I finish the sandwich. Inspect my desk for crumbs and proceed with the afternoon task list.
Number one, music. Sweet music. Number two, chatroom. Number three, news updates. Number four, emails. That will do for the next couple of hours.
Some soldiers turn up for a chat. Verbal chat that is.
They are good hardworking people enjoying an early afternoon skive and social, before the going gets serious.
Tom is into snowboarding. Very addicted to it, in fact. He's done a couple of seasons, meaning, left everything behind and went to live on the mountain for the entire winter.
I visited him while he was out there. He tells me of snowfall across the Alps, where it's looking good, etc.
He lives for snowboarding and in the summer he sulks.
Meanwhile the others are getting kind of interested, wanting to experience this fever Tom talks about.
It won't be long before the company ski trip, so they will get their chance.
"Dan, from the top of the L'Yret, remember that first left?" He asks me.
"Yep, I remember". I reply.
"Ah, killer. Two blokes, Italians, died, the day after you left."
The others look, wondering how close Tom himself got to death, having been close to where it happened and speaking of the area in such familiar tones. Oh, this fascination with death. The last frontier, the unknown, something in those lines. It's got to be.
The mountain is dangerous when it bites.

Pay-per-click 1

The weather forecast last night predicted rain. Yet, it does not look like rain.
Young Sam told me of his discoveries, a few weekends back, as we cycled up and down the Surrey hills. He said that two side effects of global warming will be inaccurate weather forecasts and high winds, that will ultimately create permanent hurricanes, circling around the world, non-stop.
He is studying for his A-levels so I took his word for it.
The head wind is brutal. I still haven't left Richmond Park and there are another 12 miles to go.
I spot for the third time what I believe to be an albino deer. I have been observing that creature and this is my third sighting.
The first two gave me the impression it was integrated in the herd but now I see it lying on its own. Has it been rejected? Eyes on the road.
There is a 20 mile speed limit inside the park, not that it means much. Cycling is dangerous.
Big Al has a girlfriend, Ali, a doctor. She deals with serious head injuries and has seen a couple of bad ones, consequences of cycling crashes in this idyllic looking park.
She does not advocate the use of helmets - says it's better to die that to live in a vegetative state.
Well, I had a younger brother once, who died in a bike crash. He was not wearing a helmet.
What would have happened had he been wearing one? Would he have turned into a vegetable?
If I had to choose, between leaving the life support machine on or switching it off, what would I have done? I wonder.
Are we heart and soul? If so, where is his soul now?
Three blondes driving black porsches, in quick succession the opposite way. That is life, one fleeting moment after the other, never to be repeated.
Goodbye park. Hello big smoke. The horror.
The diesel fumes. Still, in the bitterest cold day of winter they will do to keep me warm. Billowing out of a bus, as it pulls up the hill.
A mother, child and dog. A beggar. A policeman. I stop at the red light. The pedestrians cross the road, most on the way to the train station.
A man smoking a cigarette. The tobacco smells good. A young woman, listening to her music and working on the next selection. An old woman - my mother's age.
Next to me pulls up a cyclist. He coughs. Green lights.

***

I sit behind my desk and try to put things in perspective.
Number one concern - money. Two - women. Three - time off.
How am I going to get more of all three? In one fell swoop? Answers on a postcard.
A reminder pops up on my screen. Meeting 9am. Bummer.
I need to write a presentation.
I dig out one I wrote 3 1/2 years ago. Edit it and it's done.
I make a few modifications to jargon. Segmentation. That's a reasonable one. Slightly out of my remit. I'm dealing with technical aspects of this project.
It's a very useless one. No wonder morale of the troops in so low. An army of eunuchs. Defeatists. And who could blame them? A concerted effort to create junk that connects to other junk, that drives up some other junk, up to the top of your search results.
So you, who's hand rests on the mouse, can push it forward on the desk, and the pointer up on the screen, and with your index finder press the button and generate the all import click for which we get paid.
And millions of people click, the shareholders get paid and my wages go into my bank account.
Although I understand the business model, sometimes I'm caught off-guard and it baffles me. How can that collective act be generating wealth?
But soon I remember, because it is an intention to do something and there is the value.
What would Marx make of this, had he been living?

***

Being the scumbag that I am I manage to place concern number four high up on the agenda. Travel, that is.
I love travel. A change is as good as a rest. And what can be more changing than travel, as long as you are not always travelling to the same places.
The meeting ends up in a little tug-of-war. The chief operations officer offers some minor resistance which I must handle in a very dismissive way to emphasize the absolute necessity of a face-to-face with our people in Amsterdam and his <> in objecting.
The problem is the dates. I know he wants to play golf on Thursday. The scoundrel. Working from home. Oh, well. Good luck to you mate, if you can get away with it.
I want to go on my own. To smoke my weed in peace.
Jerry is our COO and we see eye to eye in most cases. I'm a "hands on" project manager, meaning, I'm still in the trenches, typing away, with the other soldiers.
Jerry is pulling a classic. The parent company is not doing well in the US, meaning, competition is at our heels, the market in polarizing and odds are soon we'll be bought out. The moment it happens Jerry will go. So he devised this big project, the biggest white elephant you can think off, and outsourced it to an eastern European software house.
Meanwhile he has an understanding with the supplier. They'll get paid big money for their standards, and they'll supply two products. One overboard for our company, and one under the carpet for a start-up he'll be moving to, once the buy out is completed.
A stroke of genius. Well, not really. He got so many perks off suppliers, that bastard. No wonder, he must have given them tens of millions of moneys, easy.
And how do I know all this? Well, I'm curious. I wander where the others don't and/or cannot go. In one word, access. That is what I have. And I use it. Sometimes.
Jenny had an abortion. Peter is gay. Etc. Pretty useless information.

I walk around the lake at lunchtime. I see Jenny and Peter in the distance. She works in Sales, he, in operations.
She is a very good looking woman and to be fair Peter is a very good looking man and they would make a lovely couple but they are very close and good friends and that is as good as it gets. Put sex in the mix and it's all fucked. Literally and metaphorically. Am I friends with any woman I had sex with? No. I wonder why.
Well, I'm not exactly enemies either with every woman I had sex with, but it seems to add rot. There is something repulsive about the effect of sex on friendship, I reckon.
Jenny is pouring her heart out and Peter listens. Never interrupting her speech, in that difficult moment. Only moving his head, now nodding, now shaking, looking at her intently.
She goes out with a married man, or used to. You work out the rest.
I think she would go out with Peter, given the choice, but he's had heartbreaks of his own and he goes with men.
Still, they prop each other up, through the hard emotional times, and come out at the other end, stronger.
I wish I had a friend.

***

In the Italian cafe I talk to Franco. He's been living in London for 25 years and has recently returned from Italy, where he was on holidays. I tell him of my love for Italian ice cream.
It turns out he was in Desenzano del Garda, by Lake Garda, which I know. I ask him if he knows the Gelateria Vivaldi, in the town centre, which he does.
He is a very healthy looking chubby man. The bloom of youth still in his cheeks and a sparkle in his eyes. Unlike the owner, who recently suffered a stroke and can hardly make a sandwich.
Franco's favourite english word is butter, and he asks his customers every time, even though they've been going there for yonks, if they would like butter on their bread. And as he asks, he gestures with his arms and hands, as if he was spreading imaginary butter on imaginary bread, and failure to agree would break his operatic heart.
My co-workers have spotted this habit and make no end of fun of it. Which is quite funny in itself. I can' t think of another instance, where the original and the imitation are equally funny.
I leave the caf with a toasted bacon sandwich, with brown sauce and no butter.
I see Jenny on her way to the office.
"Alright, Jenny?" I ask.
She smirks. I fell in love with this woman when I first saw her, on the ergo, in the gym. That was over two years ago and since then, I have never spoken to her for more than a couple of minutes at a time. And I probably can still remember every exchange, if I tried.

E pur si muove

My scull is about to burst open. My lungs burn like fire. My heart beats like a runaway baby.
Why do I subject myself to the pain? I wonder.
I look to the left. My fellow cyclist is also suffering. Yet, we make it to the top of the hill, still wondering. Where is the limit? What will happen if I cross it? Will I survive? If not, can it be pushed further?
All these questions and many more, eddy in the mosh pit of my confused brain, while the gig of life, rocks sideways before my burning eyes.
Aaron will be racing this weekend. I need a better bike, otherwise I would go with him. Anyway, there's too much on my plate at the moment. I can't go racing. Even if I did have a bike. Someone would be very upset. My rowing crew, my girlfriend. Anyway, the road goes on and we make it back it one piece each.
After the pain come the endorphins. That is what we are after. Problem is it gets harder and harder to get them. We develop tolerance. Nevermind.
Shower. Food. Bed. Dreams. Start again.
Wake up very early. Hit the road. Walk into meeting. Coffee? No thanks. It developed holes in my stomach that took a long time in covering. I think me and coffee won't be friend again but it's too early to tell and you don't need to know that.
Now this meeting is about a big roll out. Worldwide. So a lot of people are here. Some known faces, others I attach an email address to a face as the meeting progress. About 12 people. Stakeholders a tad worried about bonuses.
I who am I. I am the bitch. Yes, I have to do the dirty work, go and clean the dirty toilets. Do the internet plumbing. Job description, internet plumber. And we're doing some big plumbing at the moment.
The plan in short is to move data from A to B, from one system to another, and make both systems talk to each other. On paper it looks like a very simple task and so it should be but it turns out not to be. That's the reason they pay mugs like me. To make it work.
4 hours go by and not much progress is made.
Meanwhile people are beginning to feel peckish. So am I.
Our marketing director gets pizzahut.com's menu on the projector and the most animated exchange of the morning follows, to decide which pizzas to order.
We end up ordering 8 large pizzas. Plus garlic bread and chicken wings. God forgive us for our sins. What a nasty world we live in. The pizzas are awful plus we end up with 3 whole pizzas, lots of garlic bread and a few wings. plus a big pile of cardboard boxes.
We're is all this junk going to end? I wonder.
Now our marketing director, who I will call J68HB2 is a bizarre character. According to one of the system administrators, who's always snooping on private company email and willing to share his findings on a non-disclosure confidentiality agreement basis, J68HB2 only has sex with elderly women, late fifties and beyond. And there is a reason for it, too.
Now system admin, is thorough and meticulous. He's been snooping for years and could have well written a novel. He's seen relationships; emotional and commercial, start and finish. He's seen evil gossip creating monsters. Viruses filling up inboxes, all sorts. But only keeps track of what interests him and J68HB2 sexual exploits seem to fit the bill.
So the meeting concluded and it was decided amongst many other bullet points that I would have to travel to distant places to sort out this A B communication.
Must be willing to travel was on the job spec.
No date given, but it will happen between now and never, I guess.
Next. Rowing club. Saturday we are racing. Need to train. Harder.
Beautiful evening on the river. The crew works like a single piece of machinery. The cox shouts "Easy oar!". Silence.