Table manners

 This is the lane to our world, the Bonsai Mountain is on the right. The cow parsley is threatening to take over and when it rains, which it does quite often in the summer (as well as spring, autumn and winter) these tall plants fall into the lane making it even narrower which is why yours truly ends up with bits of foliage in his lycra as he battles through the Triffid like gathering.
Number one racing steed has been dropped off with bicycle repairman for a service and some modifications ready for the big ride on the weekend. I never thought I would ever reach the stage where I could talk about gear ratios and nod knowingly when another rider extols the virtues of their 28 over my 25. Having now got the knowledge I know that my rear cassette is a pro racer set up and being a rider who is somewhat heavier than many, the standard cassette (the 10 small cogs that drive the back wheel) issued with my racing bike does well on the flat but as soon as a gradient is hit, and lets face it in sunny Wales there are a few inclines, the standard racing set up is a real disadvantage to me. Much like when I went parachuting and they gave me the one size fits all parachute. It worked, clearly or I would have difficulty in typing right now, but giving the one size that gave an 8 stone woman a 2 minute flight time (read fall) and gave me a 1 minute 23 second flight (fall) was not a good thing. In fact I was last of 6 jumpers out of the plane and the first to hit the deck in a mighty ooooooooofff moment. Once they decided my back hadn't broken and the bit sticking out of the front of my shin wasn't bone I was dumped in a cattle trough of ice cold water to encourage the exorcising of the bruising and told to prepare for my next sudden impact.
So back in the world of bikes, the bicycle repairman thinks that provided the rear mech has the capacity in the cage then he can fit a rear cassette more suited to a fat hill climber than an anorexic sprinter. Time will tell. Whatever happens all the tweaking needs to be done pronto to allow any blips to be eliminated before the big one.

 Gerry also got to grips with the massed ranks of the roadside weeds when I was tasked to retrieve an oak table that was an ebay bargain. This took an hour and a half to fetch and then a further two hours to persuade through the doors of Rock HQ that were a tad narrower than the house from whence it came.

Camouflage.

Anyone wishing to sponsor me on this 300km solo bike ride taking place 1st June 2014 then click on the box in the margin. All money raised goes to Myeloma UK.