Canterbury Tales

Over to the Walthamstow cycle recycling place to finally pick up my bike which seems, in the two months I've been waiting for it, to have changed from a blue Raleigh to a green Claud Butler. Which sounds like a character from Heroes. On the way home I only had one tantrum in an industrial estate and one nervous breakdown in a field. My phobia (not having my feet on the ground, i.e. horses, climbing, ice-skating, bicycles etc etc) is much more rational than fears of spiders or snakes. How many people die of serpine or arachno-bites in the UK? Possibly one every 2 years. How many people get knocked off their bike and die? 22 in London last year, I believe.

Anyway it's pretty late when we get home and later still when we arrive in Canterbury, so we only have time for a quick walk along the walls, a meander around the German market where gluhwein is imbibed, a look through the cathedral arch to discover the entrance fee price does not correlate with our desire to give lots of money to the Church of England, and a wander past the olde buildinges and museums. Find that the Thomas A' Beckett pub is not full of tourists but nice food and beer and then to the fancy Coffee and Corks cafe which is full of people who know each other and scribble on the ceiling or fill in lists tacked to the wall. An acoustic guitar sits in a corner waiting to be picked up and strummed from time to time. There are board games, candles, fairylights, sofas and messy art on the walls. A man types furiously on his laptop whilst informing the drunk man at the bar who keeps dropping his cigarettes on the floor that he's got to be in the Shetland Islands on Monday and that means leaving for Aberdeen yesterday. An American chats to an English/Chinese man about tapas and Chinese New Year. In the ladies is a lonely hearts ad for Mike, 25, who wants to meet a girl for laughs and fun, accompanied by a scribbled line drawing of him. They have cheap cocktails (I have an orange martini) and invented drinks: strawberry tea & vanilla liqueur, chilli hot chocolate with galliano. Instead of a biscotti with yer Baileys latte, you get a custard cream. Unfashionable music (Tracy Chapman, Bob Dylan) plays on the CD player. It's kinda nice.

Canterbury Tales

Over to the Walthamstow cycle recycling place to finally pick up my bike which seems, in the two months I've been waiting for it, to have changed from a blue Raleigh to a green Claud Butler. Which sounds like a character from Heroes. On the way home I only had one tantrum in an industrial estate and one nervous breakdown in a field. My phobia (not having my feet on the ground, i.e. horses, climbing, ice-skating, bicycles etc etc) is much more rational than fears of spiders or snakes. How many people die of serpine or arachno-bites in the UK? Possibly one every 2 years. How many people get knocked off their bike and die? 22 in London last year, I believe.

Anyway it's pretty late when we get home and later still when we arrive in Canterbury, so we only have time for a quick walk along the walls, a meander around the German market where gluhwein is imbibed, a look through the cathedral arch to discover the entrance fee price does not correlate with our desire to give lots of money to the Church of England, and a wander past the olde buildinges and museums. Find that the Thomas A' Beckett pub is not full of tourists but nice food and beer and then to the fancy Coffee and Corks cafe which is full of people who know each other and scribble on the ceiling or fill in lists tacked to the wall. An acoustic guitar sits in a corner waiting to be picked up and strummed from time to time. There are board games, candles, fairylights, sofas and messy art on the walls. A man types furiously on his laptop whilst informing the drunk man at the bar who keeps dropping his cigarettes on the floor that he's got to be in the Shetland Islands on Monday and that means leaving for Aberdeen yesterday. An American chats to an English/Chinese man about tapas and Chinese New Year. In the ladies is a lonely hearts ad for Mike, 25, who wants to meet a girl for laughs and fun, accompanied by a scribbled line drawing of him. They have cheap cocktails (I have an orange martini) and invented drinks: strawberry tea & vanilla liqueur, chilli hot chocolate with galliano. Instead of a biscotti with yer Baileys latte, you get a custard cream. Unfashionable music (Tracy Chapman, Bob Dylan) plays on the CD player. It's kinda nice.