A few days ago I bought a nearly new E-bike - 'twas what our family call a blur-moment. For example visiting the Paramo shop in Braemar a few years ago with no specific intention and coming out twenty minutes later with a new Paramo zip front jacket to replace the smock version that I had never liked and that previous twenty minutes being a blur-moment. Blur-moments are usually associated with severe damage to one's bank balance.
I thought I had packed up with bikes a couple of years ago but retained a brilliant cycle carrier that clips onto a car tow-bar with a scissor like action so I now needed a tow-bar for my car which may also be of other use later.
Last Thursday I drove to my garage man Ernie on the way to Milnthorpe and left the car and walked the two and a half miles back home - that brings me to the point of this story.
That was my last continuous day's walking since Lockdown a total of 91 days. That beats my previous continuous record with no rest days when I walked from Land's End to John 'o Groats in 2008 taking 77 days. I did miss a day within the above mentioned 91 but I am sure it was well within the first 18 days so I am confident to say I now have a new record. How pointless that is in the light of present day happenings but I'm afraid this sort of thing seems to be in my nature - when you have just spent three hours bringing your computer back to life after a near fatal crash you've just got to shout with triumph and tell somebody, and on this occasion you are my captive audience (if you have got this far.)
It must be just coincidence that my interruption of continuous walking occurred at the same time that the long wave of good weather ended, and as I look out of the window now a gale is blowing trees in swirling and varying directions and rain is lashing around in and amongst. I won't be going for a walk today.
That seat looks painful. I hope your body balance is healthier than the bank balance. HA. Enjoy.
ReplyDeleteAlan R - Thankfully they would be measured in different units so I won't be able to make a comparison.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the record.
ReplyDeleteDidn't think you would be out today or maybe not tomorrow. It is certainly not cycling weather.
Life is a blur sometimes.
Congratulations on the walking-streak personal best.
ReplyDeleteA tow-bar and an e-bike: sounds like you just need a new caravan and you're all set to tackle the rest of the coast without the use of a support driver or public transport!
Yay! Congrats on the walking record and on your new purchase. I love my electric bike, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy using yours.
ReplyDeleteYou can always get a padded seat for the bike.
ReplyDeleteBlur moments are a direct result of old age interacting with The Plague. Despite miles of futile walking with the blood from worn-out bones squelching in your boots, there will be times when you are "all ahoo" (Courtesy Jack Aubrey, Barrett Bonden's boss) and it's twenty minutes to go before you find blessed surcease in Mrs Brown's Boys. The future is no longer even a possibility and you reach for your modern-day comfort-blanket, yclept Visa.
ReplyDeleteI bought a Fire 7 tablet which I didn't need but because it was cheap. As is characteristic when I'm faced with something valueless I launched myself into its Android belly without thought for the morrow. It might have been designed specifically for Choctaw speakers. After half a day entirely wasted, I reverted to factory settings and started again. It is now recognisably computeresque and I am absolutely confirmed in my initial belief that it adds not even a milli-cubit to my stature.
Instead of discarding it I have made it my mission. To load it down with equally unnecessary apps so that it whimpers with fatigue, slows to a crawl, then dies of inanition. Time passes but the beaches of Bournemouth have at least been held at bay.
BC - Well you and I have been pretty good at taking advantage of weather windows so I'll be keeping an eye on the forecast.
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Gayle - You may have a future in the mind-reading business?
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Ruth - My only worry is the risk of leaving it securely at one end of the walks.
RR - I am familiar with hoping that some item I have grown less fond of may start showing signs of being "on the blink." The slightest hint in that direction will then give me the excuse to replace the item with something I have had my eye on for a while but not prepared to accept the guilt for a non-essential purchase. I have even perhaps unconsciously, or just possibly, deliberately sabotaged something I was trying to repair so that I could arrive at the need for the new purchase.
ReplyDeleteRe: "Thankfully they would be measured in different units so I won't be able to make a comparison", you need a dimensional analysis person.....Gayle?
ReplyDeleteI neglected to comment on your new steed...a nice bicycle, I know you'll enjoy using it!
ReplyDeleteJohn J - I had a quick look at DA on Wiki - for someone who failed O Level maths that is beyond my comprehension just to absorb the concept and then understand how it may be of some practical use. I should add that my maths failure was usually due to making silly mistakes in the trivia of the small intermediate steps. I seem to remember that instruction: "...show your workings." Or something similar.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that Gayle probably has a spreadsheet up and running already.
Regarding the different units issue, what we need is a ‘thought experiment’ so that we can perhaps come up with a bank balance - body balance equivalence equation. Einstein managed to do it with energy-mass equivalence so it shouldn’t be too hard.
DeleteIt will be interesting to hear how you get on with your e-bike, I've been contemplating a blur moment of my own.
ReplyDeletemark - Thanks for your bumper crop of comments and identifications etc.
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afoot. - I can do the bank balance although I shrink from looking at it too often. The body balance is more tricky and it may need two options, one without walking poles and one with. With a bit of effort we may end up in orbit?
Sir Hugh - with technology like that who needs Elon Musk.
ReplyDeleteMultiple congratulations, Conrad. I do hope you enjoy the e-bike. Maybe you need to get a GPS tracker for it so that if it does get nicked it can be tracked down. And take care not to fall off! (Says he, having fallen off a few days ago due to misjudgement - luckily incurring just a painful dead leg, not a broken leg like my granddaughter last week!)
ReplyDeleteMark - If you are "contemplating" it wouldn't be defined as a blur moment, they just happen spontaneously without you hardly knowing about it. What you describe is much more akin to my reply to RR above so perhaps you need your existing bike to be stolen or broken beyond economical repair - try leaving it around unlocked or where some HGV may run over it. I need to invent a name for this prevaricating affliction - any ideas?
ReplyDeleteDitheration?
Guilt Combat Syndrome? GCS for short?
Contributions welcome.
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Phreerunner - the tracker may be a good idea. As usual I looked at Amazon and the reviews with many tales of woe, but then if you always took notice of those One Star reviews you would never buy asnything.
My congratulations also Conrad. I’ll be interested to hear of your experiences with the E-bike which, I hope, doesn’t involve it being nicked.
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