Wheeze

This cycling business, it's not to be sneezed at.

I took niallm's bike to work this morning, so that I can whizz home at lunchtime, stuff some sustenance into my gob (but genteelly, I promise), grab my case and concert outfit, drive into town and park somewhere while I return to work and worrit through another hour, meet with an author at 2:00, and sprint out the door the moment he leaves, thence to drive to Cork (pray that the Bank Holiday weekend traffic hasn't built up to too screaming a pitch by that stage), where the choir I sing with is competing in the Choral Festival this weekend.

(My own silly fault for arranging that meeting before I realised we had to be down in Cork for a rehearsal at 6:00. I'm going to be dead late, of course, but it's the best I can do.)

So, yeah, cycling. I don't have a bike of my own. I never had one growing up. I'm planning to get one soon, but it'll take me a while to get used to the rigours of it all. The facefuls of bus exhaust, the relentless convergence of trucks and parked cars, the granite solidity of the saddle, the full-body impact shocks caused by even the slightest irregularity in the road surface (and this is Dublin we're talking about, so there are a few of those), the wobbliness of leg with which I am afflicted once I step off the contraption at journey's end - all of these things I will have to get used to - I, who am accustomed to strolling through the calm back-streets of Dublin 8, waving at swans and watching the gardens grow...

(Yeah, whatever.)

But it will be more convenient. Mind you, until I slicken my routine, the advantage gained by cycling is almost entirely cancelled out by the time it takes to sort out all the gear.

Oh, piss. It's bucketing down out there. I have to leave in about half an hour. It had better have eased off by then, or I'll be having Stern Words.