Nice weather for ducks

I've been going stir crazy this week, unable to ride because of the awful, drizzly weather we've had here in Sydney. The photo below is a pretty good indicator of the sort of weather that finally changed today - a busted umbrella and a big pool of water in what is normally a dry oval.


After a miserable week of constant rain and the temperature around 20 degrees, the forecast today is for 34 - and I imagine it will be humid as hell. After checking the weather last night, I made a commitment to myself that I would be up at 6am and try and ride for two hours. I wanted to be out and back before being outside started to feel like being inside a sauna.

However, it was still raining at that time, and the drizzle didn't cease until 8am, which is when I expected to be getting home. My ride was therefor sandwiched between the weather and the schedule of stuff that we have today - a birthday party for a 4 year old (complete with magician), visiting the dentist, tennis and other family things. I managed to squeeze in an hour of rotating the pedals and that was it.

Strangely enough, I had bad dreams about cycling last night. I distinctly remember a dream about being on a long ride somewhere, and being unable to clip my shoe into one of the pedals. To the non-cyclist, or a cyclist that doesn't have cleats, that might sound like an odd sort of nightmare - but for me, it was as bad as being chased around the room by a gibbering, three headed blood-drinking monster.

I therefor headed off in some trepidation - in the back of my mind was the seed of an idea that something horribly mechanical was going to go spectacularly wrong. Sod's Law has it that you always break down when you are at most distant point from home, and generally also in an area with no mobile phone coverage.

But nothing of the sort happened today. It was a nice day for a ride, apart from the humidity that made it feel like I was pushing through waves of warm, wet cotton wool. Apart from that, even the trees seemed to appreciate the change in weather.


By the way, if you want to see some truly spectacular photography, check out Stuck in Customs. The guy is a wizard with the camera.

The area around Wareemba/Abbotsford is fairly well known for its spectacular Christmas decorations. I had a quick look around the back streets of Wareemba where the best displays are, and found that most of them haven't been put up yet. I guess the weather we've been having was not conducive to clambering over the roof with electrical thingys.


Check out this post of mine from last Christmas to see what these trees will look like before much longer.