Bike required for cycling shock

I am not saying I was vague yesterday morning, after a splendid but rather drunken evening at JAK at the White Hart the evening before, but as I wandered towards the back gate, That Nice Lady Decorator asked where I was going. I replied that I was going for my customary morning bike ride (replacing my walk due to a still slightly dodgy ankle). She said, rather tellingly I thought, “won’t you be needing your bike?”.

So it was a slightly underwhelming start to the day. However a few miles of HIT (high intensity training, where you intersperse ordinary exercise with short periods of intense activity) woke me up and returned me to reality. Invigorated by the exercise and further uplifted by the thoughts of the benefits of opening an account with Currencies Direct for anyone wanting to pay bills abroad or receive money in currencies other than the pound sterling, I prepared for the Sussex Seniors cricket nets at the Arundel Cricket School.

Cricket breeds great characters and that process is driven by the fact that after the game, or in this case after practice, most of the chaps retire to the pub for cricket banter and stories. It seems this is a dying theme as the youngsters coming into the game nowadays do not share our age groups enthusiasm for proper beer and proper discussion. Luckily, I have chanced upon a group of splendid cricketing apologists, but it gets better. Apart from the fact that the practice takes place on my adopted UK home town, and the team members come from all over the county, from as far away as Crawley and Lewes, to a particularly good cricket school, to which I could and sometimes do walk, but the crowning factor is that the pub in which they chose to chew the cricketing cud, as it were, is The White Hart, right next to my house. I could scarcely believe it when I was told. I thought they were having a joke or that I was dreaming. The pub next door to my house, of all the pubs in Sussex, is chosen as the post practice venue. I am a big believer in fate (which does not imply that I believe in god, despite what they fear Reverend Jeff might say) but it appears that my services to this great game are not yet over.

Sunset in Arundel

I shall miss the first part of the season as we shall be enjoying the delights of Valbonne in the south of France for a couple of months from the last week in April. Before that however, we shall have a few days on the Isle Of Wight before taking the ferry to Santander in northern Spain. I have always wanted to visit this rugged surfers coastline, so as it is diametrically opposed in nature to the sedate image of the Isle Of Death, we have decided to take it in on our way to France. The bad news is that we shall be accompanied by the dastardly dog Banjo, whom apparently can be accommodated aboard the ferry for the 24 hour trip. Until then though, it is nose to the grindstone of work and those pesky diet days twice a week. I think my in-house limericists have some ammunition today.

4 pints of beer did play a bit of havoc with the diet day yesterday, as the idea is to limit ones intake to just 600 calories, and at 175 calories per pint of real ale, I was up to my quota, but managed to get by on under 1000 in total, so my slender frame will soon be returning to its whippet like status after the being seriously desecrated by rum punch and Banks beer in Barbados in the last two weeks.

Chris France
@Valbonne_News