Blog No. 2 of 17 (or thereabouts)
Small dog ate my sandwiches. The little tyke. Still, he's a rescue who arrived whippet-thin, only to be lovingly restored to Staffie-thick, so the odd lapse to his street roots is forgiveable. Besides, it's astonishingly difficult to embarrass a dog. Their insouciant emissions of flatulence and eructation, their devotion to genital grooming ... well, they just epitomise 'not bothered'. Having said that, today I heard a dog who should be properly ashamed. It didn't so much bark as go, approximately: 'huffrirrip' ... repeatedly. Huffrirrip, huffrirrip, huffrirrip it went - interspersed with alarming wheezes. He was the spit of Gnasher from The Beano, and if Marco-Pierre White has a son, M-P White Junior and Gnasher 2 are destined for cinematic greatness - as long as they can find a voice double for the mutt, poor little fella.
Gnasher 2 was tied up at the Windmill caff on Wimbledon Common, where I was pausing to recover from a determined bout of power-walking with Big dog and Small dog, the Battersea beasts. Why a power-walk and not a leisurely meander? Ah ... I'm stepping briefly into the madness of Steven the UniCyclist as he heads across Britain before roaming round the rest of Europe for UniCycle50 (http://www.unicycle50.com/). Today is Day 2 of my effort to render myself 55-mile cycle-ride fit, or at least capable, in just two weeks, after a year of severe corporeal neglect. Steven's hitting London, the first of his fifty capital target, on April 6th, so I'm going to cycle from Milton Keynes to London with him and other students ... and anyone else game enough to pedal along http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/event.php?eid=174564295907447.
The stomp around Wimbledon Common was uneventful but invigorating, and the second I returned to the car ... out came the sun - typical. Still cursing the cur for his swift sarnie swipe, I set off early to work in order to add to the day's exercise tally, by taking the train half way there and Boris-biking the rest. Giant Milky Bar Kid, Mayor Boris Johnson, has rendered London bikemental, with serried ranks of unwieldy sit-up-and-beg bikes available to all who shell out for a magic key. They're pretty horrible to ride, but they get you from A to B more reliably than bus or tube, with the added bonus of low-impact, cardio-vascular exercise - only spoilt by the zillions of carcinogenic benzene particulates effortlessly transferred from bus to lung.
I arrived at work aglow from my ride, only to see the lift doors close in my face. So ... I walked up the six floors to my grafting eyrie. More physical effort - huzzah! Mind you, if I can't arrive at the top without standing bent, hands gripping my grumbling, crooked knees, gasping for breath ... cycling 55 miles seems bloody optimistic.
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