"Winter Wonderland"......for five minutes anyway.

Better than being in bed...(spot the Deer in the background)



"Grabbed by a wet, freezing cold giant metallic hand and briefly being dipped entirely into the coldest, freshest and cleanest salt water ocean......".

That was my experience of trying my first ever oyster yesterday. Quite a strange and refreshing experience to say the least. That was during lunch at a very good fish restuarant with my friend Debbie yesterday in celebration of my 36th Birthday. Debbie got me a great book called "Fat" by Rob Grant. I can't wait to finish with my current Koontz novel so I can start it.

That was lunch today, but what about your birthday I hear you cry. As you know I turned 36 on Tuesday along with my twin Sister Nicola. My day was alright as birthdays go. It makes a change not to have to attend some appointment or another up at the RFH on it. Firstly on Tuesday I went and helped my friend Lee and his wife Nicola (my twin) fill a skip up with old carpet, an old kitchen etc, taken out from their new house they have just recently bought in Hampton. It is amazing just how quick one can fill an empty skip up entirely! The sky was blue but the air was, unlike the recent mild weather, cool.........a sign of things to come it seems (keep reading). I don't envy them at all, what with all the work that needs to be carried out on the place! They have done it before though and know exactly what to expect.
I drove my bike there on top of the car as it still had the punture that I received the Sunday before up Leith Hill. I knew I would have trouble getting the tyre off! The last time I tried I got a bleed in my right elbow! Can you believe I can cycle over roots and mud, up and down hills and my arm is ok, but fixing a puncture...........useless! It's the tyre! It is so bloody difficult to get on and off! Lee thinks that my rims might be designed for tubeless tyres? He even had trouble getting the thing off and he is pretty strong! Anyway, we replaced the inner tube and the tyre with a new one (the one on it was ready for replacement anyway.......from a whole summers worth of mountain biking) and pumped it back up. So off we went and did a few more things around their new house, preparing it for new central heating etc. Actually, I just took photos and watched Lee machine chisel a whole room back to the bare brick because of a damp problem that needs seeing to.
I was dying for a bike ride so I went off home with my newly inflated bike and took off for a ride to Hampton Court and Bushy Park. It didn't go quite as intended because guess what? Halway around my ride my tyre slowly went down! All I can think is that because the tyre is so tight to get back on, it inadvertently pinched the new tube? But why stay up for so long since pumping it up? Maybe it was just a "normal" puncture......a prickle or splinter from a tree. Oh, by the way, that tree that I saw last week that looked as if it had been pushed over a few feet by the storm? It didn't fall over in the end but when I found it again it had be cut down with a chainsaw. So many trees were knocked over in the last week it is unbelievable! So sad!
So there I was with a puncture, albeit a slow one and was forced to keep pumping the thing up until I got back home where I had enough of the incredible hulk in me to attempt to repair it myself. I did.
Later on Nicola & I met up at our Mums for a bit and saw three gritters drive by one after the other....another sign of things to come in the morning. Then later still Nicola, Lee & I went for a meal together at out local "Beefeater" restaurant.......and after checking my tyre was still up and having a Lovely chat on the phone with Becs it was bedtime. My tyre was still up in the morning & what a morning it would turn out to be!
As I already said, I was speaking to a friend of mine around midnight on Tuesday, Becky......my first girlfriend from way back in the late 80's (yes I do still keep in touch with all my girlfriends......all three in fact) and she lives up north in Leeds with her husband and little boy........anyway, she said it was snowing there and I looked out of my window and saw it wasn't here and didn't think anymore about it.........and then at 07:30 yesterday morning I get a phone call from my "middle" girlfriend Jac who lives just around the corner, who told me to look out of my window. I was fast asleep and hate being woken up normally, but when I saw the beautiful snow I was awake and dressed in a matter of minutes! The first thing I noticed were the single set of boot prints running up the path next to a single set of tiny cat paw prints running beside them. So cute:) The next thing I noticed was the sound of the snow under foot as I stepped onto the freshly laid blanket. Crunch...crunch...crunch. What a wonderful sound. Muffled crunches. It was perfect snow for snowballs and snowmen. I took a few photos and went back indoors and even contemplated going back to bed! But instead I got all my cycling gear on and grabbed my 08:27am tablets and a drink and made my way through the snow to Bushy Park knowing just how Lovely it would look. I wasn't disappointed.

A never before seen image of my frozen balls...

On entering the Park I was greeted by a very welcome sight. The whole park looked as if it had been sprinkled over with icing powder. The normal green & brown & yellow of the park had been transported into a black & white winter wonderland. There were hundreds upon hundreds of Deer running around in it, other cyclists riding on it, people on their way to work or out with their dogs walking on it, squirrels farting around for buried nuts in it, tiny little dicky birds bathing in it, students from the nearby college rolling up a giant snowball across it and last but not least.........me taking it all in........in it. My tyre stayed up and two and a half hours later I was back home with frozen toes and cold fingers. I got the cold feet and hands because on my way back out of Kingston Gate, where the students had left the snowball alone and were probably now in class with bright red fingers & noses.......I had a quick look around, saw I was all alone and rolled the giant snowball a head. Dirty, but a head nonetheless. I Loved it...the whole lot. I wish it was like this everyday!! I do hope the snow comes back soon. It has been ages since I have been out in the snow and the first time ever I had been in it on my bike. Brilliant! MORE!!
After all the excitement over the last week, what with my bike rides, the storm, my birthday and the snow, I am feeling a little...........deflated....like my tyre. I still have a mouth filled with ulcers and a few coldsores too! Plus I want to know what the results of my blood test are! I don't care what they are, I just want to know! Did I mean that? About the not caring? I don't know. Life is a funny thing isn't it?



Jason






(C) JPT 2007