pumpkinstrokemarrow

For me, cycle lanes are a pain. I am happy to use the road and, more or less, follow the same rules as cars. Stopping at lights, cycling on the right side of the road and not cycling on the pavements. Rules which, sadly, a large minority of metropolitan cyclists seem to ignore. My special hate used to be reserved for the ones that cycled down the Albert Embankment in the morning, with scant regard for the quite large numbers of pedestrians. Having been hit, while on foot, a glancing blow by a slow moving bicycle once, not too keen on sharing space in that way. Cycle lanes in England - can't speak for Wales, Scotland etc - are no use. They keep stopping and starting. They are often full of litter of various shapes and sizes. On Hook Road, near us, one is quite likely to get caught up in blackberry bushes. On Horton Lane, what appear to be cycle lanes, taper down to nothing as one approaches the roundabouts. But they do provide an excuse for even more road signage and road markings. Making an even bigger mess of our already messy roads.

In Amsterdam where I recall that they had rather more full blooded bicycle lanes, maybe there is some point. Although not too sure about value for money, given the amount of space burnt up. Notwithstanding, it is not going to happen in London. Furthermore, the bicycle fad will no doubt pass soon. Maybe it has peaked already?

Now despite the negative tone of the foregoing, I did try the cycle path down through the Manor Park Estate behind our estate today. Pleasant path with plenty of grass and trees, maybe a mile long. Will be quite a wood as the trees grow. Not too sure I would be too happy to be a pedestrian if there were many cycles, but OK from a bicycle. So rolling along quite happily when a border collie decided to stand across the path. Just stood there as I rolled up to him and edged past with a cheery "Hello dog!". Fifty yards later border collie and companion came bounding alongside. Very aggressive shout from dog owner behind me: "What did you say?". "Talking to the dog", sezzaye. Another aggressive shout from owner: "It's my dog. What did you say to him?". "Hello", sezzaye. "Oh" sezzee. Over and out. What on earth was his problem?

Cholla in round format today for the third week running. Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Succot according to the trusty Filofax. Next week is Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, so my bet is that the cholla will be in round format again.

Cod remains in good form. Decided that cooking it slightly longer is the thing. An hour and 10 minutes at 180C, rather than 50 minutes. The extra time results in a firmer, dryer product which I prefer. Not keen on the texture of rare fish. Or smoked salmon. Arbroath Smokies another matter. Maybe they are hot smoked and are so both cooked and preserved.

FIL now completed his introduction to IT course at NESCOT (http://www.nescot.ac.uk/). Not too impressed. To start with, when he signed up, we had been told that he would be getting an assessment. (The HR folk back at work used to get very enthusiastic about training needs assessments. I can better see their point now). Followed, we naively thought, by some advice about what sort of courses would be appropriate for an older person with hearing difficulties. But no, he just wound up stumping up £90 for their standard offering, 4 two hour sessions in an eight person class. And while he has come away with some keyboard and word skills, he still has more or less no basic understanding of how a PC is organised. How windows and files work. Still little idea about how to load and play DVD's - an important activity when you are his age. Altogether, a long way off lift-off. Now OK, I can try and teach him, but I am no trainer. That was what we thought NESCOT did. Maybe we will try something else when he has got his breath back. Maybe a two or three person class would work better.