Cliff Notes

I will hold my hand up high and say "yes, I'm a slacker". Slacker I am. I haven't posted, I haven't been on, I haven't done much recently.

So I can stop feeling guilty, get back on track, I am just going to give the cliff notes of what's been going on:

1) I haven't cycled much. I did my 100 miles, I felt great. Then my ribs started to kill from the car racing and my osteo said I'd bruised all in between them on my left side. Unfortunately there wasn't much I could do but wait it out. Obviously, me being me, I was very quiet about the whole thing and never a peep was heard about how I couldn't even lie on that side and every movement felt like I was being punched in the ribs. Not a word out of me. Quiet as a mouse.

Ok, maybe a squeaky, annoying, pissed off mouse who complained and wailed constantly about it. Through a megaphone...

2) Speaking of my bike, I have taken it to the shop to get a quote for fitting new gears on it... My bike has 7. Apparently bikes that aren't complete jokes have 21... When the service guy quoted me £200 to upgrade my bike up to the specs I wanted, he told me I should just go and buy a new one... So I've now started entertaining the idea of an upgrade... The thing is I kinda proud of the fact I was cycling 400 miles on the crappiest bike ever. A bike that always always gets comments from other cyclists along the lines of "you're cycling to Paris on that piece of shit? Like making life hard for yourself eh?" (To which I think "I'm keeping up with you on your £1000 road bike aren't I? So why don't you just go and piss off.").

So I went to the bike store on Monday, you know to simply peruse at the goods. All the shiny new road and hybrid bikes with their Shimano parts. Knowing diddly squat (21 gears on a bike you say? That's pretty modern isn't it?) I had to ask a shop assistant for help. And guess what? We actually had banter. Real life, honest to god, banter. Me having banter with a guy. A real life guy who works at the bike shop and who didn't talk down to me like I was some sort of cycling road hazard because I wasn't in head to toe skin tight lycra. And I'm not talking "buy a bike" banter. I'm talking genuine he-cracked-jokes-to-make-me-laugh banter. I'm not ashamed to say I actually felt a bit good about myself... Still not convinced I'm gonna spend £500 on a bike.

3) C and I went to see Cabaret on what we're dubbing "Alistair McGowan Mondays". She has a thing for him. And in Cabaret we got to see his bare arse. Oh my yes. And we got to see the bare arses of almost all of the women in the musical. Along with their legs, their stomachs, their breasts (in and out of skimpy lace bras). Can I just say that musical theatre has changed allot since I was girl... Set in 1930s Germany just before the war, it touches on how the coming of the Nazis heralded the end of the hedonistic days of pre war Berlin. And despite all the T&A, it was excellent! However, the end of the first act has got a boy from the Hitler youth singing and someone waving a swastika. Never have you heard an audience sound so confused... On the one hand you want to clap because it's the end of the first act and the musical is really good, but on the other it's still very difficult, even after all this time, to applaud when you've just seen a massive nazi flag waving on stage. A polite British clap was what they got.

4) I am very slowly discovering that I am in fact an excellent ex-girlfriend. Dr D has a new lady friend and a few days ago I helped him work out what to cook his girlfriend for dinner. I mean he can cook, but that's only cause I taught him how (A small aside cause I know I'm going to get yelled at for this: Dr D: vegetarian chilli, beans on toast and canned fish does not count as knowing how to cook before I turned up ok. I taught you. Deal with it). I took him round the supermarket, I told him how to make the sauce, what herbs to add, how to cook his spuds, how to present it on the plate so it didn't just look like meat and two veg. Essentially I helped him woo his girl (I was going to say to "helped him get laid" but that's way too crass, even for me.). I rock. I'm gonna make some other man a very good ex-girlfriend someday. Ah bless.

5) The Magic and Calv are lording it up in Florida. They went last week to see the space shuttle launch (lucky bastards). I got this text from The Magic, which made me chuckle. Only geeks would say:

"Fuck me. That was fucking awesome. Calv can't stop grinning. His cigarette almost seemed post coital".

Now I'm not sure how The Magic knows what Calv looks like "post coital"... Hookers in Florida maybe?

6) And finally, I'm back to making cakes for fundraising for my cycle ride. I pretty much think of only the London to Paris cycle these days. That's about it. So to help raise some funds I have been making cakes for the office and asking for donations... Yesterday it was a flourless clementine & almond cake (thanks Li for the recipe!), covered, no smothered, in dark chocolate. It looked just a like a big Jaffa cake!

So that's pretty much a round up, Cliff notes style, on what's been going on. Now I can come back and blog about all the angst action that's going on.