Where and Why

Journal

Where and Why

I haven’t managed an update here for a few weeks now, for a variety of contributing factors that just sort of snowballed. Work has been the main culprit – it’s not been going as well as I would have liked, which has kind of dampened the urge to post my journal entries here – there’s not much fun to be had in sounding miserable. Not that it’s all been bad – far from it.

Me and Elisha, cycling togetherI did mean to update some three weeks ago, when I bought Elisha her first proper bike and she was delighted with it. Almost as delighted as I was with how good she was on it right away. We spent most of the weekend letting her cycle about everywhere and it was great fun. But, somehow, that weekend was gone before I had a chance to blog about it and I had a busy few days at work before I made the trip down to Liverpool for the following weekend.

And, since that weekend also included doing lots of stuff, like seeing Girls Aloud at Liverpool Echo Arena, celebrating Fliss’ birthday, and getting Elisha a paddling pool (more like a swimming pool, to her), I also meant to post something about that, too. But somehow I was back at work again and flat out distracted again until last weekend came along.

my old downhillWith those two days of freedom, I got out on my bike and did one of my old routes in a reverse direction, which includes a grueling climb into the hills above Rhu. Grueling more because it’s steep and I’m not as fit as I could be, but equipped with new semi-slicks that I’d bought myself when I got Elisha her bike, I was keen to put them to good use.

Turns out that semi-slicks are ace at cutting rolling resistance for the climbs, but can be a little bit scary under fast cornering conditions on the way down. It’s good to have a scare on the mountain bike every once in a while, though – otherwise I might as well be road biking. 😀

I was so pumped from such a great ride when I got back that I wanted to mention it on here, but before I got the chance I was off to Brussels, Belgium in the early hours of Monday morning, spending the next three and a half days working on-site at the European Commission.

Me. In black. In Brussels.This is me at coming on for eight o’clock last night after getting back from watching the Czech Republic v Portugal game in the pub with my colleague and a Czech guy from the EU team. I hadn’t eaten at this point and I was almost delirious from tiredness, but still made it out for an indian meal around the corner.

I only got back from Brussels earlier this afternoon, completely exhausted from a combination of long days at work and poor nights of sleep due to the noise from the road outside my hotel.

So the picture is a pretty accurate one – I feel like a mere shadow of myself right now, but hopefully things are a-changing at work and I’m quite positive for what lies in the weeks ahead. Hopefully with a clear head on that front I’ll have more motivation to post here more often, rather than copping out with a quick text to twitter.

Rob