The final link

(Warning: this is a post strictly for cycling saddos - normal people are strongly advised to skip it. Sorry about that.)

No, it's not a chain, despite what the title may have led you to expect; it is, if you look at the photo below, a wheelset, the final item on the list of wants for my bike - and it's featured here simply because of the inordinate difficulty I've had in obtaining it.

It's taken me the best part of 8 months - yes, just to obtain two bicycle wheels! It's absurd, but true!

OK, so it's a very specific set of wheels - hand built with Rigida Sputnik rims, XL hubs and freehub, and double-butted spokes, except for the rear driveside where there are Sappim extra-strongs (I told you this was going to be a sad sort of post) - but you still wouldn't think it would take that long to find them. But it has.

First I looked for a local wheelbulder prepared to do the job, but I couldn't find one. In this country where there are over 15 million bibycles, no-one seemed at all interested.

Then I went to a renowned bike builder in the north of the country, who said he would build the things for me. But when I tried placing the order I couldn't actually get him to respond, let alone actually build anything. The silence has lasted from May to this day.

So eventually, after further fruitless searching, I gave up on NL and placed my order a couple of weeks ago with a bike shop in Harrogate, England, that specialises in everything to do with touring bikes. Now how silly is that? But I was getting desperate - and fed up with the lack of success here in NL.

And yesterday they arrived! And they're brilliant. The final link in my quest to make my bike suitable for fully loaded long distance touring:

Now, of course, all I've got to do is work out how to mount all the sprockets I need on them, add tubes and tyres, and mount them on the bike.

Ah well, I've got all winter to figure that one out!

T. Blair for European President?

I'm an Englishman myself, but I simply don't understand. How could that possibly be? After all, he:

- was head of a country that has specialised in bitching about everything to do with the EU for even more years than he was prime minister of it;

- is ex-leader of a country whose paranoia about joining the Euro seemingly grows every month, as it did throughout the time he was in charge of it;

- led a government whose head of finance, with his connivance, determinedly promoted monetary and economic policies that have led directly to near European and global financial meltdown;

- began and promoted the process of leading his country and its individual citizens into vast debt, and wanted the rest of the EU to adopt these policies as well;

- consistently lied to his own population (and everyone else) about the likelihood of there being nuclear weapons in Iraq, as support for his possibly illegal participation in a war against that country that cost hundreds of thousands of its citizens their lives;

- was instrumental in depriving the citizens of his country by deception of more freedoms and civil liberties during his term of office than was achieved by any previous leader in living memory - and that's saying something!

- bequeathed his country a leader every bit as misguided as himself, and (God help Britain) even more incompetent;

- is, worst of all, a self-satisfied, self-centred, self-serving pillock!

Well well, what a surprise!

"Copenhagen climate talks: No deal, we're out of time, Obama warns

"Barack Obama acknowledged today that time had run out to secure a legally binding climate deal at the Copenhagen summit in December and threw his support behind plans to delay a formal pact until next year at the earliest."

The Guardian, this morning.


Oh well, looks like we'll just have to struggle on by ourselves after all then. Who could ever have imagined it would come to this?

It's here

OK, on with the waterproofs - jacket and trousers.

On with the gloves and hat.

On with the goretex shoes.

Into the bike's panniers go a towel and spare socks.

On with the lights - white front, red rear (with new batteries to buy every couple of weeks).

On with the mudguards.

Off with the summer dry chain lube, and on with the wet weather ditto.

Polish up the reflectors.

Make sure the tyres have enough tread.

Yup, it's here to stay.

It's cold, it's raining, there are puddles everywhere.

It's autumn in NL.

What the world's coming to!

I have just seen the future, and it's not reassuring!

Yesterday afternoon the coffee machine in the office stopped working, and this morning a man's come to mend it.

I've just walked past the machine and guess what - it's currently linked up to the man's laptop computer, which is presumably diagnosing what's wrong with it.

A coffee machine! Being diagnosed by a computer!

I bloody give up!

Update (17.15): The coffee machine is now "fixed", so I've been told, but perhaps the computerised fixing process may not be the last word in efficiency after all. Why? Because now when you press the button labelled 'Coffee' nothing happens at all. But when you press the button labelled 'Cafe Creme' you get - yes, you've guessed - the normal black coffee you'd expect when you press the 'Coffee' button. Now there's progress for you! Next week, perhaps, a kettle, a jar of Nescafe and a spoon.

Love in a cold climate

She's wild, she's remote, she's as cold as a Norwegian beauty can be, but I think I'm in love with her. She's the Dovre national park, about 100Km south of Trondheim and I've just come back from a visit to her.

When I arrived at my hotel in Savalen, a few kilometres away, it was dark, so I didn't see the view from my hotel room window until dawn the next morning:

The landscape in the park needs, I think, no words from me:

The park is home to Europe's only herd of wild musk oxen. Seen from a distance - and being both fast on their feet (0 to 60Km/h in roughly 3 seconds) and of uncertain temper they have to be seen from a distance - they resemble mop heads on legs:

(These last ones were, of course, caught and prepared earlier for closer viewing)

The reason for my visit was to report on the reclamation of an area of the national park that had been used for many years by the Norwegian and allied armed forces as an atillery and bombing range, and its return to its former natural state. This meant that there were army personnel on hand to deal with any unexploded ordnance found during the reclamation process:

This could, I feel, be the start of a long, passionate love affair:

Restoration (black) comedy

I've just been told by my employer that I've got to report for a magazine on a project aimed at restoring a former military firing range sited, for some obscure reason, in a national park, to its original pristine natural pre-bombarded state.

A worthy, planet-enhancing cause, you might think. And so it is, but there's a catch. The deadline is tight, the project is in Norway, and I'm not. So in order to do it, on Wednesday I've got to get on a train to Amsterdam, take an aeroplane from there to Oslo and then drive five hours across the middle of nowhere (sorry, I mean Norway) in order to reach the site of the restoration project on which I'm to report.

And I wonder just how much planet-destroying carbon that particular journey will release into an already overburdened atmosphere?

Had you but known...

...and were you so inclined, over the weekend of 10/11th of this month you could have trailed me south along various motorways from NL to Croatia, forced the car onto the side of the road somewhere quiet and robbed me (probably without too much resistance; I wasn't feeling brave) of more cash than I've ever carried in my life - enough, in fact, to buy a small weekend house in a southern European country.

Which, since I don't know the kind of people likely to want to rob me, we've now done.

Why cash? Because that's what the previous owner wanted, just possibly in order to avoid having to pay tax on the proceeds, but I didn't ask so I'm only guessing here.

But whatever, following visits to a notaris, followed by endless paperwork and dealing with Croatian court and tax authorities ourselves (we're not clever enough to avoid that kind of thing), the deed is now done and we're the ridiculously proud owners of a hovel on a hill that one day will provide us with a cheap roof over our heads and enough vegetables, fruits and wine to allow us to live quite cheaply.

One day!

First the flood, then the drought

After rather more posts than I'd anticipated over the past week or so, now comes the famine.

We're off to Croatia on Saturday, with hope and a certain amount of money - intending to finish off the mightily extended process of buying this small house of ours (hopefully ours). So there will now be a period of contemplative silence, eventually to be broken either by a sigh of relief or a scream. We shall see.

In either event, back in around 3 weeks' time.

Life on a postage stamp

Where we now live it's not the custom for houses to have big gardens - especially tiny rented houses like ours. So, as you can see, our back garden is a bit on the small side (though it's not quite as small as our front garden):

Add to this the fact that V, a few years ago when we were planting it, had a brief but intense love affair with roses, and the result is plain - a space with not much room for growing useful, edible things. In fact, there are just four edible things in it (if you don't count the sparrows): a rosemary bush, which threatens to take over the whole garden; some thyme tucked away discreetly somewhere near the shed - so discreetly, in fact, that at some times during the year you can't find it at all; a few chives; and...

Yup, it's flat leaved parsley in a pot. In our usual chaotic style, we bought the packet of seeds in Croatia about four years ago when V was fed up of not being able to buy it in the local supermarket (you can nowadays), but I only got round to planting it this August when we rediscovered the packet.

Yes, I know, August isn't the ideal time of year, but then we're not exactly conventional gardeners. And amazingly it's grown like topsy. The only trouble is that it's still a bit on the young and delicate side and I'm not altogether sure it's hardy enough yet to survive the coming winter. Maybe if we bring it inside.....?

Anyway, I've got sidetracked. The original reason for posting this was to show the contrast with the previous post. No sensible middle way; for us it's one extreme or the other!