Bodmacity

Well the rain has subsided and a large yellow blob has appeared in the sky. I’m not sure what it is but it feels good.

Amy has successfully weaned Jake off the dummy during the day. I don’t know whether it is a coincidence but Jake’s vocabulary is really gaining pace now. He can copy most words although he tends to take the beginning and end of a word and put those together to form his unique version. For instance, guitar is gar, jacket is jit. Yesterday he pointed to a picture of a bee and said BEEEE!! which was very cute.

We think he is maybe having a growth spurt because he is ravenous at the moment and a little short tempered.

He has also started climbing things. He now climbs onto the foot stool and rocks it back and forth. Today I caught him climbing onto his fire station in order to get on top of the sofa. Surely a recipe for disaster. He managed to clamber up after a few unsuccessful attempts and when he did, he looked very proud and gave me a cheeky grin. What an angel!

Jake wants to write something. Here it is :
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Jake’s hair has grown very big and bouffant so a hair cut is due soon. We won’t go to granny this time. 😉

This morning I had an excellent ride to Clapham Junction. The sun was out and there was only a slight wind. Paul gave me some SPD pedals which I fitted at the weekend.

I had been bidding on ebay for some but lost the bid. When Paul came over on Thursday he said he had a spare pair. Job done! I have ordered some proper cycling shoes from wiggle as I have been using my trainers and the bottoms are getting torn from the SPD mechanism. The resin cage makes for a slightly more comfortable ride than a cageless design when riding with normal shoes but nonetheless after a few miles the old feet start to get a little sore. I am hoping that these will arrive today :-).

I doubt there is anyone in the country now that doesn’t know about the devastating floods that have affected England since Friday. Two months of rain fell on that day and caused the River Severn to burst its banks. The River Thames is also likely to do the same. This is a worry because my office is literally on the banks of the Thames. The water level rose to about 1 foot from the bank but there has been little rain over the past two days so hopefully it will subside a little.

I started cycling to Clapham again yesterday after a ‘rest’ week. It was great to do the longer journey and I felt great when I arrived at work. Yet more red light jumpers were out in force. They do my head in. Why do they think that the law is any different for them just because they are on bicycles? And really are the extra few minutes worth it anyway?

I have been bidding on ebay for some dual purpose clipless pedals because I am getting fed up with my pedal straps. I want the dual purpose(normal pedal on one side, SPD on the other) because I don’t want to risk falling over when I am taking Jake out on the bike by being unable to unclip in time. As I get more experienced this won’t be an issue but I think it’s a good idea to start with this type of pedal.

I installed the Virgin Media cable modem successfully last night. “Great”, I thought, “let’s now try it with the router”. I unplugged the power and connected the cables. When I plugged the router back in there were no power lights, nada, nothing. Toasted. It did this before and sprang back to life after some fiddling. This time though I had no such luck. So now I have been looking for a replacement and have found the Buffalo AirStation WHR-G54S. It’s had good reviews, is cheap and is allegedly compatible with the Virgin Media cable modem. you never know though, maybe the Dlink DI-624 will be working magically when I get home tonight ;-).

Jake has been poorly this week. Upon returning from our trip to the Isle of Wight last weekend he had a very croaky throat and was off his food. We took this to mean that his throat was sore. However we soon realised that another tooth was on it’s way. His left cheek was fiery red and he was in the most grotty mood I have seen. He just didn’t know what to do with himself. He would put out his arms to be picked up and then immediately want to be put down. All the time we would be grumbling and would often burst into tears when one of us left the room for a split second. He has been off his food for three or four days and his little body has got a lot thinner :-(.

I think he is over the worst though. Yesterday he had his supper without any complaints and even avoided throwing his blueberries across the kitchen. He is still crying when we put him down at night though. Yesterday he cried for maybe 30 seconds which was a lot better then the previous night when I had to stay in his room soothing him into he drifted off.

Today Jake has his MMR jab so I wonder what mood he will be in tonight?

Jake’s latest developments 🙂

• Flapping arms when you say ‘arms’
• Shaking his hands when you say ‘where are your hands?’
• Spinning on the spot(this has replaced the breakdancing)
• Throwing things
• Having minor tantrums
• Going to sit in his ‘den’ in between the sofa and the DVD cabinet
• He knows : eyes, mouth, ears, tummy, arms, hands, hair, tongue

Yesterday while reading his story his said the word ‘ there’ instead of ‘dere’ which was quite impressive. Sometimes he says a realistic ‘hello’ but only seldom does it come out this way.

I started reading Hairy Mclary to him which he loves! He also likes pointing at the objects in his picture book. Hw knows quite a few items in the garden, food, beach and garage section but not many in the school section 🙂

He is basically a pet lamb kebob

It seems I am officially an old git. Yesterday my composter arrived. It is big, black and looks a bit like a dalek in a bin liner. I have placed him at the bottom of the garden. I spent hald an hour yesterday loading him up with steaming heaps of rotten grass that had been piling up on the patio. I also added some dead leaves and crumpled up newspaper. This should get the heap going. It’s great being green!

I have been reading the blurb that came with the composter. It is important to get a good mix of ‘greens’ and ‘browns’. Greens are things like peelings, cut grass, prunings. Browns are egg boxes, cardboard, twigs and the such-like. Two much of the browns and the heap will be too dry. Too many greens and it will become a strinking no-go area. In 6-9 months the compost should be ready to spread it’s goodness.

Here’s to the heap. I’ll call it Uriah, as in Uriah Heap of course.

On the way back home today(on the very day that Gordon Brown becomes the new Prime Minister) there was a massive cloudburst. I was just cycling past Peckham Rye station when the clouds started to look very ominous. A few fat drops fell then the whole lot dumped it’s load. Within seconds I was drenched. Well my head and shorts and shoes were drenched. My trunk was nice and cosy inside my Altura Nevis jacket. It was quite exhilarating I have to say. The only real downside was that I had to take off my glasses to see where I was going.

I can’t remember when a June was so wet. It seems to have been raining constantly for weeks. Good for the garden though. Our parched back garden has turned from a lifeless wheat colour to a nice green bed of young grass shoots.

I’m not sure if I’ll cycle tomorrow. I’ll see how the weather pans out.

I feel I am living on borrowed time as I still haven’t got myself a pump, spare tube or repair kit. I need to sort those items out as I don’t relish an 8 mile walk home. Yesterdays trip was a little pointless. Local youth in the area had vandalised the track at Barnes so the trains were in chaos. After hanging around for longer than I should have done I cycled back and worked from home. This was a good idea as it was my birthday, so I knocked off a little early to spend time with the family. We took a trip to Blackheath for a cappuccino :-).

Today was a horrible ride in, with the wind constantly blowing from what seemed like every angle. My left knee also started playing up. I’ll need to get one of those strappy knee supports to see if it helps. I took the direct route straight through New Cross(delightful) instead of Peckham Rye to save a little time. I ended up playing cat and mouse with another cyclist who I kept overtaking only to be overtaken myself when I law-abidingly stopped at the red traffic lights and this knob flew straight through. That winds me up.

My new wicking T-Shirt is excellent and does the business. I still arrive at C.J. sweaty and red-faced but at least I dry off a little quicker :-). The shorts are still performing well. That’s a purchase I don’t regret buying. A comfy bottom makes for a happy cyclist. At least this one anyway!

I’ve been riding my bicycle now for two days to and from Clapham Junction. On both days I was able to find a space in the racks. I wrote to Wandsworth Council to get the vandalised frames removed. I was surprised to receive a reply. The frames have been tagged and will be removed if not claimed within 7 days. Well done Wandsworth!

I have been trying out various routes and have been taking the route via Peckham Rye which is slightly longer but less busy. Yesterday it rained on my way in. I found it quite pleasant and refreshing. My shorts dried off in no time so no problems there. I have been wearing my high visibility rain jacket which doesn’t breathe very well so my cotton t-shirt has been getting rather soaked. I shall look into buying a moisture wicking base layer and maybe some panniers so that I don’t have to wear a rucksack on my back. The pack is quite heavy as I have a change of clothes and some toiletries in there for when I arrive at work.

I have learnt that one should always carry a tool kit as my handlebars worked loose on the way home on day 1. This made for a very anxious journey home. Now I carry the requisite hex wrenches. I also need to get a puncture repair kit or spare inner tube. Who said cycling was cheap? 😉

Over the weekend I tried out my route to Clapham Junction. On paper the route should take roughly 30 minutes but in reality it was more like 45-50 minutes. What annoyed me was the amount of traffic lights that always seemed to turn red when I approached :-(. What also annoyed me were the number of cyclists who ignored the lights and simply inched out until a gap in the traffic was spotted. This is not the sort of behaviour to enamour car drivers to the cyclists cause!

I was impressed by the number of cyclists out and about. I tagged along behind a guy who obviously had been cycling in London for a while. While I sat behind a queue of traffic he whizzed past them on the right. I followed suit and soon had the hang of reading the traffic better and positioning myself on the road.

It’s early days but even in the short time I have been ‘on the road’ I feel I am a little more confident. I think researching the route definitely helps. On the way back I changed the route slightly as Queens Road is not really that nice. I ducked up towards Peckham Rye and hooked up with LCN route 22 which is very pleasant and away from the heavy traffic. The downside is that on the way back I took almost an hour and I had to contend with Vicars Hill which is a bee-atch.