is upon us! Well a lot of my friends etc have birthdays this month, certainly more than through the rest of the year. Of course its still a couple of weeks to my own, is it really 10 years since the last significant one?

The weather has been a bit kinder this week, periods of sunshine and temperatures still chilly but reaching as much as 7c on occasion, out of the wind. The new tyre and gear shift system turned up Wednesday afternoon, the quickest way to get a bike running was to do the tyre which then led on to a session repairing punctured tubes - some of which didn't want to be repaired. Anyhoo, Foxy was ready for the road so the plan was to get out dor some sort of ride on Thursday.

I was a bit late setting out but i only had a short ride in mind although i kept adding bits to the route until i reached Bath where i turned for Brizz. It was twoo of the pm persuasion when i reached the cafe and having not eaten much earlier, i stopped for tea and a baked tater which would save doing something after the ride. A total of 55km isn't much but it was enough on the day.

After the short ride i started on the shifter swap on the other bike, tearing down the old stuff before fitting the new and routing the new cables. Nothing is ever 100% straightforward is it? It took me some time to solve an issue with one of the new bar clamps - overzealous application of threadlock meant it wouldn't actually tighten properly, so with the light failing and the mercury dropping i gave up for the night.

I started Friday with a few chores before continuing with the bike fix, it didn't take long to connect cables and do an initial set up but the bar tape needed replacing so for now thats where it stands, the new tape should arrive Monday, fingers crossed. With the bike as far along as i could get, i filled the afternoon with a walk up to Kingswood, a bigger Lidl and more variety of other shops than around the corner.

Saturday looked to be a good riding day so i decided to do the ride that i had to abort on Tuesday. Sown through the City, over the Clifton Suspension bridge and into North Somerset. It was never going to be a huge ride but it was quite enjoyable and 4/5c isn't too bad for riding. The days issue only came to light when i stopped for a cuppa only to discover i hadn't brought any form of payment with me!

Any ideas of a longer route back went out of the window, its no fun running the tank to empty so instead i used a fairly direct route straight back to Brizzle stopping the GPS just shy of 65km. I was a bit annoyed with myself, i hadn't even taken a water bottle! But i guess that i get it right 99.9999% of the time and no harm came of my oversight, its just annoying, i was looking forward to that cuppa!

Today is bright and cool, i'll go fetch a bit of shopping shortly before getting on with some more Trixie writing. On that i should give you some explanation, i did say back at New Year that i hoped to finish the new Trixie book in January, well i kind of did except as i mentioned Wednesday, it wasn't a good finish, there was/is a lot of story left to tell. So there will be at least one, maybe more, extra chapters which is what i'll be doing later and hopefully i'll be productive enough to complete the book in short order - i'll be starting the next Gaby tome once it's completed and i know there are at least 2 people waiting to see what happens next in that saga!

And talking of the Gaby saga, i've posted the next chapter of book 25, Relative Comfort today which somehow seems a little out of order although i can't see how i've managed that? Anyway, it sort of stands on its own so enjoy.

I'll be back on Wednesday with more drivel and excuses but for now,
Tschuss,
Madeline Anafrid