Fun & Games

Despite my sore side from my tumble two weeks ago I have had a great week. In addition to making great progress in tidying up my garden, with the able assistance of my new under-gardener, Karlene, I have had two excellent rides. One on Wednesday and another on Thursday and then on Saturday helping Andrew and Tricia with running the cycle Jumble event in the village hall at Itchen Abbas. Today Sunday 10th I went to watch the Criterium Races in Winchester.

Wednesday, June 6th, Ride to Queen Elizabeth Country Park.

Thursday 7th June, Meet of HCMF at the Dog and Crook, Braishfield.

Saturday  9th June, Cycle Jumble.

Up early and was at the Village Hall, in Itchen Abbas by 7.30 a.m. Helped set up the tables for about 20 stalls selling bikes and assorted cycle bits and pieces. I had taken two of my older bikes, Tiny and Posh to sell as I have hardly ridden either since May last year. It is the second time I've sold Tiny, made another £30 profit! Can't be bad. The good thing is I passed them on to two folk who seemed genuinely keen to ride them. I am pleased to see them put to good use as well as freeing up storage space in my utility room. I also managed to sell some other items and books and with my share of the takings for the day I came home nearly £200 richer.

Tiny with the red label, Sporty with the yellow one.

It was a bit like war, long periods of calm and boredom, punctuated by short periods of excitement and panic! It was, in fact, good fun with plenty of chat with other cyclists and a couple of shared bowls of chips with drinks at the nearby Plough afterwards.

Sunday 10th June.

Enjoyed the afternoon watching the races, some hard racing with several individuals dominating some of the events. Zoe Backstead in particular! (Magnus's daughter I believe). My friend Harvey had a disappointing day being lapped in the Elite Race. 

I enjoyed a number of very good chats with a number of people from Winchester CTC and also others, including one with a guy who knew a lot of my Sotonia pals and also Simon Turner. He also came from the Midlands. Another told me about some of the major tours he had watched over the years and we were not surprised when a rider came a cropper right in front of us as we sat having a pint, he hit the barrier and tumbled but he seemed relatively unscathed and once he had got his chain back on he rode after the others.

What another good mixture of cycling activities! I even managed to dig my veggie patch too. It wasn't quite as bad as Chris's allotment.

Hope you all had as good a week as I did!

Best wishes, Gridironman.