A rhyme

On an evening like this
Cycling is bliss

I thank you!

My creative pursuits have currently taken a back seat, and right now I'm not anxious about that: thanks to the weather and other factors, I'm suddenly back into a mode which I would best describe as Cycling Like A Madman. I've probably said similar in previous posts, but it forms an outlet which is obviously quite different to the creative stuff, but is very satisfying in its own right.

You've seen dogs when their owner has taken them to the park and let them off the lead, and they bound about with sheer abandon and their tongues hanging out, spirited and euphoric - that's me that is, when I find I can actually gain speed up hills which used to leave me out of breath (and yes, sometimes my tongue is hanging out...).

I was also pleasantly alarmed to note that the route I'm currently cycling (not literally as I type: that would be foolhardy), last week was taking around 1 hour 41 minutes to complete: this week it's taken me an average of 1 hour 32 minutes.

There's a lyric in Memories Can't Wait by Talking Heads

"there's a party in my mind
and it's never gonna stop"

-and which goes on to say words to the effect of, other people can go home, whereas I'm stuck here and can't leave. Sometimes my own incessant trains of thought feel like that, but a good hour or two of Cycling Like A Madman is the equivalent of a very effective ssshhhhhhhhh!, things get a little quieter up there.

Bathroom

The leaves against the wall outside always look particularly nice at this time of year, so I took a photo of them.

Still life with plug socket and product placement

Things have been getting a bit desperate lately. Only four bottles of whisky left, and just one of those was a single malt. Not a good state of affairs: the top of my fridge, where said bottles sit, was starting to look a bit desolate. The single malt itself hasn't far to go, so whenever I've fancied a tipple I've been drawing increasingly on my reserves of the lowly blended stuff.

Last night I went to a gathering of bods who had been involved in one way or another with the music festival I had been helping at a couple of weekends ago.

As thanks for my travails (whatever that means), I was given a present: things are looking rosy again!


I like it when this kind of thing happens.

Meanwhile I'm away this weekend, visiting a couple of good friends and their wonderful 8-month old daughter in a lovely North Derbyshire village (so North it overlooks Manchester from a great height). Hence, things will be a little quieter here at the Press, probably. Unless I do some late-night, less-than-sober writings. Either way, have a good weekend yourselves, whoever might read this.