Trapped

We had quite a heavy frost Saturday night, it looked like it had been snowing. Laying on top of the already iced-up dirt track down to the road, it was enough to make me decide not to go out for the Sunday morning ride - and anyway, Derek had just fitted new tyres to the fireblade so he wasn't going anywhere.

Looking on the bright side, that gave me time to fit some of the new goodies I'd bought for the bike. First on were the Tobinators (thanks for the tip, Nikos) which I'd hoped would be really complicated and trick-looking given their name, but turned out to be a couple of bits of metal with a slot in, but they fitted to the screen easily so that was a bonus. Next up was the carbon-fibre rear hugger which evidently weighs 1 oz, or maybe 10 oz, whatever, it was extremely light and sexy-looking and fitted well.

In fact it all went so well, including fitting the uprated bulbs, that I was soon faced with a whole day in front of me with nothing else to do. So..I cleaned the cottage!!! How sad is that. I even ironed a couple of shirts, made my dinner and watched X-factor on the TV. Oh and by the way what a twat that Simon is, he had a chance to get rid of Jedward and he bottled it.

So next week I'm going out on the bike even if I have to carry it down the track on my back.

White lies are not a good idea

It's been a bit quiet on the biking front recently, mostly due to Mrs El D being here with me. Of course it's my own fault; I was whinging about the life of a working man away from home - huge piles of un-ironed shirts, the lack of good home-cooked food, no time to make the bed...you know, the usual stuff. Anyway, she took pity on me and volunteered to visit my Scottish hovel and knock it back into shape.

I had a long and boring drive back to London, although it did help run-in my new car; collected Mrs El D and a huge pile of suitcases and drove back.So now I have lots of clean, crisply ironed shirts,etc etc. Unfortunately, I had omited to mention that I had bought a new bike and a new car - thought it would be a nice suprise. That thought was swiftly shown to be false with her reaction to the new car (!!) so I decided perhaps I shouldn't mention the bike until she was in a better mood.

Two weeks later and I'm still waiting!

However, yesterday I decided I couldn't manage without a bike ride any longer....so I left work at lunchtime complaining of a headache, got the bike out of Derek's garage and spent the afternoon aimlessly terrorising quaint villages. I even washed the bike when I got back, so that was a bonus.

I did have a little flutter when Mrs El D asked what the funny-shaped dent in my head was (that new helmet hasn't quite bedded in yet!)but I made some excuse about my new baseball cap being too tight.

I'm starting to think this lying to the wife is not worth the stress - well actually I KNOW it's not. Quite soon I shall tell her.......watch this space.