Heat haze

The heat has not yet stopped cycling, the air cooling having made it OK so far, at least in the first half of the morning when I get out.

On the other hand, the throbbing coming up from the back axle continues, being particularly noticeable on certain stretches of road. I suspect stretches where the surface is good and there are few distractions, pot-holes and the like. One such being the stretch of Epsom High Street running between what was the Spread Eagle and the Rifleman.

So on return yesterday, moved to hoist the cycle up into the garage roof and give the back wheel a few spins. But I failed to detect any buckling or bending of the rims or any humps or bumps in the tyre. So a mystery. And I am not keen of putting myself in the hands of a cycle shop who will likely take my cycle in charge for several days in order to charge me lots of pounds.

But it was hot and humid later in the day, late afternoon even, when I was walking my bricks. Several well-established plants were looking very sorry for themselves and earned themselves a can or two of water. A two gallon can which was a replica of one of the galvanised steel watering cans from my childhood. This despite the exhortation to save water.

Which will, however, provide a good reason not to attempt to water the back lawn back into green life. While BH remembers that in similar circumstances, FIL used to do things like syphon his bath water down to a plastic barrel and use that. I am not that keen.

PS: the snap above, turned up by Bing, reminds me of something else to moan about. Given that I only use two of the twenty or more gears provided on my bicycle, why is it so difficult to convert it back to the five gears which were common when I was young? Surely five gears would be much simpler, much lower tech and much less likely to go wrong. Not so: my few attempts at conversion have been dismal failures.