cycle

hi there


i can just about recall a really ragged memory, look you see, of what weekends once were. they were predominantly a time to sleep off a hangover from a friday night. well, sometimes they were - sometimes they were all about getting somewhat sh!tfaced on the friday, recovering the saturday morning, then getting all sh!tfaced on the saturday night and kissing sunday a fond goodbye. these days not so much, as not at all.

take, for instance, this weekend. despite it being the first of two days off of verk i am presently more shattered than i should be. this has something to do with me getting up at around seven in the morning and constructing one of the new bikes we have in the house.

yes, that's it in front of the boys, or if you like at the back of the picture. we, or rather i, somewhat miscalculated how fast the boys would grow, and the bikes we brought from the Africa of the South are woefully too small for them. so, new ones were bought, and for the sake of about £20 i elected to assemble them directly rather than commission the retailer to do it for me.

putting a bike together is actually really straightforward. that's me saying that, with me being something of a simpleton when it comes to anything technical or mechanical. i believe, overall, i spent more time taking packaging and bubble wrap off the parts of the bike than i did actually assembling it.

how does it ride? rather well. James took it for a ride around the borders of the village, whilst William and i walked along in companionship.

yes, my goodness yes, that is actually a bit of bright blue sky, lit by the visible sun, in the above picture. we are rapidly approaching the summer solstice and yet have had scant signs of summer so far. very welcome it was to see a bit today.

some video of the smart new bike in action? sure, why not.

it would quite possibly be the case that i would not feel as ever so exhausted as i do now if putting the bike together and going for a stroll was the end of my day. alas, no. there was also the small matter of the school fete today, and the larger matter of needing to go off and shop.

whilst i would suspect that shopping is a matter you would not need to see too much of, there are some pictures off of the school fete. William, to start with, elected to have his face painted.

James, meanwhile, discovered the addictive magic of gambling in the form of that most hardcore of casino games, the tombola. in fairness he was pretty good at picking out winning tickets, and here he is with just some of his impressive, and quite reasonably expensive, amassed haul of wins.

the first item he won was some sort of shiny necklace off of Next, that most prestigious of luxury item retailers. i suspect it was the shiny nature of it which compelled him to try again and again, which in turn allowed him to win several items of varying interest.

a bit more bike action? sure. on our travels we stopped off at the Post Office, at the ice cream store of some repute, at Trevor and indeed at Gran & Gramps.

Gran and Gramps were, i believe, quite impressed with the bike,.but perhaps all the more delighted to see two of their many great grandchildren pop in for a visit.

why was William not cycling? mostly because i've not gotten around to putting his by together as such as of yet, but partially as he's not quite so good at cycling yet. i am sure he soon will be; James has certainly taken to it some.

anyhow, rest i must. i am knackered. i've got a stack of shiny discs here, for Poundland has once again had a really good run on selling me some smart DVDs and Blu Ray thingies for £1 a go. let me consider them and decided on which one will be absolutely amazing to fall asleep in front of.

hopefully your weekend is going all smart and that, and you, dear family and friends, have enjoyed this quick update on the members of my family who you all, wisely, like a good deal more than you like me.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!