Tag: New Year

New Year’s Day – I was miserable. The weather was miserable. That’s all there was to it.

I wasn’t feeling good – not over-indulgence, but the semi-regular bad stomach and that post-Christmas feeling when the work that seemed so far away two days ago is suddenly noticed, bearing down.

I span out after dark, up Coppice Lane and the cycleway, and back along the canal. It was raining, and windy so quite tough going. But I felt better for it, and got home more cheerful than I left it.

I always find January 1st difficult if I’m hemmed in. Tomorrow will be a better day.

January 2nd – It was good to be back on the commute, and good to be back at work. On this pleasant morning, the cycle tracks of Telford were showing signs of not being swept over the break, but they were still fast and quiet. For all I (gently) knock it, this is one aspect of TelfordI really like – the ability to get about without having to interact with it’s awful road system too much.

January 2nd – First day back to work, and a lovely commute. The roads were quiet, and the weather reasonable. I just got time to take a quick shot of the dawn over Hill Hook and the Sutton Transmitter. It’s somewhat out of focus, but not too bad. I felt good, and despite the trains being abysmal, it was good to be back.

It felt doubly magical, because this is the second birthday of 365daysofbiking. I actually started the project in April, 2011 in order to ride every day of the 30 days of April, mainly to stop fellow twitter cyclist Renee Van Baar from nagging me about it. At the end of that month, i was enjoying the thing so much I carried on, and vowed to make it 365 days.

Sadly, over the new year of 2011/12, I suffered bad food poisoning, and was off the bike for two days. I was gutted, and so feeling cheated, I started again. 2nd January 2014 – today – was the second anniversary of that resolution.

Last year I agonised over whether to continue, this year I don’t. The eagle-eyed may have noticed I installed a hit counter here a couple of weeks ago – just under the search box on the right. That tells me lots are still reading this, so it seems worth continuing, and it’s part of me now. The urge to get off the bike, stop, and look around is now so habitual that I don’t think I could really stop.

Statistics for this year gone have been a tad more modest at 8,732 miles. That’s still  about 24 miles a day. A remarkable total of 15,356 photos have been taken. On the journal so far, there have been 2,212 posts. I have cycled continuously, every day, for 730 days. It seems wrong not to at least make the 1,000.

In total, the journal has run for 1,003 days from the start, and something in excess of 25,000 miles.

Thank you for riding it with me. As long as people are enjoying this, I’ll keep doing it.

Your comments are, as ever, welcome, even if it’s just to tell me to shut the hell up…

January 1st – Welcome to 2014. So far, this year, the weather has been 100% wet…

Sorry for the repetition, but when I went out in the evening (having sadly foregone the traditional New Year’s Day ride on the Chase due to the poor weather), it was still raining hard. I was wet. It was horrible. Every interesting photo meant the camera lens getting covered in raindrops. It was, to say the least, challenging.

The sodden loading bay at Aldi, Brownhills, was an interesting mix of textures and colours, and the lights of the canal side and Humphries House rarely disappoint.

Dejected at not finding better subjects, I rode home. Hopefully, we can shut the door on this windy wet weather soon…

December 31st – I had to pop out to the cashpoint, so took in a loop of Brownhills. It was very quiet, little traffic was disturbing the night. It was calm and the three-faced liar – the Council House Clock – told the right time.

I looked at Morris, welcoming in the traditional Brownhills way, arms and heart open, but with a weapon to hand, just in case. He seemed appropriately optimistic.

Even the canal looked oddly festive.

Like Morris, I welcome the new year of 2014 openly. Happy new year to all readers, all of you who I know follow my journeys. May the new year bring peace and happiness to you all.

January 2nd – So, back to normal. The festivities over, Christmas decorations down, the rain, just for now, gone. This time last year I was struggling to ride at all. This Christmas has been a little odd: very little riding for the sake of it, and fearsome bad weather. I’m hoping for a better new year; maybe we’ll get a proper summer this time, not just warmer rain, although on the canal in Brownhills, early evening, early January, it was warm, clear and dry. Perhaps it’s a good sign.

January 1st – Happy new year! A great ride was first of the year, up onto the Chase. A clear, chilly day, but not terribly cold. Chasewater was rammed, as were most public spaces I passed through. There was winter sun, and everything was drying out; folk walked, spotted birds, or accompanied children on new Christmas bicycles. I watched families feeding the gulls from the balcony boardwalk on the south shore with water lapping underneath. That was a sight to see after so long being land-locked.

Further on, the Chase was similarly packed, but in the remoter spaces at sunset, the beauty of solitude remained. An unsuccessful badger spotting foray meant cycling home at dusk, and returning via Rugeley.

This was the Christmas break I wanted, not getting wet all the nine. Oh well, never mind…