It's come a bit late this year but it was the first Spring-like weekend of the year. (Or at least the first one when I had a bike on the road which is the only sort that really counts).
Each year the first feel good factor of a bit of sun in your face is a reminder of our primeval and pagan instincts. And this weekend just about every aspect of my usual pastimes was improved by the sun:
Saturday morning - I visited the Visteon picket line. The mood of the workers was good and optimistic with progress made in involving other Ford sites, and the various supporters actually seem to be working (more or less) together for once.
Saturday afternoon - I picked up my 883R/1200 from the workshop after its chain conversion and took it for a run up to the High Beach tea hut. It was about closing time but I got into chewing the fat for half an hour with a couple of guys from the Rider's club who were up there.
Sunday morning - I got to messing about in the garden doing some forms for the benefit of my kids. I did the long pole form (Luk Dim Boon Gwan) for once - I don't often get to do that during weekday training as it takes up too much space so I was happy to find that I could still do it.
Sunday afternoon - into town to the Globe Theatre for a performance of Romeo & Juliet. First we got in a tour of the nearby excavation of the Rose Theatre. I love the idea of that part of Southwark as the sleaze centre of Elizabethan London. Bear-baiting, brothels, violent ale houses and the stench of open sewers running through the street - it's a nice contrast to the sensibilities of today's' 'theatre-going public'. And walking over the Millennium foot bridge to St Paul's for the tube home - the same route that Christopher Wren would have taken every day in a ferry boat possibly steered by one of my ancestors - there is a sense of continuity (both good and bad) with what it has always meant to be a Londoner.
Each year the first feel good factor of a bit of sun in your face is a reminder of our primeval and pagan instincts. And this weekend just about every aspect of my usual pastimes was improved by the sun:
Saturday morning - I visited the Visteon picket line. The mood of the workers was good and optimistic with progress made in involving other Ford sites, and the various supporters actually seem to be working (more or less) together for once.
Saturday afternoon - I picked up my 883R/1200 from the workshop after its chain conversion and took it for a run up to the High Beach tea hut. It was about closing time but I got into chewing the fat for half an hour with a couple of guys from the Rider's club who were up there.
Sunday morning - I got to messing about in the garden doing some forms for the benefit of my kids. I did the long pole form (Luk Dim Boon Gwan) for once - I don't often get to do that during weekday training as it takes up too much space so I was happy to find that I could still do it.
Sunday afternoon - into town to the Globe Theatre for a performance of Romeo & Juliet. First we got in a tour of the nearby excavation of the Rose Theatre. I love the idea of that part of Southwark as the sleaze centre of Elizabethan London. Bear-baiting, brothels, violent ale houses and the stench of open sewers running through the street - it's a nice contrast to the sensibilities of today's' 'theatre-going public'. And walking over the Millennium foot bridge to St Paul's for the tube home - the same route that Christopher Wren would have taken every day in a ferry boat possibly steered by one of my ancestors - there is a sense of continuity (both good and bad) with what it has always meant to be a Londoner.
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