Last Monday was an interesting day. The kind of day that makes me wonder what the fuck is going on. Well, no, I mean, I end up thinking that most days—at the moment, I think that every time I watch the news for starters—but I digress, I am talking about on a personal level. I do wonder if other people’s lives are a bit less chaos-tastic.
This is probably no big surprise to you, bearing in mind the constant adventures I manage to have, laminating bacon or getting bitten by one of the soppiest, tamest dogs on earth, for example and then, when asked if I had an up-to-date tetanus shot having to explain that yes, I have, because I got bitten by a mouse in 2020–I got bitten by a rat in 2022 as well but, as usual, I digress again. Come on MTM get with the programme.
Yeh… go figure.
Let me share the story of my day last Monday and at least demonstrate why I get absolutely fuck all done. Do feel free to tell me if this is the kind of stuff you’d expect to see regularly in your life.
Monday morning, I was booked in at the gym and headed off on my trusty bicycle. I got there pretty much without incident, except for thinking, as I parked my bike, that it would be a bad place to get a flat tyre, two and a half miles from home and all.
It’s strange how you can be prescient about stuff like that. After training quite hard and walking jelly-legged out of my session I was looking forward to cycling feebly for about half a mile and then, basically, sitting on it as it rolled downhill all the way home.
As you can imagine, I was a bit peeved to discover that this was not to be because my front tyre had gone down. I got out the pump and pumped it up but it simply made the type of loud hissing noise that suggested the air was going out almost as fast as it was going in. Sure enough, when I checked, it was.
Wanketty-wank.
A succession of inner tubes has sprung a leak; same tyre, the same place, where the valve joins the tube. Knowing the symptoms, I was pretty sure this was what had happened.
Again.
For fuck’s sake.
I’d already wheeled it home once (from half way to the gym) so unless I could pump it up enough to stay vaguely inflated, wheeling it anywhere now meant the tyre would be toast. I gave it another go. Nope. Nothing doing.
Arse hats!
Never mind, there was a motor spares shop in the next industrial estate over, it was also on one of the many routes home. At least if I got the tube I might be able to fix it …
Except I wouldn’t. The original front tyre of the bike had levers that allowed you to undo it without needing a spanner. However, I bought an electronic assist for it three years ago and that comes with a new front wheel, with an electric motor in the centre, which you have to use instead. This wheel has nuts you have to tighten. This also meant that without the prerequisite spanner I wouldn’t be able to fix it anyway. I decided that if I could walk it there I might be able to get a new tube for the bloody thing so at least when I finally got home I wouldn’t have to go back out to the local cycle shop.
I flirted with the idea of leaving the bike where it was, walking to the motor spares shop and buying the right spanner as well as a new tube, but to do that, I needed to know what sized spanner to buy and naturally, it’s a sodding number, and as we all know, thicky-Mc-Thicko here couldn’t remember the simplest number even if it was tattoed onto my actual fucking hand.
The spares store was about half a mile away so wheeling the bike down there would mean the tyre would be toast anyway, so even if I fixed it to ride home, I’d just have to take it off again when I got there. On the upside, I had a new tyre at home which I bought the previous time this happened.
To my joy, the motor spares store did, indeed, have some spares for bicycles. I paid the princely sum pf £6.50 for a new inner tube. They sold tyres too, so I thought about buying one, plus spanner, and fixing it there but was thwarted by the fact that, though they had knobbly mountain bike tyres, they didn’t have one that would fit my wheel.
Arse. Kind of.
Never mind. Can’t win ’em all. I supposed and it did save me the cost of a new tyre—when I already had one at home—plus the cost of the right spanner to change the wheel on top (also something I had at home). Accepting my fate, I popped the inner tube in my bag and paused to take stock.
Having started bright-but-cold it was turning into a lovely warm day and I was sweating, so I stuffed my coat and sweatshirt into my bag with the tube and set off.
The gym is at the top of a hill, the motor-spares place half way down. There are many routes home but none of them is direct so I usually choose the one with the least number of uphill climbs on the way there—it is not the most direct but I will go a long way out of my way on a bike if it avoids unnecessary hills—and a slightly longer route that’s downhill all the way on the return journey.
Since I was walking, and half way down one hill by this time, anyway, I chose a different route, which was also the shortest in miles; the cycle route. This is by far the hilliest with uphill stretches both there and back so I seldom use it on an actual bike because it’s far too fucking tiring, it takes a sodding eternity to get up all the bloody hills and I have better things to do with my time.
Half way down the first long hill I discovered a shortcut across a field that took off a huge corner AND the longest up hill stretch, suddenly turning this into the quickest option, at least on foot and possibly even on a bike, too. Huzzah! The path also goes straight across the field and I do like riding an off road cycle off road from time-to-time so I will definitely be trying it again for other return journeys.
This is the field in question …
Despite being the shortest route, it took for fucking ever to walk home. On the upside, at least I had water and a lark followed me across the field path, singing its heart out, which was wonderful. But it took me every bit of 45 minutes and what with another half an hour or so faffing about buying the inner tube on top I didn’t get home until half past eleven. I was knackered and all I wanted to do was relax but oh no, no chance. Now I had to fix my effing bike.
It’d be nice to relax but … no time.
Once I’d removed the wheel I could see the problem, the tape round the inside of the wheel (that stops the inner tube from rubbing on the fastenings holding the spokes in place) had shifted round, digging into the stalky bit of the valve and rubbing a hole in it. I went and got a modelling knife from the house, dumping all my stuff on the kitchen side as I did so.
Back outside at the bike I greatly increased the hole in the tape where the valve pokes through using the knife. Hopefully it’ll now stop the bloody thing from puncturing every fucking inner tube I put in. Unless it’s the metal of the wheel where the valve goes though, in which case I’ll have to file it down, fingers crossed it’s the tape and nothing else.
Next I checked the tyre which was full of little balls of rubber, proving it was, indeed, comprehensively bollocksed. Bin that then.
The tyre came off easily, the new one went on eventually, but there were several moments where I rather wished I was an octopus. A lot of tyres come folded up which is great but means they need a bit of coercion to assume their proper shape.
It also took ages to pump the stupid thing up because I couldn’t get the pump on far enough to release the valve and let any air in. Finally, after about an hour of sweary effort, I had fixed the puncture. I put everything away, locked my car and went back to the house. At which point I discovered that one of the things I’d dumped in the kitchen was my house keys and I’d locked myself out.
Bollocks.
So then I had to break into my own bastard house, which is something I have to do once every couple of months, on average. By this time, I was ready to eat my own arm off so before taking a shower I had a quick bite of lunch. I finally had my shower at about 2.00 pm … instead of the usual time of about half ten. I’d left in a hurry so I had to do the washing up and tidying up from breakfast, at which point, it was time to collect Mc(not so)Mini from school. Then it was tea, family time and that was that.
This is what I do with my time. This is why I never get anything done.
Ho hum. Onwards and upwards.
Never mind if you have more time than me why not read a book.
Yes, you can read a selection of my books for free to see what they’re like, including this one. To dip your toe in the world of K’Barth, check out www.hamgee.co.uk/cmot3.