It's been a long week for me, I've had this damned cold and that has proven to just be a drag. But the week hasn't been without it's moments of joy.
One of them was on Saturday, when I was lurking down at Mechanics Bay in the pre-dawn as part of the ACCC waterfront time trial. I looked out across the bay, and there was a pod of dolphins making their way up the harbour. As a consequence of my cold, my horrible runny nosed infection, I have stayed off the bike, so my tales of cycling for the week are limited.
Instead I reflected upon my life, I suspect having reached another anniversary of being thrust into the world made me a little circumspect also. I started to run through the years and the various adventures, mistakes, calamities and triumphs I have enjoyed and endured. I'm not going to share them with you all, the interior of that dark cupboard is best left unseen, but I will give you a glimpse of what's near the door.
Bailing twine and a chaff sack do not make effective parachutes. My cousin and I were very close, we lived about a kilometre apart in the area of small holdings, dairy farms and horse training tracks to the south of Christchurch. We tended to roam pretty freely, with haysheds, a creek, airguns, ponies, cattle, clod throwing and electric fences as sources of entertainment. One day, after we had tired of trying to make objects fly from the top of my uncle's hay barn, we decided that we would make our own parachute.
Only tools that we had were our omnipresent pocketknives, but resource wise we were rich. There, close at hand, was more bailing twine than we would ever need and a couple of chaff sacks. We set to, carefully knotting the twine into equal length loops off the corners of the chaff sack to form a parachute, measured carefully to allow maximum expansion of the sack as the lucky jumper descended gently to the ground with enough time to admire the view.
The parachute was tested using that venerable method, of running with the sack opening behind, it inflated and slowed the runner well. The important decision had to be made as to who had the honour of jumping and who had the lesser task of holding the parachute clear of the hay as the jumper jumped. Somehow, (and this wasn't usually the case my cousin being older, and although shorter, was stronger and tended to make my nose bleed) I was the lucky one.
We ascended to the top of the hay barn, there all was prepped, and I full of confidence, jumped holding two strands of bailing twine aloft. There was no floating sensation, and certainly no admiring the view. I jumped and the ground came up and hit me immediately, very hard.
After I'd regained normal breathing function and my head stopped pounding we discussed what went wrong, and I advocated a retry with a different victim. My cousin was distinctly unwilling, being quite certain, after seeing me plummet and hearing the thud, that our design was flawed.
I've never tried making a parachute again.
The new year has started, with a hiss and a roar, much busyness for me. The weather has lent a kind hand to this, but it has been a time of true sweat and toil.The pox has departed from the household and only a few scabs remain to remind the midget of his affliction. These, too, will pass. Sunday was my first ride of Two Thousand and Ten. It was approximately one hundred kilometres of rolling bliss with Junior. We traipsed around the Ridge Road circuit and added in Wairere Road and the Bethall's Quarry for good measure. The weather was ideal and the ride was honest. It was truly good for my soul. We did encounter a rapidly rising spring tide on the Norwestern bikepath, which we watched with fascination as others rode through the sea water across the bike path and the still advancing tide, before we took the plunge and rachet pedalled our cautious way through. Arriving home the hose was used damn quickly to remove any salt water residue. I have encountered a few similar high tides on this particular piece of path before, but never sat and watched the rapid rise. A few days earlier, the Mistress and Commander had seen a school of Kahawai in close there on a rising tide, and on this particular day, it also looked "fishy". Fantastic to have that sort of wilderness as part of the inner city.A recent discussion with a magazine publisher may bear fruit, with some possible landscape photography work for moi. Normally I wouldn't mention this, but I need to to place context around Mikeal's strange statement. Not only is he rapid of the draw of his own weapon, he is an exhibitionist. I was aware of this, nothing new there, but when, in passing, I mentioned that I may be undertaking a bit of paid photography work in the field, he asked if "I would like to have a naked man running through the scene, and could he be that naked man?" I answered negative, so he asked again, he didn't ask for payment or the like, so I'd hazard his motivation is somewhat disturbing.Today, there was a massive ray of sunshine cast upon my day. A couple of months ago the front riv-nuts loosened on my Cannondale (only 6 months old) and as it was examined I noticed some paint issues and possible frame issues around the riv-nuts. The original retailer who I bought the frame through dropped the ball badly in terms of customer service when I sought assistance (It needs to be stated that there was a change of store ownership/management and when I originally bought the frame the staff at the store were excellent and a pleasure to deal with). After getting no response at all with said retailer, I took the issue to Planet Cycles on Dominion Rd. There Pete and Steve got onto the case, spoke to the NZ Cannondale dealer, W H Worralls, and the Worralls rep sorted out the riv-nut issue. Worralls stated they would examine the paint issue and advise me.Today, Steve from Planet Cycles rang me to tell me there was a replacement frame sitting in Planet Cycles for me. I'm delighted and over the moon. No fuss or drama, just good honest service from Planet Cycles, Worralls and Cannondale. Thank you all.
