Up and at 'em!

 

It may not be officially Autumn yet, but as far as my pool is concerned, the first of September marks the change from August time to normality again, and the place opens at 7 am rather than 8 am.

     For someone like myself, getting up early (usually to have a swim before work) is something that I have always done, and retirement did not alter the internal clock.  I have never found it easy or enjoyable to have a ‘lie in’, though from time to time I did attempt one, on the faulty basis that something that most people like should appeal.  It didn’t, and I continued and continue to get up early.

     I also have a fairly reliable ‘internal’ alarm clock, so that if I know that I have to get up at a particular time, I usually wake up.

     Of course, what one has to ask oneself is, “Do you make use of the ‘gained’ time?”  With an early morning swim, the ‘smug’ factor is generally speaking, built in.  After all, by 8 am (normal time) I have swum my regulation 1500m and will have started on my knee exercises.  So, by the normal start of work time, I have not only done more exercise than the vast majority of the population, but I have also had a decent breakfast and written (alas, usually inconsequential) thoughts and ideas in my notebook.  And I cycle home from the pool, by taking a detour to the end of the paseo in Gavà just for luck!  Smug doesn’t cover it!

     During the months from now, until the Spring, I will set off for my swim in darkness.  I always think that makes my cycle ride more meritorious because it is clear that most people are not up and doing, and there I am ‘exercising’ before dawn!

     If I think back to the daily commute that I made, both here in Catalonia and in Cardiff, then I am acutely aware that sometimes I arrived at my destination of work or home and had no recollection of the journey.  I didn’t crash, so some part of my brain must have been in control, but not, I fear all of it.  So, I am aware that a lone cyclist on a darkened road pre-full-on rush hour is somewhat vulnerable.

     I do, of course, wear a helmet and, rather like the feeling of going to bed without brushing your teeth, not wearing it makes me uncomfortable enough to realise that something is wrong and, it is usually only one cycle of the pedal before I return to get it.  (Or get back up and brush my teeth.) 

     My helmet also has a white light on the front and two red lights on the back; the bike has a built-in set of two LED lights, and I have added a red rear light.  There is also a further light attached to the handlebars that I sometimes use if I think the illuminated circus that is my night-time bike is not gaudy enough.  That further light was actually for another bike, but waste not want not!

     So, I can be seen.  Whether people take notice, is another question.

 

 

     

 

 

 

 On the paseo to Gavà, which is wide and well surfaced, there is a two-lane cycleway marked out with a continuous white line and stencilled bikes painted onto the road.  There is, however, no physical division apart from the miniscule layer of paint that comprises the white line.  That is very often a problem.

     I always turn on my light when I use the cycleway because it appears that a large man on a black metallic structure with big wheels is far too inconspicuous an object looming towards pedestrians to encourage the clearance of a way clearly marked for cycles.

     There is a particular sort of ‘runner’ – poor technique, inappropriate clothing, earphones and sweat – that runs exactly on the line of the cycleway, no matter that flailing arms mean that the cyclist have to swerve into the other lane to avoid the on-line runner.

     Parents with toddlers seem to think that an impenetrable shield protects their wandering young from bike riders, riding their bikes in their specific bike lanes.

     Even worse are those parents who think that their children who are too young to walk properly are more than qualified to use those sort of hobby-horse self-propelled bikes in the same lane as adult cyclists, presumably on the half-arsed half-understood principle of a Gertrude Stein approach of “a bike is a bike is a bike” and “we are all equal in the bike lane” or some such rubbish.

     Some dog owners seem to be vindictively stupid.  I mean those who have their creatures on the end of the infinitely extendable leads so that where the owner is and where the dog is sometimes seems to be more random than anything else, and yards of lax lead is an ever-present problem.

     I am more than prepared to admit that cyclists are not perfect in the way they use the roads, and their use and abuse of the cycle lane is also something to be condemned as they weave in and out, invade pedestrian space, turn without warning, and stop and chat in the middle of the bikeway.

     I suppose if you are a cyclist, you do realise that the inconsideration of car drivers, while irritating can also, easily, be fatal! 

     So, I keep my lights on when, as with the paseo, cyclists and pedestrians are in close contact. 

     I take to heart the words of the great superstore philosopher, and wear a helmet, cycle with consideration, and use my lights, because “Every Little Helps” and I like life.

By his gadgets shall ye know him!

 

Do not judge a man by the number of leads he has.  

If you counted up the power supplies, connectors and assorted leads that I have acquired then there should be literally no area in the house in which to live as all available space should be taken up with electrical devices that presumably came with the leads.  And, while there are vast numbers of ‘things’ that need power (I hesitate to count the number of them that I can see from where I am typing) there is still, just, space to live which is not occupied by a shining metallic carapace or something with a keyboard or grille or screen or . . . but I am already beginning to count the machines that I can see and that way lies madness.

Or is it rather a sort of madness that allows you to get rid of (or put away somewhere) defunct machines that are too expensive to throw away, and yet still keep to hand the power cord or connector as a sort of precious souvenir?

I willingly admit that gadgets, especially electronic gadgets, manage to occupy my attention with an ease that astonishes even myself.  All Aldi and Lidl have to do on their Central Aisles of Interesting Stuff is offer a brush or mop or any other sort of domestic appliance with the addition of a battery and a sensor and I’m sold.

I once bought a kitchen washing up brush that looked like a gigantic electric toothbrush and thought to myself, “Now, this is ideal for all that washing up that I do when I don’t place the cups and dishes in the dishwasher.”  And there you have the central paradox of my obsession.  Because I do place the cups and dishes in the dishwasher, and I don’t and will not wash up when I have a dishwasher specifically for that job.  Nevertheless, I bought the thing, and I have used it once.  Ineffectively.  The dishwasher does a better job.  And, frankly, for those burnt in gungy bits, it will take more than a giant’s Oral-b toothbrush to dislodge them.

Does this example of self-knowledge discourage me?  No, it doesn’t even deflect me.  Gadget freaks like myself, live in fear of what we know as “The Passing By” – in other words, not buying something that looks sort-of plausible, and finding out that it was absolutely essential to genteel living when you hadn’t got it.  It all amounts to a variant on the Catch-22 situation where you have to buy things that you don’t want in case they might have turned out to be really very good and an obvious buy.  And yes, I do realize that the verb tenses in that last sentence do not make strict chronological sense, but that, I fear, is part of the point.  The backward blame that gadget freaks are known to indulge in when they have ignored something that Freakdom acclaims as indispensable.

The leads though are a hangover from a different and more distant period in our national psyche before planned obsolescence became the True Path of unfeeling capitalism.

During the Second World War the Ministry of Information (or something equally Orwellian) issued slogans, catchphrases, concentrated wisdom, call them what you will, like “Keep Calm and Carry On!”  A phrase, by the way, that was intended originally for use inside a ministry and not for general consumption, but now the phrase has become more widely known that it ever was at the time of its conception.

“Dig for Victory!” was another one; “Careless talk costs lives”; “Loose lips cost ships”; “We can do it!” and so on.  My personal favourite is one of a voluptuous blond lounging in a chair, sheathed in sex, apparently merely eye-candy, but actually listening to the military men by whom she is surrounded with the tag line, “Keep mum, she’s not so dumb!”  Deconstructing the levels of meaning and social comment in that one must keep students of such things awake at nights, probably with delight!  I’m not sure if “Make do and mend” was a war slogan, but it was a definite piece of ready philosophy during my childhood.

Outside the back door of my grandparent’s house in Maesteg was a sort of shed built into the neighbour’s wall that was referred to as The Morgue.  My grandfather was a retired accountant and was painstaking in everything he did: from gardening to impeccable copperplate handwriting; from fire lighting to dressing; from politics to cigarette rolling.  He did nothing hasty and everything had its place.  And The Morgue was where everything that didn’t fit (in size or use) inside the house was housed.

Used tobacco tins were part of the filing system of The Morgue.  Pins, screws, nails, washers, bits, pieces, things – all found their place inside a neatly labelled box and placed on a shelf.  String was not thrown away, it was kept wound around equally cut sticks for the different types of binding that were recovered.  Nothing that had the possibility of a future use was thrown away, the philosophy was, “That might come in useful some time.”

Although I knew the word ‘morgue’ from an early age, I had no conception that it meant anything other than the shed next to the outside toilet against the neighbour’s wall that contained the things that were (temporarily) not wanted.  It was only much later that I learned of the more gruesome meaning of the word, and by that time I was able to appreciate the use of metaphor.

So, if anyone (other than my good self) is to blame for the writhing masses of cables that snake through the rooms of our house, it is my maternal grandfather.  Cables are, self-evidently, of use.  And, to be frank, their number reflects the galloping use of planned obsolescence that leaves poor consumers floundering in their increasingly desperate attempts to stay abreast of the latest fad of standardization.  It is as if the titanic battle between VHS and Betamax never took place, and certainly little was learnt from that fight to the death for a format!

I have recently (while looking for something else) revived my Kindle, iPad, Bose speaker and computer: all of which need different leads and connectors, or in the case of my mobile phone, a converter connector!  It is hardly a surprise to see my chair covered in various wires and cables like some sort of unimaginative foliage!  And don’t get me started on Bluetooth, where the cable-less needs of that system necessitate a whole range of unique powering solutions for the various pieces of audio equipment that I use!

It is with something approaching relief that I turn from the electronic zoo of slinky excess to the more stark delights of Catalan where, in the next month or so we might progress from the first, second and third person singular of the limited number of verbs to which we have been introduced to the delights of the plural!

Meanwhile there is vocabulary to be learned.