The training is going ...

... not too bad considering that we have so little spare time for it. Take last week-end for example. I was due to fly out of Prestwick on Sunday for a business trip to France. The colleague and I planned to do a 40 mile run round the back roads of Ayrshire on Saturday, so I booked into a hotel in Prestwick for the Saturday night and took the bike down on the back of the car. So we set off on the road to Straiton and Maybole, good hilly roads to get the lungs working, and then down towards the coast road between Culzean Castle and the Electric Brae.

All in all it was four and a half hours in the saddle and the after effects were not too unbearable. So now we're looking forward to this coming Saturday for the main event. We reckon to leave Brodick at 11.00 a.m. and head clockwise round the island. If we complete in the time we think we will need then we'll be back in Brodick by 6.00 p.m. It will be a great achievement just to finish on the same day, for me at least, so wish me luck.

Give A Little - Make A Difference

If you are a generous caring person then the chances are you're all used up with giving. Because there are too many demands on your time, your money, your self. But here's a thing; I am going to be breaking my arsebone riding 57 miles around Arran in the hope that others will make my efforts seem worthwhile. Please don't let me down. If you want to support Cancer Research UK and also support me and the colleagues in our sponsored cycle then visit www.justgiving.com/roundarran and donate a quid, a dollar, or a rouble, and help to make a difference.

A Ride Would Be Good

Well it's developing. The Round Arran Challenge or Blazing Saddles is getting closer. The training is well under way and myself and the colleagues are working hard on building up resistance to saddle-ache.

The venue of Arran could not be better, well it could be flatter but this isn't Holland is it. We've booked into a B & B in Brodick for the night of Saturday 2nd Sept. and hopefully we'll be back there after the round island cycle in good order for a pint or two. Well it would be a real bummer if we were so fucked by the end of the day we couldn't enjoy a celebration.
The plan is to ride anti-clockwise and get the hilly north part over first. Frankly I don't think it'll make that much difference but you have to have a plan don't you.

I've put a couple of maps here for you but mostly I've put them here for me. I love maps, and I love maps of islands. They remind me of Treasure Island and I could spend hours poring over them imagining where the treasure might be hidden.

I used to spend a weekends on Arran when I was a youth. We used to camp outside of Brodick and the favourite pub was the Ormidale Hotel. I got thrown out of the place once for dancing on the table. This bloke called Fisher Gilmour who owned the place took a dim view.

Anyway I'm going to set up a donation opportunity for you all to support Cancer Research UK. Kat gave me the idea of a page on justgiving.com. As soon as it's ready I'll let you know.

I'm in Love ...

with my Apollo Cafe 2. I know it's only a bike but what a wonderful piece of machinery it is. 21 speed Shimano gears with revo-shift, lightweight aluminium frame, front suspension, seat suspension, och just all the bells and whistles you could wish for, including a bell! But that's not the point. The thing just beguiles me with it's ability to make me feel good.

It was stuck in the coal cellar for eighteen months, lying neglected with deflated tyres and not even cleaned of the muck I had subjected it to on its last run out. Then my colleague started talking about how he had always wanted to cycle round Arran. Well I was really energised by that for some reason. Whether it's because Arran is one of my favourite places or whether it was just the idea of the challenge, I don't know but before I knew it I was dragging the thing out of its dark hole into the sunshine of the back yard, pouring 3-In-One onto the chain and gears, buffing with a cloth, and preparing to mount.

Despite the lay-up she whirred along like a sewing machine. A scoosh round the coast road past the Cloch lighthouse on Sunday morning was just idyllic. Joggers jogged past smiling; Maw, Paw, and the weans cruised by in the old family jalopy, the sun shone on all who were skidging church. It was a perfect day. And the bike made me a part of it.

You see the thing is, I work too much so I need some antidote to work and a day on a bike ... well a good day on a bike, I wouldn't want it to be pishing down ... is the perfect antidote to work. And work is the main reason I can't keep up this blog the way I would like. I mean it's just not possible. Here's a typical day for me:
06.30 Alarm goes. Up, bath, breakfast, cuppa in bed for the wife.
07.30 In the car, up the M8.
08.00 Arrive in office. Open computer - on the batter.
10.00 Tea at desk
12.00 Lunch
12.30 Back to desk - continue on the batter.
15.00 Tea
15.15 Meeting - yadda yadda yadda.
18.30 Start to clear up.
18.45 In the car, music up to max volume, yaaaaa-aaaah!!!!

Five fucking days a week, I shit you not. I know it's no way to live but that's the way it is, and I actually enjoy a lot of what I do, it's just I've got very little time to myself. I'd love to just spend ages and ages doing my OU thing (did I tell you I'd passed that BTW? No? Sorry.), keeping a nicely creative blog going, writing pithy short stories, meeting fellow bloggers in Babbity Bowsters for a pint (Oh so yoo-oo-'re Ill Man, yes you do loook a little pale ...). I mean look at what interesting lives all these bloggers are leading. It's fuckin' cuttin' edge stuff ... Tommy Sheridan and bits oot o' the paper and, and ... aw sorts. It's jist awesome, and here's me.

So a bike is good. Gets ye oot. (I''ll need to get a grip here. I'm starting to sound like Billy Connelly). Anyway here's the plan. We're gon'eh cycle round Arran for charity. September week-end. All the way round Arran (57 miles by the way) in aid of cancer research. Do you think I've got it in me?

How To Be Good - Nick Hornby ...

... has an ending which seems to have intrigued more than a few people; in fact unsettled may be a better way of describing some people's reactions. Now I would like to explore this a little further, and I have been asked to but ... I'm afraid that, unlike in those halcyon days of a few month ago when I was living the ex-pat bachelor life in old Dalmatia, I am now chained to a desk for eight to ten hours of the day and when I get home of an evening it's all I can do to rouse myself occasionally from my armchair to tap a few words once a week into this blog. And in any case I've forgotten how the ending went so that's not much use. But I will re-read this book and try to shed some light on the author's purpose. Don't hold your breath though, I may take a while.

So that's where you come in. Have you read the book? How did you like it? Was the ending good for you? Did the earth move? Let me know and share with others, you'll enjoy the experience. And don't be shy of giving the ending away, who cares.

Sepia-toned Soldier

You look out of faded pictures
Through wars and years long gone.
I try so hard to see into your eyes
To try to know you again.
But it's 1935 and you're in India,
Shoulder to shoulder with your mates,
Royal Scots, Pontius Pilate's bodyguard,
And you can't see me yet.

You're a hard wee man and
you're not looking too far ahead.
There's soldiering to do and
Battles to fight,
Mates to lose.
A girl to meet,
Five sons and a daughter to grow,
But you can't see it yet.

You can't see me in 1960
helping you to pee into a bottle
Because the cancer that's killing you
Has stripped the muscle from
Your sturdy soldier's body.

I wish I could see you now
Just so I can tell you,
I'm okay.