I have recently begun a coffee lent, which means I start the day with a headache. It took a bit of effort to motivate myself to go for a bicycle ride yesterday. The extreme heat of summer has eased off which means I can go outside without getting crispy. Taking plenty of water and a sturdy repair kit I headed out.

I skipped through my podcast playlist as I cycled. I listened to TuxJam for a 15 minutes before skipping it. I enjoy hearing Kevie, Andrew and Dave in their northern lilts but I was not in the mood to go into the intricacies of less than desirable user interfaces and clunky installers.

I stopped to see if I had any more episodes from Sam Knights delightful Halfway Home bicycle podcast… but none. He finished up in the depth of an English, cold, rainy, covid winter - understandable. On a whim I decided to record my own version.

I expected the mic to just pick up rushing wind and me wheezing. Luckily I am the worlds slowest cyclist so you just get the wheezing and a bit of sniffing. I did think of sending my recording to Sam Knight but I’m buggered if I can find how to send him a message via that crappy Anchor page (a Spotify asset). It just wants to record audio via the web page which is a fat lot of good when I want to write a little message to the guy and attach an mp3 file. Instead I’ll attach it to this post and let’s call it Episode 01 - A Two Wheeled Ute (being my ideal bicycle) and then I might do it again sometime. Anyway that served well for in-flight entertainment to help me ignore my headache until I hit the dirt tracks out of town.

After I had talked to myself for a while I continued out to the Pinnacles. The Pinnacles being one of the camping spots for the ill fated Burke and Wills, that had been bothering me. Not Mills and Boone or even Scott of the Antarctic. As far as I know Scott did not bother with Broken Hill.

On the way home I listened to a couple of episodes of the excellent Cancer Survivor Guide. I listened not because I have cancer (although one can never be too careful) but because I am an oncology nurse and always on the lookout for good resources. The show is put together by Penny Johnston, herself a cancer survivor, it is just the right amount of reality and reassurance. If you know anyone who has been diagnosed then I recommend you listen and share.