Needless to say I spent the day doing not a lot apart from going to Oxford for some holiday clothes and then to Burford for a coffee when we went to pick up Hannah from her job at the sweet shop.

I’ve made a decision that once we’re back off holiday some serious hard work is going to begin on the weight loss front with the possibility of racing next year. We’ll see…..

It was a local 6 a side tournament and we didn’t do too bad really. Won 2, lost 3 and drew 1. I played in goal for 4 games and although the old reflexes aren’t quite there anymore I didn’t make a complete fool of myself.

I ordered a new mobile a few months back and the enticement was a new 120Gb iPod Classic and, with our PC getting a bit old and clunky, I was living in fear that my music was going to disappear into the blue screen of death one day. It’s been a mammoth task which, although it’s good to hear some old forgotten tunes, does get a bit tedious at times. I’m pretty much finished with it now though.

I’ve been cycling to a from work occasionally but nothing like as regular as I would want. The last 2 weeks has been impossible as they ripped the showers out at work as they were pretty grotty. I’m off work for 3 weeks now so hopefully they’ll be in use again when I get back. I very nearly did a 10 mile time trial in July but, on the day, it rained really bad so I didn’t go. Turns out it was called off anyway. I’ve even been on my turbo trainer in the garage about half a dozen times. I’m way too heavy at the moment but hopefully things will change with the arrival of………

my latest cycling project which is getting off the ground with the purchase of a Terry Dolan fixed gear frame. I haven’t actually got it in my hands yet but it won’t be long. I first got into riding fixed when I lived in Scotland between 1997 and 2000 and I’ve ridden at Manchester velodrome about 10 times and at the track at Newport. I had a wheel built by the legendary (in Northern Scotland at least) Charlie Ralph of Alves Cycles when I was up there and I’ve always had to bodge my normal road bike with it’s near horizontal dropouts but it used to work OK tbh. I never had a chain jump off anyway. That bike has gone now so I put some birthday money towards the new, built for the purpose frame.

I had the back wheel already, bought a pair of brand new Shimano aero brake levers off eBay for half the RRP, my new bars turned up today, Ritchey WCS Logic again an eBay bargain, I’ve already got a chain and a pair of old 105 brake calipers which I salvaged off an old bike. All I need now is a saddle (which I think will be a white Rolls) and a chainset and BB (probably Miche Primato both of them) and then I can build it up.

Away from cycling the O2 Academy seems to have gone down the pan recently as no decent bands seem to be playing there anymore. However there is someone I will be going to see in a few weeks and they are Dinosaur Jr. I heard their latest single on BBC6 a while ago and got their new album Farm off the back of it. Best album of the year by far for me at the moment.
I think I’ll also go and see Twisted Wheel at The Bully in October. I saw them support The Enemy in Swindon and I thought they were better than them tbh. £6, can’t grumble at that.

Finished at 3 and time for a Leffe and some football. Come on Villa you just have to beat Hull.

I say normal but not quite. I had just got to the traffic lights at the end of Botley Road where I had to stop at a red light (yes, some Oxford cyclists actually do that) and as I pulled away there was a slight clunk. Not that unusual really but then after that there was the sound of my chain “skipping” on the gears. I tried a few up and down shifts throughout the range but it was still there. Eventually I pulled over and had a look to find that one link was just about to come apart. Problem, no chain tool to sort it out so I had no choice but to call Alyson for her to get in the van and collect me, not how I would have preferred to get home.

While I was waiting I thought I’d try the “dejected cyclist sitting on the kerb looking stranded” trick and after a few minutes a car stopped to ask what the problem was. Anyway he said he’d got a chain tool at home and he’d go and get it for me. 3 or 4 minutes later I’m pedalling off home. Who says that social spirit is dying? Well, actually I am, on a daily basis when I deal with the dross that comes my way but, hey, there is some charity out there after all.

The new job I’ve got is really enjoyable but, because I’ve carried forward jobs from when I was working on response I’m having to juggle a high workload at the moment and it’s mentally draining. I can easily work a 10 hour shift and be occupied 100% of the time.

Hopefully the commuting rides will increase next week as I’ve got 5 early shifts in a row. Today is one of those days when I can look out of the window at home and see the rain and think “no I’m not going to bother today”. Cycling in the rain doesn’t bother me particularly but if you’re not training for anything in particular what’s the point?

Anyway, because of the nature of the offence, there is a power which enables us to go and search that person’s place of living for evidence relating to that, or similar, offence. We initially went to the address he had given to be met by his ex who told us that he had another place a bit further down the road. Well we didn’t know about this place so we got new authority to go into that place and, bingo, some credit cards were found with someone elses name on them that matched a crime that took place in February.

I interviewed him and asked if he had any other offences he wanted to own up to , which he did, but unfortunately not the job with the cards. Anyway, he’s now a suspect for it and I guess he may have to answer to that job at some point in the future.

So 1 charge for theft and 1 other offence taken into consideration and the powers that be love getting TICs so I drove home feeling very satisfied with the night’s work.