I went out to play 16 holes yesterday afternoon with Les Gray and Ken Page and we sat on the balcony at the club for a couple of beers afterwards. I phoned Jo and suggested she come down and join me - and she did, whereupon Ken got in touch with Irene and the four of us had supper together - not at the golf club, however - it was 1st October, meaning winter catering hours - no food on midweek evenings. We walked round to the Douglas and ate there, but, as we left the club, a low mist was already descending on the fairways:
By the time we left the Douglas to walk home, the temperature had crashed - and I was still in shorts.
I have been threatening to buy a new bike for some time now - my old Dawes is nearly 40 years old now - and an opportunity came along yesterday when John Meaden contacted me to say he had bought himself a new bike and would I like to buy his old one? So, this morning, I took a short stroll round to Burnett Park to have a look at it - and, after handing over just £100, I rode home on this:
It's now been adorned with a few of the accessories on my old bike - lights, bell, mudguard and toolkit. I took it for a very short run to get used to the gearing (a lot more than I'm used to) and the disc brakes, which squeal a fair bit. The bike is 7 years old so it's not the very latest technology, but it's bound to be an improvement on what I had. It doesn't have the larger wheels that have become de rigueur in recent times - 29" and, more recently 27.5" - and its tyres are wider than on my Dawes, causing more friction, but the same sized wheels as I'm used to are a bit easier to manoeuvre. I may have to replace the saddle with a gel one however!
I also took delivery of a new set of crossbars for the rails on top of my car and fitted them successfully:
My next job was to try and fit one of the many sets of bike racks I have in the garage to the new crossbars, but none of them would fit - the crossbars were too fat, so it's back to square one.
This afternoon I was back to the dentist to have a filling plus a scale and polish - my mouth is still numb.
We can't yet use our balcony at home and whereas we sat outside downstairs this morning, we can't do that in the afternoons at this time of year as the sun is too low in the sky and the huge trees in front of us shade the ground from the rays.
The new boiler fitting is going to be happening on Monday now. As I suspected, that means me missing another of our cycling group's planned outings. Ho hum.
Tomorrow morning at 8:30 am we're both getting our flu jabs.
The news this morning from Roseburg, Oregon was truly shocking. Far too close for comfort - Roseburg is just one hour up the I-5 from Grants Pass. The old arguments about gun control inevitably resurface at times like this - even the phone-in on Radio Scotland this morning was full of mostly ill-informed comments - and I wouldn't want to pontificate on what the Americans should do about it - not my place - but I did quite like reading Rolling Stone's commentary on it. Admittedly, it's a left-leaning magazine, so you know where they're coming from, but nonetheless it's worth a look - http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/4-pro-gun-arguments-were-sick-of-hearing-20151001?page=2
Obama only has a year of his presidency left. Politically, he has nothing left to lose now. If he really wants to do something about it, now's the time - although he does need to persuade an awful lot of doubters if he wants to get anything passed.
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