It's getting dark at 6 now, so Friday was probably the last chance to cycle home along the canal in fading daylight. I wouldn't normally do it in the rain - this is supposed to be a little treat to myself to mark the end of the week - but as there's only ever one last chance I decided to take it despite the increasing gloom and the possibility of droplets becoming drops.
One advantage of a wet, dark evening ride on the canal is that I have the whole linear feature to myself - except for the wildlife. I startled a couple of moorhens, which skittered off low across the water leaving their little trails of ever-increasing circles on the surface. One heron turned the tables, startling me by jumping out of the bank near me, and flying off.
So that's it for the canal or the river on a weekday. I have cycled home along the towpath in the dark once. Getting to the start was an adventure in itself, the lane to the bridge being in poor condition and it's easy to miss the edge of the tarmac and end up in a hedge. Getting along a darkened towpath is easier with bike lights turned off, so that you don't burn a bright spot into your retina. If there's some moonlight or scattered reflections from cloud, you can see enough from that glow. Not that that stopped me falling over, my head a couple of inches from the edge of the water.
I think cycling home along the canal in the dark is something to be done once. However, I am yet to cycle home along the riverside path in the dark. That could be another adventure entirely.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Thursday, October 08, 2009
Help!
It's getting pretty dark by 6 these days, so I'm trying to enjoy the last days of having daylight to cycle home in. This means leaving at 5.30. So today I'm cycling home at the same time as lots of students finishing their lectures and probably staff eager to get home in the daylight.
If I see someone stopped on their bike I often stop and ask if they need any help. Sometimes they're just texting or talking on their mobile (although some cyclists manage to do this and carry on pedalling), but sometimes they have problems with their bikes. I like to help.
The first person I stopped to help today was a foreign student who explained he was looking at the chestnuts on the ground - he'd never seen them before! I told him horse chestnuts weren't edible - but didn't go so far as to explain the rules of conkers.
The next faltering student had a stuck chain. That seems to be the most common problem I help cyclists with. The chain slips off the cogs, jams up, and they're stuck. This guy had a full-suspension bike, and his chain had fallen off his big cog and jammed. I got him to hold the bike while I dug in and freed it. I then explained how to adjust the limit screws - I couldn't do it there and then because I had no tools on my bike. He pedalled off with my instructions to get his bike serviced hopefully ringing in his ear. He'd only just bought it, second hand.
I rolled on home and finished painting the living room walls yellow.
If I see someone stopped on their bike I often stop and ask if they need any help. Sometimes they're just texting or talking on their mobile (although some cyclists manage to do this and carry on pedalling), but sometimes they have problems with their bikes. I like to help.
The first person I stopped to help today was a foreign student who explained he was looking at the chestnuts on the ground - he'd never seen them before! I told him horse chestnuts weren't edible - but didn't go so far as to explain the rules of conkers.
The next faltering student had a stuck chain. That seems to be the most common problem I help cyclists with. The chain slips off the cogs, jams up, and they're stuck. This guy had a full-suspension bike, and his chain had fallen off his big cog and jammed. I got him to hold the bike while I dug in and freed it. I then explained how to adjust the limit screws - I couldn't do it there and then because I had no tools on my bike. He pedalled off with my instructions to get his bike serviced hopefully ringing in his ear. He'd only just bought it, second hand.
I rolled on home and finished painting the living room walls yellow.
Saturday, October 03, 2009
Ferret Rescue
Ready to head off to work yesterday, I opened the bedroom curtains and running along the pavement outside the houses opposite was a ferret. What? A ferret. A woman walking past looked at it in disbelief as it flumped by. It stopped under a parked car, then headed back up the street behind her. Then someone on my side of the street caught its attention and it crossed the road. She had a large dog - a labrador, and the little critter was right in its face, and the dog didn't like it! These dogs are retrievers of dead birds, not hunters. It was clearly more scared than the ferret!
So I ran downstairs to see what was going on, and decided this poor little guy was an escaped pet and I better catch him using my super animal skills. I grabbed a plastic recycling box and jumped out. At that point my neighbour Kate appeared and wondered what was going on. By now the ferret was behind her shed in the side alley next to mine. Now Kate is scared of mice. And rats. And giant rat-like animals. Including ferrets. She bravely tried to shoo it out from behind her shed with a broom, but it ran back towards my back garden.
I ran through the house to try and catch it there. But by the time I got there, it had run towards the street again. I did wonder what the local alley cats would have made of it, but they never saw it.
Now Kate was trying to get it into the street again, and it jumped into the yard next to mine. I followed it in, and he was very tame, just looking around, nosing into flowerpots and eventually walked up to me. I grabbed him (I was wearing one of my work gloves) and took him out of the yard. Kate was now in the middle of the street - she'd rather be run over than approach a mustelid, it seems. I asked her to get the lid of the box and she handed it to me at a very stretched arm's length. I popped the little feller in and snapped the lid shut.
He scratched the box a bit, but I got him indoors and he settled down. Now what to do? I looked on the RSPCA web site and called their advice line, but after five mins on hold I gave up and called a local veterinary. They told me that if I brought him (or her, I don't know how to sex a ferret) in they would check for a chip and try and find its home. So I popped a note on my front window (Found! Ferret!), packed him up into the back of the Land Rover and trundled round to the vet's.
The vet told me it was a very nice polecat ferret, and that they'd keep me informed. I drove back home and cycled off to work.
When I got home that evening there was a note through the door. "Pan" belonged to the family a few doors down, so I went and told them where he was and they very nicely gave me a couple of jars of home-made jam for my troubles, and a jar to give to Kate for being brave.
The next morning I snapped this picture as Cathy came back from the vets with him. I hope he doesn't get out again!
So I ran downstairs to see what was going on, and decided this poor little guy was an escaped pet and I better catch him using my super animal skills. I grabbed a plastic recycling box and jumped out. At that point my neighbour Kate appeared and wondered what was going on. By now the ferret was behind her shed in the side alley next to mine. Now Kate is scared of mice. And rats. And giant rat-like animals. Including ferrets. She bravely tried to shoo it out from behind her shed with a broom, but it ran back towards my back garden.
I ran through the house to try and catch it there. But by the time I got there, it had run towards the street again. I did wonder what the local alley cats would have made of it, but they never saw it.
Now Kate was trying to get it into the street again, and it jumped into the yard next to mine. I followed it in, and he was very tame, just looking around, nosing into flowerpots and eventually walked up to me. I grabbed him (I was wearing one of my work gloves) and took him out of the yard. Kate was now in the middle of the street - she'd rather be run over than approach a mustelid, it seems. I asked her to get the lid of the box and she handed it to me at a very stretched arm's length. I popped the little feller in and snapped the lid shut.
He scratched the box a bit, but I got him indoors and he settled down. Now what to do? I looked on the RSPCA web site and called their advice line, but after five mins on hold I gave up and called a local veterinary. They told me that if I brought him (or her, I don't know how to sex a ferret) in they would check for a chip and try and find its home. So I popped a note on my front window (Found! Ferret!), packed him up into the back of the Land Rover and trundled round to the vet's.
The vet told me it was a very nice polecat ferret, and that they'd keep me informed. I drove back home and cycled off to work.
When I got home that evening there was a note through the door. "Pan" belonged to the family a few doors down, so I went and told them where he was and they very nicely gave me a couple of jars of home-made jam for my troubles, and a jar to give to Kate for being brave.
The next morning I snapped this picture as Cathy came back from the vets with him. I hope he doesn't get out again!
New blog time
Today I've created a new blog so I can share things I do at work. I've made it a separate blog so I can keep personal stuff here and work stuff there. Not that I write a lot of personal stuff here, but maybe I'll do a bit more in the future.
The new blog is GeoSpaced
It'll cover anything work-related (health, medicine, mapping, geospatial tech). So subscribe if you're interested!
The new blog is GeoSpaced
It'll cover anything work-related (health, medicine, mapping, geospatial tech). So subscribe if you're interested!
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