2 Wheeled Ecclesiastical DPD Driver

Last Saturday I set off on my bike with the target of visiting as many of Norfolk’s churches as possible before 5.00pm. This annual charity ride for the Norfolk Churches Trust has gone on for many years but this year seemed a good time to join in as they have just arranged a substantial contribution towards re-roofing our village church.

The weather was spectacular! Clear blue sky, hardly a puff of wind and comfortably warm temperatures made for a cyclist’s dream, and Norfolk is blessed with both a wealth of historic churches (650 of them) and a fabulous network of tiny country lanes to travel between them. I had struggled for a few days trying to plan a route and was extremely grateful when our revered Newsletter Editor passed on his routing experience which I found invaluable (including his tip for the church with the best food!).
The variety of church buildings is breathtaking, from the ancient Norman round towered sites such as Gissing to the brand new modernism of St Henry Morse Catholic Church in Diss, from the simple Baptist Chapels to the most ornate Angel Roofed classicism of the 15th Century.

My ride took me on a loop via Eccles and Quidenham to the south then a long stretch up to Hethel in the north before setting off back down to Diss where the churches are thankfully closer together. In the end I managed 38 visits and thanks to my very generous sponsors should have raised around £500 for the Churches Trust.
The real heroes of the day, however, were the lovely volunteer tellers who waited patiently in the churches to greet intrepid visitors with a smile, a drink of squash and a custard cream. Some were there in the tiniest of backroad hamlets from 9 till 5, only receiving a handful of visits, but they quietly got on with their Catherine Cooksons with no complaints.
I had a thoroughly enjoyable day and by the time I returned to our village I’d consumed 62 miles (and 38 custard creams).

A Tibetan Terrier Writes (or sings…)

Holly’s Least Favourite Things

Men in bright Lycra on racing bikes leaner

Hoovers and Dysons and all vacuum cleaners,

Black plastic bin liners

Birds on the wing

These are a few of Holly’s least favourite things.

Noisy old trailers and refuse collectors

Men from the Post Office delivering letters

Most breeds of dogs that are too fat or thin

These are a few of Holly’s least favourite things.

When the broom sweeps

When the cat sings

When she’s feeling dark

She simply remembers her least favourite things

And then has a – jolly – good – bark!

On a matter peak…

“Parts of Speech” is one of the few things I remember being taught at school, along with how to use a ruler and the activity table of metal elements.

Many decades later I’ve finally found a use for Zeugma.

“The rep turned up in a foul mood and a fast car. I believe it was a Zeugmatic”.

I’ll get my coat….

Coast to Coast

Well my fourth “Way of the Roses” was completed last week and we were blessed with the most amazingly un -English weather. My brother kept comparing the landscape to New Zealand where he has cycled regularly, and it’s a lot cheaper to get to Morecambe.

A few highlights:

1. We had a preparatory evening meal at the Art Deco Midland Hotel in Morecambe which ticked off one of my bucket list wishes. It was lovely fried fish dishes although the open expanse of glass in the restaurant left us a little fried too.

2. I was surprised at how different the 170 mile route looked in high summer – I’d only ever seen it in early Spring or Autumn before and normally with a touch of precipitation involved. It looks stunning in sunshine and this provides a partial explanation for me (aka Mr GPS) getting lost three times.

3. There seem to have been a few changes to the route since I last completed it. All hills have been made 15 degrees steeper and all mileages extended by 15%. I must report this to the organisers. (I am from Norfolk, it has to be said).

4. Never wear yellow at harvest time. I was pursued by a million little black flies until I ripped off the yellow jersey in Ripon and bought a blue striped t-shirt in the Edinburgh Woolen Mill. Blue striped insects followed me from there to York.

5. It was lovely to have the company of daughter Jemma for three days and she took the challenge at every stage with a smile and a positive attitude. I’m very proud of her.

6. Big Al and his Dad Les raised £2000 from our trip for Cancer Research so that was another happy outcome.

Roses grow on you

There’s an old saying that if you’re onto a good thing you should stick with it, or “don’t mess with a winning formula”. Peter Falk is an excellent example, playing the wonderful Columbo character from 1960 till 2003.

So it is with me and the “Way of the Roses”, a long distance cycle route from Morecambe on the West Coast to Bridlington in the East coast. It is quite the best cycle route I’ve ever found and when I last did it (for the third time) 3 years ago I made the mistake of saying it was my last.

Now armed (legged?) with a new titanium hip and with a brilliant young family team to pace me I’m about to set off on the Way of the Roses again tomorrow. I’m very much looking forward to it.

About Face

Last week something momentous happened.

Not on the World stage or even village level – it was a lightbulb moment in my head so won’t affect anyone apart from one of the World’s richest men. I’m talking, of course, of Mr Mark Zuckerberg.

Last Thursday I suddenly realised I’d been working as one of his chief suppliers of “content” for 10 years and it was time to retire. Perhaps “content” is a tad grandiose a description for pictures of dogs and endless convoluted puns which I often have trouble deciphering myself when they show up 3 years later “on this day”.  But still. Enough is enough.

I’d wavered a bit after the Cambridge Analytica fiasco but carried on as usual because the profiled advertising revenue model for “free” internet services is no longer novel and I happily trade my soul for the amazing goodies in Google’s cupboard. However, it suddenly dawned upon me that the Facebook exchange model has become grossly out of balance since everything has gone mobile. The omnipresence of my beloved iPhone was encouraging me to open the mobile Facebook app at 6.30am in the morning and, on and off, until I’m safely tucked into bed in my jim jams with a mug of horlicks and digestive biscuit at 9.45pm.

So I deleted the Facebook App from my phone and am realising that life is not lived through a small 6″ x 3″ window trying to entertain or impress people I often hardly know but here in the present. Instead of mindlessly scrolling through other people’s digital lives when I awake, I pop into the other room and practice my guitar. I’m even thinking of reading the odd book.

I haven’t deserted Facebook altogether and have retained a link on my desktop but have taken off most of my notifications and intend simply “popping by” from time to time like the irritating ex-alcoholic at a drinks party. Special occasions or trips may still require a picture and The PBGV and Tibetan Terrier groups may still need the odd picture of our lovely four legged team.

What I won’t miss is:

1. Political Posts where people feel the need to nail their voting colours to the mast – it’s very un-English, negative and extremely tedious.
2. Feuds and bitter disputes on the village web site about parking, poo and parish council. These get borderline psychotic post wine-o-clock and make you wonder about the future of homo sapiens.
3. Twee virtue signalling posts about wisdom, normally involving native American Indians.
4. Videos from that youthful religious group, “the Lad’s Bible” usually involving swearing and someone getting badly hurt for “bantz”.
5. Endless adverts for stuff I’ve recently purchased.

Rock Follies

Our local auction is always bustling with scruffy and unloved specimens, but a few weeks ago I came across this:

Old, battered, over-strung and with a broken socket …. but enough about me.

A fanciful whim entered my head which somehow overrode the boring sensible part of my brain which we will refer to as “Trevor”. Trevor was saying things like “you can’t even play the bass guitar” and “what would you do with it” and “it’s broken anyway”. I left a £10 bid just to show Trevor that when it comes to rock and roll he doesn’t always call the shots (plus I was pretty sure I wouldn’t win it).

Later that day I drove back to the auction to collect my £10 bass guitar, which we shall call Jack after Mr Bruce of Cream. “Trevor, meet Jack”, I joked, before the po-faced misery pointed out that the Jack socket was hanging loose. “So am I , Grandad”, I said whilst doing that rock-hand-thing with my thumb and little finger.

I’ve never set hands on a bass guitar or even seen the appeal – after all, you can’t sit down with a bass and produce a stand-alone tune like a guitar. But my brother-in-law from France plays electric bass and is very good and I’ve got a grandson who is a budding bassist so I began to have daydreams of me and them sitting down to produce some hot club of Paris jazzy vibes.

I thought I’d summon my inner Barry Bucknell and restore Jack to his former glory myself, so I took it apart and laid out the pieces like James May did in what my wife refers to as “that paint-drying programme”. Talking of which, I fancied losing the chipped red paint and having a wood grain body so set to with paint stripper. The tin urged the user to treat the stuff like critical plutonium with masks and gloves and breathing apparatus but the reality was it wouldn’t even make a mark on the surface. In a flash of inspiration I borrowed a neighbour’s heavy duty sander and attacked the body with gusto.

Quite pleased with the woodgrain result, I then found the electric controls as well as the jack socket were duff and the pick-guard was impossible to clean so I ordered both from popular internet sites for £6 and £8 respectively. The volume and tone controls came pre-wired with their new jack socket for £6 delivered – from Hong Kong! (If I took it into our Post Office to send tracked to Hong Kong it would cost £10.15 just for sending). Anyway, it all duly arrived and I spent a furrow-browed morning in the sunshine wrestling with Jack’s re-assembly.

I was quite pleased with the result, which exceeded my expectations.

The next step was to get some tuneful bass sounds out of it so I repaired (good word!) to our local music shop (yes, we have one!) and enquired as to whether they could do a proper set-up on it that would pass muster with my brother-in-law. Luke looked askance, there was much head-shaking, sucking of teeth and expressions such as “good money after bad” and I eventually left the shop with Jack tucked under my arm and us both looking looking flat and glum.

HOWEVER, on the way home I decided two things.

ONE: Jack would become an attractive piece of wall-art in my office and a constant reminder for Trevor that we can all be a bit rash from time to time, and things never turn out quite like you think they will.

TWO: Having fallen quite strongly for the idea of a bass in the house, I got on to my Amazonian chums and this bad boy will be arriving on Saturday.  Meet Jack II :

I just need to casually mention this to Mrs Rine and we’re all good to go!