End of Week Creaks

The Great Friday Charge

What was that about bimbling up and down the route? This morning I flew up the A32 and only paused occasionally on the A339 for (more bloody Micras) slow cars in the twisties. The A33 was soooo sloooowwww it was frustrating and despite passing a few cars and trucks there was no great advantage. Reading was pedestrian, too :( So, a good initial run became a slow one and I had only 10-mins in hand to change before desk time.

A bonus today was that it was cooler - and it even rained. The road up the Meon Valley was soaked and I had a while to test the mesh strides in the light rain and minor spray: no ill effect. I don't doubt they'll be pretty uncomfortable in a major down pour but there weren't many drops that landed on anything but the visor today, anyway.

It was dress-down Friday at work. No one told me. It was at a 2pm meeting my Line Manager explained why everyone was so scruffy. It'd make no odds to me. I have to pack the work gear in a bag fitting inside a pannier anyway; luxuries such as jeans and summer knitwear just don't fold as well, still need careful prep the night before, and still need changing out of on leaving work. No point, but I might remove my tie next time?

Talking of changing there are no changing facilities at my new work gaff. There's a shower, but its peak time around 8.30 to 9.30 so I get changed in the visitors' toilet. Pah.

I did take the time to walk around some of Reading this lunchtime; we're based only a couple of minutes from the Oracle shopping centre and another minute from the main pedestrian precinct. It's probably the best town centre I can remember since London: compact; everything there, and some nice touches in the cafe line t'boot. It's a shame I'm needing to loose some of my 4-month's unemployed layabout pulp else I'd be really spoiled by tyhe choice of luncheon grub!



By home time I was pretty fatigued. I could tell in my riding too; like I just couldn't be bothered. Yeah, so I cut some cars a little slap-dash but they all had brakes. The A33 was tedious (it's a 50mph limit negotiated by some meagre bastards at 35mph) and again cutting down the side of cars was an opportunity but made little additional progress.

Some chopper on a Harley pissed me off with always hanging close but out of mirror shot and then passing me off a roundabout where I was genuinely worried about where he'd got to. Then he pissed all the traffic off with cutting them up so very few still had any patience for us except those hoping we were the Fuzz.

I go the family to log in to the GPS tracking site on leaving work so my Son could track my progress (and snoop on speed) on my way home. In the even the signal was too weak for much of the journey - or some other technical reason such as radio waves needing to penetrate air, or something. Shame; he'd have caught me speeding.

Luckily I was pasted by the time I got back to home turf and fair crawled home the last couple of miles. A silver Octavia with two white-shirted and black body armour shadowed me from behind checking (?my) plates. It was ages before I noticed they were Rozzers, to be honest so they'd doubtless have tied my speed down as excessive before I made the final corners with a blaze wobble from the effort. In the event, they overtook me in a really quite dangerous way - blues flashing, or not, and pulled the geezer over in front. I looked in his window as I passed. I'm no magistrate but if I were I'd have 3-years sentence under my breath as soon as see him: guilty.

So, the week's down. I'm averaging 130-miles a day depending on route. That's 650-miles this week on top of regular working hours. Hmmm. It's not easy. Alternative accommodation has been mentioned from behind coffee mugs this evening and some new interest shown in houses in our budget around the Andover area.