While Not Working

I went for a ride on my new bike. I rode beside the sea to Silver Sands.  I thought about riding down the beach but my bike was too new for that. No harm in looking, though. I had to stop when I came to the Conservation Park.  There was too much mud.  My bike will never be as clean again as it is right now.  Now is not the time for mud.         Not today. I turned around and rode back again, all the way up to Port Willunga. I had to stop.  There was another Conservation Park in the way. My bike and I sat and looked at the sea. The tide was in. My tyres stayed pumped up.  Not that I ever doubted they would, mind you, given my awesome tyre-inflation skills of yesterday. It was a nice ride.  I like my bike.

Way back in November last year I talked about the irretrievable breakdown of the relationship between my bicycle seat and my bottom, and the travails of finding a suitable sitting point for my ongoing bicycle adventures.  I may have been silent on this issue but I haven't been slacking: indeed, I spent the months since November wading through all the possible ways of achieving bum-seat compatibility.  Along the way one thing led to another and eventually I took delivery of a brand new bicycle seat which came attached to a whole brand spanking new bicycle. Kind of like the ankle bone connected to the leg bone etc... New seat, new bike, fancy little bell.   I collected my brand new bicycle in between cleaning and packing up the cat-brushing house sit and zooming off to the Tired Old Dog in time to let him out to.. ahem.. visit the back yard grass.  There was just time, I thought, to squeeze a quick ride on my brand new bike in between unpacking my stuff and dog-nannyin...

Living the deprived life as I was, without wine or chocolate, I decided to make the most of the nice(ish) weather and go for a bicycle ride on one of my work-free days.  Having ridden up and down the beach front to the point of tedium, I decided to take myself off to St Kilda instead.  This involved an argument with the Adelaide Metro website which neglected to tell me that the trains to Gawler had been replaced by buses on the very day on which I planned to use the train to launch me on my journey.  Having set my heart on St Kilda I caught the train to Port Adelaide instead, and rode from there. Great excitement! A vintage train chugging to its new home at the Railway Museum in Port Adelaide! And to think I usually zip across those tracks without even looking... Riding from Port Adelaide was all new territory for me, so at least it was a novelty even if it wasn't very pretty. Firstly a charming cycle beside the freeway. At least, being a Sunday, the traffic was light. Se...

Down in Aldina a tired old dog needed someone to feed him while his owners went gallivanting around the globe, and Team WhileNotWorking put up their hands for the job.   Unfortunately Tired Old Dog's owners left before our current cat's owners came back, resulting in some serious to-and-fro about who got to go to the beach to hang out with TOD and who stayed back in Adelaide to brush the cat.  In the end we split the difference and off Roger went for the first shift with TOD who was fast asleep in the laundry, his owners having left at 3 in the morning. TOD was deaf as a post and did not awaken to Roger clattering into the house and calling his name.  Indeed, TOD didn't wake up until Roger, fearing the worst, tapped him on the head and waved breakfast in front of his nose. TOD was not in the least perturbed to be awoken by a complete stranger, breakfast being the most important thing in his life, and his doggy logic dictated that the whole house could be burgl...

Both Roger and the cat were glad to have me home: the cat complained at length about the substandard brushing he had received while I was away, and Roger was just glad to have someone else to share the load of cat-brushing duties. "He's sitting in the wrong chair and he only brushed me thrice a day. I insist that you do better." Cat brushing done for the day, we sat down to plan our remaining time in cat-brush housesit.  "You know," said Roger.  "If we want to go to Illuminate Adelaide, we'll have to go tonight.  It's forecast to rain soon and after that we'll be busy."  Which was a good point, so we ditched the planning and went to Illuminate Adelaide instead. Illuminate Adelaide, in case you hadn't guessed, was Adelaide's answer to Vivid Sydney, and we wandered along Rundle Street looking at light shows projected onto buildings and not being entirely impressed because it was cold and I was tired.   Hmm, OK I suppose. The lack of i...