pumpkinstrokemarrow

Out for another outing last week. Set off from Vauxhall station where I was misled by the bike stand map and found myself nipping across several lanes of traffic and several lumps of pedestrian deterring masonry to reach the bike stand. Checked a bike out OK and set off across Vauxhall Bridge, managing to do a right turn onto the embankment on the further side without stopping. Onto Parliament Square, up Whitehall, round Trafalgar Square, keeping a beady eye out for a Post Office, the trick being to find a Post Office near a bike stand since I was not carrying a bicycle lock. I thought that there was one somewhere near Goodge Street tube station so head up Charing Cross Road, negociated some trickery around the large building site which used to be Tottenham Court Road tube station and so on up Tottenham Court Road where there was nary a Post Office in sight. Left into Euston Road then left into Great Portland Street. Penetrated Fitzrovia and decided to continue the search on foot. Quite near the British Telecom Tower which I was sure used to be called the Post Office Tower. Maybe there was a Post Office in the block out of which the tower sprang? Walked all the way around it without success. Peered down sundry side streets. Decided to press on to Trafalgar Square where I knew there was a Post Office. All night if that was what it took.

Checked out another bike and after some shenanighans in the one way system in that part of town, found myself heading south down Great Portland Street again, where, lo and behold, was a Post Office. But no bike stand. So carried on into Regent Street where a passing Post Office van caught my right shoulder with its near side wing mirror. Luckily it was on a light spring and caused no damage. Round Piccadilly Circus, down Haymarket and parked up somewhere near Cockspur Street. From where it took me quite a while to find the Post Office, which, when I eventually found it, seemed to be a good bit smaller than I remembered. It was also operating a queueing ticket system, rather like the cooked meat counter at Sainsbury's sometimes does. At which point a helpful Post Man intervened and explained that if all I wanted was airmail stamps there were help yourself dispensers complete with scales which would do the business for you. Which indeed they did, and my letter is now winging its way to Canada with a rather bland stamp on it saying airmail worldwide without any indication of price, which, as it happened was something over £1. Much better than queueing.

Back to Cockspur street for a third bike, with the intention of going across Blackfriars Bridge and looping back to one of the south of the river rail terminii. So down Northumberland Avenue and onto the Embankment OK, but instead of branching left up onto the northern exit of Blackfriars Bridge, found myself heading west down Fleet Street, which was not what I had intended at all. But it was getting dark and my legs were getting tired, so I decided to carry on to Waterloo at that point and dumped the bike somewhere near what used to be the Schiller Institute (which turns out to be rather an odd gang, some sort of odd-ball think tank rather than anything literary) and which before that was, I think, some kind of hospital. Slight glitch at this point in that the checkin flashes red rather than green when I shove the bike's front wheel into its receptacle and from which I cannot then extract it. Does the computer know that I have returned the bike? Am I going to be charged some defaulter's rate?

Slightly puzzled, head off into Waterlook station and so home, where the following morning a quick peek at the Bullingdon Bike web site tells me that all is well. And that I escaped paying any usage related charges by a slender 6 minutes on my first bike of the day. Perhaps in the interests of economy I should start carrying both a bicycle lock and a watch.

Back home, pleased to read today that the coalition is bringing a new broom to the bureaucracy ridden national health service inherited from Brown & Blair. They are going to scrap all those ridiculous targets and they going to have a whole lot of shiny new goals instead. Presumably the same civil servants who worked up all the targets will now be busily rebadging them as goals. Much cheaper than starting from scratch.