definitely interested.

Posts Tagged ‘bicycle’

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Catskill Bike Tours

In events, learning, various on June 11, 2010 at 4:15 pm

I’m going to need a weekend at home by the time I’m done with my whirlwind of meetings (note: Las Vegas is surreal and fascinating.) but this sounds great. A weekend of biking and bicycle repair workshops in the Catskills with my friend Chris:

As you might have heard, my friend Ryan and I are putting on a weekend long bicycle workshop in upstate NY on the weekend of June 25-27th. This is the first time we have put on this workshop and have been unable to register any participants as of yet. However, our shortfall is your gain. We would like to do this workshop in the future and we feel your participation and feedback will be great help for the workshop’s future development. Thus, we are sending you a personal invite to join us for the weekend for a greatly reduced $100 per person! This price includes: five great meals, lodging, rides, and workshops. This is all in the context of Woodbourne, NY at a house that is on 15 acres of land. You will be responsible for getting yourself and your bicycle to the location. Read the rest of this entry »

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Lovely

In flaneurie on May 23, 2010 at 9:30 pm

Saltie, street fairs, steel, strawberries, asparagus, green garlic. Planning for pickles and preserving. Handmade bicycles, lilacs. Pie and peonies. And an invitation to escape to the Catskills. New superadobe stories and these sandy punks swinging by their knees from geodesic domes selling screenprints and copies of Buckminster Fuller.

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Exhausted

In various on September 20, 2009 at 11:35 pm

Street fairs, potholes, vinyl siding, cemetery, service road, Unisphere, Queens Botanical Garden, cement factory, College Point, event bath, salty plum tea, ice sauna, custard pies, Corona, tacos, Jackson Heights, loitering, nuts, Nanking, chai, Bushwick, bed. In that order.

Something people often don’t know: you don’t have to be a 501c3 to get an EIN.

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Peter Moore’s DIY Panniers

In various on February 12, 2009 at 6:26 pm

I was just going to bookmark this, file under “I’d like to …” but then I noticed that the URL was really to a page in the Way Back Machine and the original site had been domain squatted. So I’m going to go ahead and shamelessly reprint the plans here. The drawing appears to be copyright Peter Moore, 2002. You might just want the photos.
Read the rest of this entry »

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NYPD to Amanda: Drop Dead

In various on October 23, 2008 at 4:59 pm

Got a ticket this morning, and had to stand on a traffic island with Brooklyn Bridge-bound cars whizzing by while I waited for Officer Illegible to write me up.

Apparently, you aren’t actually allowed to ride a bike from the bike lane on the street to the bike lane on the bridge. Because you have to enter the crosswalk to do so. You’re supposed to wait until all the cars coming up Tillary get a green turn signal, and then cross their path to get to the bridge. Read the rest of this entry »

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Vineyard by Bicycle (with new notes added)

In various on August 19, 2008 at 1:31 pm

An update on a question previously posed here: is there a way to get ourselves and our bicycles to Martha’s Vineyard in one piece?

Sure. If you’re a gambler. Contrary to their published policy (which I can’t seem to load this morning) Peter Pan/Bonanza’s bicycle policy is at the whim of their driver. At Port Authority, we were told first that there was no need to box our bikes, if we could fit them they’d fit them but we’d have to board last and they couldn’t promise they would fit. So we waited. And then another station agent told us that there was no way she could fit bikes on the bus because it was full and no we couldn’t look and no we couldn’t box them.

So screw it. We demanded a refund, rode to Chinatown, took the Fung Wah to Boston, where there was a bus to Hyannis waiting. Unfortunately, it was close to 10 PM, which was going to put us in Hyannis comfortably six hours before the next ferry. If we were slick we probably could have found a Super8 Motel in Hyannis but we decided instead to venture out into the Boston rain. Anyhow, the Hyannis ferry costs $40 per-bicyclist, which is a long way from the $10.50 we paid for passage from Woods Hole. Lucky for us, Jeff wasn’t really out of town, he’d just gone out to dinner without his cell phone. A thing I’d normally commend, but not when I’m scrambling to find a dry couch in Boston and Miss Priss is off in Florida. So a couch stay later we were back at South Station trying to sweet talk our bikes onto the Peter Pan to Woods Hole. Something I’ve noticed about Peter Pan drivers (Peter Pan has acquired Bonanza, you see) is that they’re a universally miserable lot. Bitter and mean, even when they’re being nice.

I don’t think it was a bad shake, to take a late bus to Boston and an early bus to the ferry, but I could have skipped the ride up to Port Authority to be hollered at and then the ride back downtown. Policy or no, the Fung Wah fit four bicycles and, while I wouldn’t call them nice about it (or about anything), they were certainly efficient and accommodating.

My advice for getting to Woods Hole? Bring your pedal wrench, just in case, and don’t aim for the last bus. I still think that Fung Wah to Boston was a far better bet than trying to board the Bonanza bus at Port Authority. There was plenty of room on the Bonanza to Woods Hole. My second tidbit is not to aim for the very last ferry. Leave open the option of waiting for the next bus. Help load luggage to make sure you’re stacking things tightly and be prepared to take responsibility for maneuvering your bike on to the bus yourself. Keep in mind that while the Fung Wah seems to have very high luggage bays that fit an upright bicycle almost comfortably, Peter Pan/Bonanza bays are a lot smaller.

We didn’t ever look into the Providence ferry option. There’s a boat from Providence for $58 with bicycle, but if you take a cheap bus to Providence, the sum total could come to less than what we paid ($73 for Woods Hole to NYC). Unfortunately, all the cheap buses to Providence seem to be phantoms. I think there are plenty of Chinatown bus options that are not yet on the interweb, though.

The other sneak attack we might have tried: Peter Pan does offer priority boarding if you reserve online.

Getting home was easier because we knew the score and the security is much more minimal in the Woods Hole Parking lot so I could just climb in the cargo bay myself and start rearranging bags to ensure space. The bus driver at the transfer in Bourne (where we got on a Providence/NYC bus) was predictably curmudgeonly and advised us that he couldn’t promise that we and our bicycles wouldn’t be thrown off in Providence if there wasn’t room. My suspicion that they wouldn’t actually kick us off the bus proved well founded and we got all the way to Port Authority, bikes intact, in time to stop at Azuri and ride down the Hudson River Greenway, nap in the grass and have a whole nother dinner with Mike and Mary.

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A Wee Run Down

In Stating the Obvious on March 24, 2008 at 4:48 am

I was telling some lovely people, just this afternoon, about how my original purpose here was to keep track of just how many times scientists can possibly re-discover that red wine and chocolate are good for you in moderation. I was telling them this because I just read two articles (both in Harpers) that speak to a piece of the thesis.

  1. Tasmanian devils afflicted with a contagious cancer. Moral of the story: lack of biodiversity can really fuck with your immune system. Or, rather, your immune system can only function if you are a little bit different from the people you share germs (or viruses or cancerous cells) with. Industrial agriculture might be damn efficient when it works, but we’re inviting famine by basing a nation’s diet on a corn monocrop. Meanwhile, most news outlets seem to miss the point altogether. The story they tell is that there is new evidence that cancer could be contagious. They skip the whole part about the tiny gene pool among Tasmanian devils. Biodiversity.
  2. Also in Harper’s this month, a story about raw milk, pasteurization and replacing health with sterilization. About how healthy cows fed on grass aren’t nearly as prodigious as cows fed on protein slurry and shot full of antibiotics, and about how people who live antibacterial worlds have higher incidence of auto immune disorders. About how on a small scale, the sort of scale where dairy farming is truly sustainable, raw milk isn’t really so risky. About how on commercial dairy scales, we rely entirely on pasteurization to clean milk that is foul when it leaves the cow. Foul. Morals of the story: biodiversity is good for our guts, too. And a healthy immune system is one that is in balance, not one that has been scrubbed clean. We’re complicated ecosystems. One thing engineering won’t cut it.
  3. We rode out to Steve’s Authentic Key Lime Pies yesterday. Highly recommended, even if the limes do kind of fail the food shed test. Cooked up a fantasy that we could stop for a drink at LaNell’s. You can’t. You can buy a whole bottle of rye and take it with you to a quiet alley (we didn’t) but LaNell’s is a shop. I think we even knew that, and yet we persuaded ourselves.

I’m looking forward to Edible Manhattan. Will it hold the keys to midtown?

Also, I love that I know a secret handshake. When you meet a librarian, you can say things like “oh? you are a librarian? Why, Jenna Freedman is a friend of mine.” Try it. Jenna is more famous than I’d realized. Today I met someone who wrote a thesis on Jessamyn West. Thinking back, I wish I’d gotten more details. We did have a good conversation about my latest big question, which is something fascinating about how to do substantive things with data and databases instead of laying a bunch of shiny baubles out for the magpies.

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Cycling Holidays

In various on February 26, 2008 at 4:41 pm

We’re scheming, N and I.

A trip to the UK with bicycles. I imagine riding through the country side, stopping for tea from time to time, stopping for beer from time to time, stopping to unroll a picnic blanket and read for a while. It seems like there are touring companies that will arrange accommodations for you and send you off with a map, all with varying degrees of coddling. It also seems like there are folks who swear you don’t need a stinking travel company. It will not shock anyone who knows us well that N and I have a tendency to fall for different arguments. I’m not asking the lazy web to settle anything for us, I’m just asking what you think. A friend of ours went Iron Donkey style and swears by it. The prices give me the willies, but then all prices give me the willies in general.

And so I am asking you, oh lazy web, what you know?

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Escape from New York

In various on February 18, 2008 at 4:15 am

The Ashram was a little funky, and I’m not sure I’d go there without Ana and Foca to back me up … I can’t say that and then link to them, can I? … especially since my efforts to find any details about the rumored eucalyptus sauna came to naught. I’d link to the part on their website where the same was promised, but then I’d have to link to them and they’d catch me saying bad things about how no one seemed really happy. I’m used to blissed out yogis. I’m not used to whole dining rooms full of people who seem kind of put out to be sharing the room with you. And that was before we stayed up all night dancing and building human pyramids so it can’t be that they already knew we were going to keep them up all night. (Hold up: I was trying to sleep, too.) However, it was less than 5 miles from Harriman Station on the Port Jervis line, which qualifies it for bicycle escape status, even if I took a cab from the train on Friday, myself.

I’m still looking for low key places to stay that are with in reach of both trees and the train.

I’m also (new this week) looking for ways to get our asses to Martha’s Vineyard this summer. Sumner (of the gorgeous rings–funny how you can forget a thing you wear every day until someone complements it and you remember that it is beautiful) invited us to visit but last summer we were through planning anything. So this summer we want to go see him and chill and ride our bikes and people keep telling me that we’d have to fly to the vineyard, which is crazy talk. Or drive (also. crazy talk.) I know (from Robert Moses, who knew) that if you don’t want the masses to descend, en masse, upon your idyllic retreat, you shouldn’t allow mass transit to approach, but there has to be a way for two hardy cyclists to make the journey with neither an auto nor a security line with no bag of peanuts at the other side. Right?

Seems like there are ferries from North Kingstown (RI), New Bedford (where they read Moby Dick aloud, so maybe we could stop there?), Hyannis, Woods Hole and sometimes Montauk. I’ve heard stories of the Montauk ferry, they all seem to revolve around retching overboard, a thing I’ve never done and could live without, truth be told. The Rhode Island ferry purports to be just 15 miles from Amtrak, which is a trek, but not impossible. Can we do better?

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Desperately Seeking a Hide-a-way

In various on November 26, 2007 at 3:45 pm

We just returned from Hudson Valley no-type-of-car vacation number two and my co-workers are telling me I should write a book. They might be onto something, since I’ve been looking for that book for three years and as far as I can tell it isn’t out there.

Route One took us to Beacon (art, picnic) over the bridge to Newburgh to stay at a very weird B&B (chain smoking proprietor, single beds, plastic mattress and pillowcase covers), dinner at a mini mall BBQ place (good, but not so much for vegetarians). Another ride to Storm King for more art and more picnic and then to Cornwall-on-Hudson where the Painters Inn was a much more accommodating place, if weird in its own quirky way. On further by bicycle to Metro North and then home. That was a few years ago.

This weekend, we took Metro North to Garrison and rode the six miles to the Bear Mountain Inn, cabins at which sure smelled a lot better when I located the battery operated room freshening device and disabled it. Since when do you actually want your living room to smell like a gas station bathroom? In Garrison there’s a nice little market with good coffee and all kinds of cookies and trail mix, in case you failed to requisition hiking treats before you left. Wishing I’d packed our insulated mugs and granola, we enjoyed a lovely continental breakfast of paper cups, tea with a hint of rancid coffee, fruit cocktail and sugar smacks at the Lodge. We hiked up Bear Mountain and then down along the Appalachian Trail to the very eerie ruins of old Doodletown. The key question (what happened?) is never actually explained as you pass through the remains of the mining town that was inhabited as recently as 1967. The hike itself was great, and I recommend it even if you can’t find someplace better than the Bear Mountain Inn to stay at. The view from the porch (where you have to eat if you don’t want the scary room deodorizer flavoring your every bite) is gorgeous and the fall leaves still have another week or two before they’re all gone.

Yesterday we rode back to the market in Garrison for coffee and suburban wife watching (so many SUVs. gaah.) and then onto Cold Springs just to get some riding in.

So we’re working on it, our escape from New York. And getting someplace, I think. I’m not really complaining. I’ve suffered worse than institutional motels, but I remain convinced that better options are out there.

On the advice of the same colleague who thinks I ought to write a book, I’m looking into Canoe Clubs (like this one) that apparently have more modest and rustic accommodations.

Any other tips for me?

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Maybe you know a guy?

In various on October 16, 2007 at 1:18 pm

hey bike friends-

As some of you know, my trusty old pal the green bike dodged its last pothole a couple of weeks ago. We had some good times, me and that bike, but I guess it was time to ride off into that great stretch of fresh pavement in the sky.

So I’m looking for a new pair of wheels, and would love it if you could keep your eyes open. Something with some street sense, in a three- or a ten-speed. Must be a hardy soul who can live outside at night, likes long rambles around Brooklyn, and isn’t scared of some amateur bike repair. If you hear of any leads, secret stoop sales, or know a guy, please let me know.

thanks,
Alice

You know how to find me if you’ve got just the thing for Miss Hartley.

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Better than Martha Peach?

In various on April 26, 2007 at 7:52 pm

Orero Photo

I bought my first track bike in 1999 or 2000 or so, at the Trexlertown Swap meet. It is a thing of beauty, but I’ve never been able to find out much about its history. The Internet knows nothing of the Orero. (What’s this got to do with Martha Peach, you ask? It is about the miracle of the internets, is all. )

Today, though, I got a really interesting email (via Taliah) from Jose Ramon Orero, who says he is the son of Ramon Orero, who made custom bicycles, first in Spain and later in Argentina and then finally on to the US. Jose thinks my bike was made in the US, sometime between 1970 and 1972.

Check it out (all is edited for clarity):

My father’s whole live was dedicated to custom made frames and bicycles. He and my mother (both deceased now) moved from Spain to Argentina in 1949 and then onto the US, he was devoted to frame making. My father came to the US in 1968, the rest of the family followed in 1970.

The bicycle Amanda has was probably built in 1970/72, in the US–I can tell by the Orero Decal on the lower pipe. I know it is an original because the name is stamped on the sides of the seatpost.

I hope I’m not boring you with all these details, but my father’s work and the people he made bicycles for hold a very special place in my heart and memory.

Painting by Taliah Lempert

Are you kidding? There is nothing online about Orero bikes. I’ve been wondering about Orero for years. I’m not the only one, either. Tron doesn’t say much, but Brian wants to know about his Orero, Elvis is looking for anyone who’s ever heard of Orero. Mike Fabian’s got a brief mention, via Sheldon Brown, of Ramon Orero building frames in an old Bowling Alley for Paris Sports. That is it though. No one seems to know more.

More from Jose (I’m paraphrasing again) …

My father cared a lot about bikes and the people he made them for. He wasn’t corporate-inclined, he was more interested in building bikes for the people he met than in fame and big corporations. In his own way, my father was an artist at heart. What he created, from measuring the rider, positioning the rider on the bike, hand drawing the frame, he created with his own hands. The lugs were all hand-made, hacksawed and hand filed (no power grinder). Only the painting was left to someone else.

I believe your bicycle was built in Beleville, NJ in my father’s bicycle shop tha theh owned with a partner, Cycleland Sports. Cycleland opened in late 1970 or early 1971 and closed its doors in about 1982. After closing Cycleland he worked out of a bicycle shop in Ridgefield Park, NJ.

Thank you!
Jose Ramon Orero

via Taliah Lempertvia Taliah Lempert

[tags]bicycle, myself[/tags]

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Without a good title

In various on December 4, 2006 at 3:26 pm

A 22 year-old, friend of friends, was killed on the West Side greenway on Friday night. I didn’t know him, and I don’t have a lot of deep thoughts to share about him, but I am fuming about a few things about his death, and thinking a lot about the general deadliness of cars and what it would take to reduce their menace. Read the rest of this entry »

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Enough With the Cars

In various on May 4, 2006 at 2:36 pm

Two posts, right in a row!

This one is special for today: there is a press conference and rally for a car-free Prospect Park tonight, anyone who is sick of cars ruling the whole universe and everyone insisting that they simply must cut through the park to get across Brooklyn should come out and be counted.

Thursday, May 4, 5pm (yes, that is today)
Grand Army Plaza entrance to Prospect Park

If you can’t make it, at least drop Marty and Iris a line and tell them that you want cars out of the park.

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A bit of a round up.

In various on May 4, 2006 at 2:05 pm

My father helpfully pointed out that I haven’t posted a blog entry since April 17. I just haven’t had much to say (or much time for writing) I have written several irate letters to the mayor about car alarms and overplanted my garden plot. I already forgot what I planted even. Greens of some sort. Carrots. Beets. Basil. The tomatoes plant themselves. Mostly, though, I’ve been working on the Recycle-A-Bicycle newsletter (which you should subscribe to, because it is great) and trying to pretend to get my act together for Bike Month (which is now).

  • May 6: Sustainable South Bronx Greenway Tour–I’ll probably just be standing around with my clipboard trying to trick people into signing up for the RAB newsletter, but we’re giving away a bunch of bicycles and it will be fun. Plus, Majora is all famous now so you can get your star-chaser on.
  • May 7: Ladies Ride to Nyack– not into the 5 boro? ditch it, and ride with Bicycle Cherry up 9W to get coffee in Nyack.
  • May 13: Bike Film Festival Street Fair–Recycle-A-Bicycle will be selling jewelry and cheap bike shorts with strange logos on them. We’ll have the clipboard out, too. I won’t be there, I’ll be on the …
  • May 13: Ladies’ Ride to Coney Island which will end with Russian brunch on the boardwalk.

    • In other excitement, I bought a computer, a ThinkPad x40 on ebay. It isn’t your business what I paid, but I’ll be picking it up this week and you’re sure to hear whether it turns out to be boring or exciting.
    Read the rest of this entry »

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    Cops in the Bike Lane

    In various on April 17, 2006 at 12:53 pm

    More on the local civic activism front. A year or so ago, I started a moblog that I never publicized, I think it was called “double parked cops” or something. The idea was that you could send in photos of cops abusing parking passes and we could somehow persuade Mayor Bloomberg that despite his blustery inauguration week promises, absolutely zero has been done about cops parking pretty much anywhere they please.

    http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0615,ferguson,72804,5.html

    Chinatown is up in arms about the problem, but it is a city-wide issue. Throughout Brooklyn, the first sign that you are approaching a station house is a sidewalk clogged with private cars. A cursory inspection would suggest that half of them (or some. That is a rough number, half) are using xeroxed parking permits. You don’t really need a permit to park on the sidewalk or in the bike lane or in a turn lane or anywhere you happen to feel like leaving your car, as long as you have some kind of sign on the dash, a little signal that you are a cop and thus above the law.

    If you happen to feel like taking some pictures of police permit abuse or just cars all over the place on the approach to a station, you can send them to “double.parked.cops@gmail.com” with the date, time and location. Just don’t get arrested.

    Since Fergie’s story was really about cameras and who is (and isn’t) subject to surveillance (geez guys, if you aren’t doing anything wrong, why hide?), I should also note that the NYPD is placing surveillance cameras all over Bushwick–500 of them just for a start–to “combat terrorism.” Bushwick being the hotbed of terrorist activity that it is, we should all rest a bit easier. Meanwhile, efforts to add a handful of new red light cameras in New York City have been consistently quashed in Albany. Pop quiz: what will keep you safe from harm more efficiently? 500 surveillance cameras or 500 red light cameras?

    If you feel like raising a stink, go for it. Tell Ray Kelly that you worry much more about being hit by a car (while you are at it, ask if maybe they could use some of those cameras to identify NYPD scoflaws, since the public hasn’t been allowed to document their rampant parking abuse), or find your state senator and ask them when we can have 500 traffic enforcement cameras.

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    Bike to School?

    In various on April 7, 2006 at 2:23 pm

    During the transit strike, I spent some time looking for information on biking to school and discovered that the Department of Education, which has already eviscerated school sports does not allow schools to bring student bicycles indoors. One teacher friend, who’ll remain anonymous for now, reports having to sneak kids’ bicycles in a back entrance when they showed up on the first day of the transit strike with inadequate locks. He is at a New Visions school, which means kids were coming from across the city to get to class, and were supposed to leave their bike to be stolen? I had to really dig to find any information on riding to school, and no where does the Board of Ed actually encourage kids to ride. Considering that my own alma mater recently completed a study which found that sixty-seven percent of students say they have a very difficult time managing stress …

    This is a post that has been lingering for nearly a year. I’m loathe to toss it because I think we should be talking about this stuff, but I also don’t have a good way to finish it off the top of my head. The point is that we’re busily destroying opportunities for physical activity because they takes time away from studying, and in the process, we’re making a terrible mess of things.

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    Live from London, Second in a Series

    In various on March 1, 2006 at 11:56 pm

    Fair warning: Dominic did not drink his share of that bottle.

    I’m afraid I’ve let you all down. I did not go to Old Bailey (though it sounded tempting) or Newgate prision (though I loved Great Expectations when everyone else in Miss Stewart’s English class not only hated it, but mocked me endlessly for liking it and saying so), I did not go on a tour of the Inns of Court. I did go to Boots for $50 worth of Acyclovir because you can’t buy it over the counter in the US (and apparenly no one ever explained to Noah the connection between herpes and cold sores so he gave me this long cold stare when I said something about getting herpes medication while we are here). I did not go to Hampton Court Place, though I understand that Henry VIII was rumored to have syphilis (an STD! like herpes!) . I did not go to Bloomsbury or the Royal Observatory or Greenwich or Kew Gardens or St Pauls though I did feel altogether better about London knowing that I could go to these places and that they came recommended. But I did not go. I didn’t even go to the Bike Shop in Notting Hill where it is rumored that you need only whisper (whisper!) the name Taliah Lempert and you, too, will be treated like royalty, like nothing less than the Great Artist Herself. I did try to go to the National Gallery and it took me about 20 seconds to realize I didn’t feel like looking at Paintings and I’d rather go find this Notting Hill bike-shop-place, but instead I got entirely lost and by the time I was unlost, I’d had a lovely (though entirely without context or reference) walking tour of London and it was time to get back to Waterloo to meet the Famous Cousin Zoe who has, in the past, made gowns for Alexander McQueen out of great quantities of pink tulle. Tufted pink tulle. She was expecting us at about 4:30 for a short hello and then we were supposed to go see Henry Miller’s last play directed by Robert Altman at the Old Vic (next door to the Young Vic) around the corner from Cousin Barbara’s house. Instead, I went to a capoeira class while Noah slept on the couch, but I digress.

    Or do I?

    Can you digress when you are just rambling? I don’t think you can. I can’t. Zoe is much more than a one-time McQueen intern, for instance. I didn’t make it to Notting Hill, I know that much. I did make it to Capoeira where I lied(!) to a student named Ninja, telling him that we have a Ninja in our class when we don’t. We don’t! We have a student who we call Ninja because she likes to stand around with her arms folded in a very Ninja pose, but her capoeira name is Aerobica. Sorry Ninja. You have no competition, do not fear.

    And Noah slept. This morning we went on a pilgrimage to Geo F. Trumpers where they have violet and lavendar scented shaving things for Men. Also you can have your moustache curled (6 pounds) or take a course on straight razor shaving (50 pounds). And we found some overpriced cocoa on an alley and drank it. Some folks from the London Cycling Campaign took us on a bike tour of London.

    We used to play this game, Taylor invented it (or just introduced it?) called Hit or Miss? where you walk down the street and note every out fit. Hit? or Miss? So this was a sort of Hit or Miss tour of London bike lanes. This one here where you have to run through a mob of pedstrians? Miss. This one, that was a sidewalk only ever used by cyclists and was claimed as a bike lane proper? Hit. It was a great ride, even though it started snowing (the faintest dust of snow and everyone was talking about a blizzard). I suddenly found myself face to face with Big Ben, with the sun hitting it through the snow clouds at a blazing red afternoon angle. Onward past Some Government Buildings to Hyde Park and back round to the LCC offices where they all looked at us incredulously when we said that London drivers are so polite. They don’t honk at cyclists, they’ll even hang back a bit and wait until they can pull around if there isn’t room for them to pass a cyclist on the road. They just slow down. Drivers! Slowing Down! Imagine it?

    Home for dinner with the lovely cousin Barbara and a drink with Dominic. Not to be confused with Dominica: the only two people I know in all of the UK (er, except Maggie and Sophie) are named Dominic and Dominica. But here is the thing about Dom (I’m almost done, I swear) which is that he lives in Waterloo himself and… and? and … he rides down Pearman street all the time thinking “those are such beautiful houses.” So he came by for a tour of Cousin Barbara’s house, brought her a bottle of wine (except that we drank it for her …) and was in absolute heaven. It was lovely. The fact that she has this gorgeous addition on her roof that really amounts to a giant sun room which is perfect for drinking wine and talking about the series on forensic pathology that he is working on for BBC3 just, I don’t know, just was. It was a fact, that we sat up there looking out at the Slow Moving Eye in the dark (I couldn’t find a light switch) talking about filming autopsies and also about traffic calming and rows of little stone houses.

    I take back all the bad things I said about London, I really do.

    For what it is worth (please read the warning at the start of this bloody entry bloody! that is a British euphamism for “fucking” — sort of like “flipping” or “freaking” in American English. about my drinking) and in case you were jumping to conclusions, I’ve only ever manifested symptoms of Herpes Simplex One, which is oral herpes, which means I get cold sores from time to time. On my face. As if to punish me for arrogance, the Cold Sore Gods decided to give me one such sore on the plane to London not 24 hours after I told Meredith that they have real medication over the counter in the UK.

    Tomorrow, to Cape Town.