Insert into post?

Finally the bike is fixed. The first bike shop I chose was a scabby, filthy, squalid little place in Beach St in Littlehampton who had three times promised to repair the broken chain and I have had enough. They have had it a week and it was still lying untouched in the corner where it had been left. I saw red (the bike is red) and retrieved it from their moribund workshop and took it to another cycling establishment.  The difference between that dump and the Dutch Bike Shop on the other side of town could not have been more stark. My name was taken with a smile and the bike repaired and delivered back to me the same afternoon.

Sadly that meant that my daily exercise once again took the shape of walking on the beach, and although amazingly it was not raining, it was instead blowing a gale. This has the effect of making a walk up the beach and back easy in one direction and diabolical in the other. My certainty that the wind would veer 180 degrees at the half way point was found wanting. Braced against the wind like matchstick men, we finally made it back to the car exhausted, but the determination to fight temptation and take solace in beer remained intact, just.

Searching for a picture to use today, I came across this photo of a bar I found in Bangkok. Captain Condom is seemingly (can I say that?) a mythical character invented by the Thai government to promote safe sex. Laudable as this aim might be, this seems rather a strange way of going about the promotion of a cleaner living lifestyle. Would they be serving cocktails? If so, would “Sex on the beach” be quite so much fun? What about a “Slow comfortable screw”?  Might that not become a tad slower? The action required in this programme, WordPress, to place a picture in the column says “insert into post”. I do hope this does not have a double meaning.

As it was a quiet day, I decided that I should be a bit more proactive with my work for Currencies Direct and although a very worthy service, which could save you thousands when buying or selling a house abroad,  my heart was not in it so I took to playing with my new toy, a kindle fire, which Santa brought me for Christmas. It seems to do all the iPad does, and more except charge up properly. Perhaps the fire has gone out or needs a little stoking? Talking of a little stoking, which I would like to, I cannot discuss it here. That picture seems to have had an effect on me.

It was mid evening when I came across (there I go again) a bottle of Amerone which was sitting in the wine rack and  I had forgotten about, and which had been bought for me by old pal Marc Wolff some time ago as a gift for borrowing the 4×4, so what could I do? I opened it.  Once it was open, what could I do, other than drink it? Anything else would have been a waste.

The take up of free copies for kindle of my book during the two-day promotion has been very rewarding on one level, and very unrewarding financially. There is some old parable about setting a sprat to catch a mackerel, but we shall see if setting a prat (me)  to catch a muckle (a pay-day) works in the coming weeks. I have high hopes, but then so did Eddie The Eagle.

Chris France