it is Tuesday

and I am teaching people how to blog...

elaborate

I took this picture on our recent visit to the Lake District. It is on the road that runs to the east of Bassenthwaite Lake from Keswick and struck me as being the most elaborate gateway to any field that I have seen in some time.

Pleasantly irrelevant then.

just a cat

Tobias was just doing what cats do on Saturday. Unfortunately he decided to do it in the dining room while the back door was propped open and I was upstairs. So there was quite a mess to clear up when I came down.

The feathers I could deal with, but I am not good with dead things at the best of times. It gets decidedly worse when it is just bits of dead things (the bits that he did not want to eat). He was not popular, even though obviously quite pleased with himself. But what can you do?... He was just being a cat.

looking back

I have been listening to these over the last few days.

Julia - a recording of the first gig that I played with them on the occassion of Amnesty International's whatevereth anniversary in 1999.

Belly Button was a band that Murray and I came across when he had a band called Sauce. They were kind of the same because they only had bass and drums.

Day Rover - Valid For One Day was the first Day Rover recording made in August of 1994 or 95 (will have to check). Recorded in single takes - as with all Day Rover material - in Jon's bedroom in Halifax over a weekend or so. A concept album of sorts, it recounts the tale of a trip to Leeds, via Halifax library (to borrow some Wolfsbane albums - Blaze Bailey had just joined Iron Maiden) and back through Huddersfield. All in all quite an adventure.

Kordial - Sauce with Boris on guitars and more. These are some of the sounds of late teenage years, growing up in the Lot. Jynx was right, these tracks need re-recording to do them justice...

Day Rover - 120 Hours of the Greatest Number 2 Hits of the Seventies was I think , our third and possibly final album. I understand that Jon did once sell a copy. For a pound.

Ah, memories. I should be in a band again. Not because I am good, but because I need the music.

on one

In recent months I have found myself once again travelling as nature intended me to. That is to say at the controls of a reasonably expensive mountain bike. I bought this one mainly as a hack to get me to work, but with the potential for some weekend antics when real hills and dirt trails are available (sadly not much single track inspiration within happy pedal-commuting distance of here).

Finally I own a bike with those beautiful five piece wishbone seat stays, maybe one day I will find a DeKerf at the right time... We haven't done any real off-road yet and for fast stuff and long open climbs I think that the Inbred will be rather good. I do feel that this is not quite the chuckable little bike that I am really looking for to throw myself down impossibly tight woodsy singletrack on. Maybe if I had found a 16" rather than this 18" frame we would have been happier. For now I have to curb the urge to try and pull off huge coaster wheelies until I get a shorter bike, or I grow up. OK, so I am still looking then.

But for now, for fast Greenwood Ave work, cutting through the traffic on Fat Boy slicks, this bike is not bad at all.

welcome home

For about two months I have had a Golf with the engine in bits in my garage.



Finally at the weekend we heard the burble of the ridiculous Scorpion exhaust (which will go when I have got over the cost of rebuilding the top end of the engine...). Running again - after a fashion - after so long. For now it stalls as soon as there is no throttle, but I am spending time with my new mechanic friend on Saturday to hopefully cure this and then we should be away.

So goodbye cambelt housing on top of the freezer, goodbye inlet and outlet manifolds cluttering any other spare surfaces, no more tripping over torque wrenches or socket sets... Hopefully we might be able to just do some driving at the weekend.

Incidentally Hannu and I have something to celebrate today (but have no time, so this weekend). It is six years since we met and started going for random drives to places by the sea or otherwise. I hope that we will be able to do the same on Sunday...

footwear

Good footwear says a lot about you. So by any standards I am a scruffy, good for nothing teenager... I love my Emericas.

look what I got

On the 28th April I took Hannu back to see this car for the second time. Having first seen it on eBay, where it failed to reach the owner's reserve price, I had already been over to see the car and enquire about making an offer.

The offer was accepted, the old car was mine... a controversially accessorised 1990 Golf GTI 16 valve. Possibly a modern classic? If you are interested and have time to kill, try a read of this.

Four months on and we have spent a lot of time together in my garage. I have learned a lot about old VWs, engines and how not to buy a second hand car, but am trusting that within a few days we should be back on the road together and anticipating a season of heady motoring pleasure.

brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrruuummmmm...

welcome

to record of the week.