Smoked out and flashed at..so time to join i-Skive?

I’ve just finished a race and I’m wobbly. It was so hard. We did 25 laps and every time up the hill I struggled big-time. I was gasping no end.

Here’s the car…..I’ve parked up at exactly in the same place as the other week when that ironmonger was alongside me. No, he’s not here again, instead it’s somebody I know. Mick.

We’ve both just been in the same race and (to my shame) he was pounding up the hill like some spring chicken even thought he’s in a different/older age band to me…so a different coloured number on his back. So he’s at least 65 years and wearing well.

I sort of want to talk him into joining the same club as me. See, he lives in Sutton and I work in the self-same sunny spot. And we do the same races. He’s already on-board so he winds down the window. And what’s he up to, this hero of the hill? He’s having a smoke. Well, I sure didn’t expect that.

I just can’t get my heart-rate up the same as I once could so I’m seriously thinking I should become a bat.

Listen….we went for a walk with the Surrey Bat Group the other night. We met at Gatton Park and walked to a big lake armed with bat detectors that twitched when you got a pipistrelle in your sights (whatever sights is when it’s dark).

The bats were hiding somewhat… though I did get the sound of continuous tinnitus. It’s mine and it's endless. It’s a pain.

The man said that a bat’s heart-rate, when it's hunting, is 1000 beats a minute. Wow. I could do with some of that. I could smoke cigars two at a time and still get up hills.

I’m worrying about my driving. I’ve had two speeding tickets, so six points, since I got this Berlingo from Citroen. That’s in less than a year. I should change my boots.

Coming to this bike race I’d just got through the first lights after the Blackwell Tunnel and this speed camera went flash. Not again. But I was being over-taken at the time and the guy overtaking me was also being overtaken at the same time, so grounds for hope. Nine points and I would die.

But now for the fruitcakes, the team I work with. Little news in recent weeks, so here we go….

The shock is that Twinkle-eye has quit and is to become the helmsman on new lifestyle web-site entitled i-Skive, producing it from a banana warehouse on Canvey Island.

Tex, his mission scout, gets the heavy end of the load here. But she’s strong enough for two.

In a move designed to stem the flow of tears (is that of grief, you ask, or out of gratefulness….ahhh… the uncertainty) Rob Roy has organised the bus-load of us to the next Opportunity Knocks contest in Frinton, Essex, to see our former hero’s rousing repertoire of Alvin Stardust numbers. I can’t wait.

“I love Frinton,” Twinkle-eye said, glassy-eyed at his leaving-do. “It has this ambiance….and the mother-in-law can’t get there…there’s only one road in and I pay the guy who opens the gates at the railway crossing £400,000 a year to keep her out.”

I think this was only half-true. I’m a sort of gullible soul really.

Rob Roy has been treading the carrot fields of East Anglia. Not so much a Munro-bagger but a carrot bagger. He has a collection of photos of every field he has trod this side of Norwich and he has a plan to lead a carrot invasion of Poland next summer. I don’t know why. It seems there’s a website and 150 have expressed interest. Three from Sutton.

In four days' time, Julius and Apollo Screed will be heading up to Budle Bay, next to Holy Island in Northumberland, lured to the remote spot by a vision of flocks of wild duck, there for the taking at dawn from desperados tucked away in the hidden inside section of a duck punt. They read too many blogs.

The home-made craft has now been adzed to perfection by the hairy chested Julius but it floats with a wobble. The gun mounting is suspect. The two Russian brides have been sent out picking mushrooms around Mardon. I’m doing a bike race there on Sunday.

The punt is taking some moving. There’s nothing in the HSS catalogue under ‘large wheelbarrow will fit punt’ so it will go northwards as hand-luggage on a stopping bus… or three. I think Julius is being ambitious in this….or he must know more conductresses than he’s owned up to.

Buttons has good reason to skip and dance….her Weight Watcher’s certificate confirms the loss of 50lbs. Wow. Congratulations, I say. She confiscates office chocolates.

Her barrier-leaping reputation went all round the entire office. Lady Penelope thought she should lead from the front so she spun in through the front door and she tried the high-leap routine as well. So the guys have been fixing broken barriers again. That’s twice now. We now have to leave in groups….under escort.

Byeeeel......best get a'gait John