[dr nick riviera]hi, everybody![/dr nick riviera*]
i have been mainly awol since thursday as my mother has been visiting. mothers are very tiring. she has now departed by ferry, this morning, after a detour to courthouse where i successfully persuaded them to let me defer my jury service until june. thank fuck!
anway, i took my mother to a park; there were ducklings and a coot building a nest (and driving off another coot that apparently looked like it might be in the business of stealing twigs) and a sign. mother confused by my photography. i didn't elaborate.
we also went to the market where i bought the best magazine ever, these late 50s/early 60s things at five for a pound:
it's an adventure magazine FOR MEN. a MANLY magazine. very, very MANLY. as you can tell by the adverts:
the second one makes me think of biggles. he would not approve of such fripperies!
(oh, on sunday we encountered the entire tongan under-19s rugby team out for a walk. muscular thighs as far as the eye could see!)
anyway. female parent packed off on boat, i put the day to good use as it's been sunny and nice and basically global-warming-we-are-all-going-to-die unseasonally toasty. but it makes for nice cycling weather. so i took myself out up the lagan for a long run. which was lovely and picturesque and warm and i was enjoying myself greatly until the first cloud on an otherwise good day appeared in the form of a motherfucking flasher. thanks, fat old pervert. nothing like you waving your genitals at me from across the river to remind me that even at 4pm on a sunny afternoon, on a path popular with dog walkers and joggers and cyclists, there's always the possibility that some asshole guy will decide to use me to get his kicks. joy. so. small shadow of nerves, playing the scenarios-in-head game (if someone jumped out of the undergrowth, what would i do? yell? scream? hit him? run?) and considered calling cops but flashing across river doesn't seem like it justifies 999 and i don't have a non-emergency number. four km on i find two polis out on foot patrol; they are surprised at the location of the reported flasher because, as they inform me, the section they are on is where they usually "play" - in fact, that's why they're there today as the good weather brings them out in force. arse. holes.
BUT. authorities informed and off to investigate, i continue up the river in a better mood. it is a lovely day! the path is a bit narrower. i can hear a bike pacing me behind, so when s/he doesn't overtake i slow a wee bit and pull to the side of the path. off the path. just a little. um. oops. path edge slopes down; commuting tyres have no side knobbles; bike is slipping sideways and WHOOSH, unhurt is barrelling face-first across tarmac path, arms outstretched like a crashing superman. somehow chin does not hit ground! hands do though, and thank TPTB for the new fingerless cycling gloves purchased this very morning, or i'd have been cycling with bare hands and that would have really hurt. though. some hurt, and enough blood to stain my nice new gloves. also gravel in finger tips. man on bike behind me possibly more shocked than me. (and i had to ask him for a sticking plaster as i, um didn't have the first aid kit with me. OW! all my fingers hurt, and now i'm home my shoulders and neck and various other muscles that must have gotten yanked about when i wiped out hurt too. ETA: oh. and my right knee has seized up. nurse!
hi. i plan to cycle some thousand km but i can't even use the path up the local river without almost totalling myself. palm, meet face. except, ow. that also hurts. as does typing, a bit, due to two of my typing fingers have gravel embedded in their ends. i demand your sympathies! also, stop sniggering at the back.
BLOODSTAINS! on my nice new gloves! is *exciting* okay?
and then on the way home i found a seagull with a very very broken wing by the river. as in, a wing hanging off. ow. ew. poor bird! called wildlife rescue guys on return home, but other people care about seagulls too, and he was already on his way - driving all the way from coleraine to fetch the bird. (which will likely have to be put down, but still better than a slow lingering exit, i think.) so, sad but also nice that people had already rung it in.
er. that is all. i am making bolognaise sauce. tardington is a jammy wee sod and is now in amsterdam with a patient having just returned from a trip to orkney with his lay-dee, where he saw all the cool archaeology that i have never seen, bah! my fingers hurt. i still haven't zipped my MJ photos in a manner that lets me upload them. there is 1/3 of a bottle of white wine left in the fridge: i think i shall drink it while straining roasted tomatoes through a sieve.
*interesting fact: "the Canadian Medical Association Journal compared the services of Dr. Hibbert and Dr. Nick.[2] It concludes that Dr. Nick is a better role model for physicians; Dr. Hibbert is a paternalistic and wasteful physician, unlike Dr. Nick, who strives to cut costs and does his best to avoid the coroner." Patterson R, Weijer C. D'oh! An analysis of the medical care provided to the family of Homer J. Simpson. CMAJ. 1998 Dec 15;159(12):1480-1.
p.s. kanzenhanzai? i HATE you!
so very very much!
ETA: i did not think it was possible to hate MORE. but it is:
ETA again: hugh, callum and, um, chris kirkpatrick. n*sync, get out of my lj!
anway, i took my mother to a park; there were ducklings and a coot building a nest (and driving off another coot that apparently looked like it might be in the business of stealing twigs) and a sign. mother confused by my photography. i didn't elaborate.
we also went to the market where i bought the best magazine ever, these late 50s/early 60s things at five for a pound:
it's an adventure magazine FOR MEN. a MANLY magazine. very, very MANLY. as you can tell by the adverts:
the second one makes me think of biggles. he would not approve of such fripperies!
(oh, on sunday we encountered the entire tongan under-19s rugby team out for a walk. muscular thighs as far as the eye could see!)
anyway. female parent packed off on boat, i put the day to good use as it's been sunny and nice and basically global-warming-we-are-all-going-to-die unseasonally toasty. but it makes for nice cycling weather. so i took myself out up the lagan for a long run. which was lovely and picturesque and warm and i was enjoying myself greatly until the first cloud on an otherwise good day appeared in the form of a motherfucking flasher. thanks, fat old pervert. nothing like you waving your genitals at me from across the river to remind me that even at 4pm on a sunny afternoon, on a path popular with dog walkers and joggers and cyclists, there's always the possibility that some asshole guy will decide to use me to get his kicks. joy. so. small shadow of nerves, playing the scenarios-in-head game (if someone jumped out of the undergrowth, what would i do? yell? scream? hit him? run?) and considered calling cops but flashing across river doesn't seem like it justifies 999 and i don't have a non-emergency number. four km on i find two polis out on foot patrol; they are surprised at the location of the reported flasher because, as they inform me, the section they are on is where they usually "play" - in fact, that's why they're there today as the good weather brings them out in force. arse. holes.
BUT. authorities informed and off to investigate, i continue up the river in a better mood. it is a lovely day! the path is a bit narrower. i can hear a bike pacing me behind, so when s/he doesn't overtake i slow a wee bit and pull to the side of the path. off the path. just a little. um. oops. path edge slopes down; commuting tyres have no side knobbles; bike is slipping sideways and WHOOSH, unhurt is barrelling face-first across tarmac path, arms outstretched like a crashing superman. somehow chin does not hit ground! hands do though, and thank TPTB for the new fingerless cycling gloves purchased this very morning, or i'd have been cycling with bare hands and that would have really hurt. though. some hurt, and enough blood to stain my nice new gloves. also gravel in finger tips. man on bike behind me possibly more shocked than me. (and i had to ask him for a sticking plaster as i, um didn't have the first aid kit with me. OW! all my fingers hurt, and now i'm home my shoulders and neck and various other muscles that must have gotten yanked about when i wiped out hurt too. ETA: oh. and my right knee has seized up. nurse!
hi. i plan to cycle some thousand km but i can't even use the path up the local river without almost totalling myself. palm, meet face. except, ow. that also hurts. as does typing, a bit, due to two of my typing fingers have gravel embedded in their ends. i demand your sympathies! also, stop sniggering at the back.
BLOODSTAINS! on my nice new gloves! is *exciting* okay?
and then on the way home i found a seagull with a very very broken wing by the river. as in, a wing hanging off. ow. ew. poor bird! called wildlife rescue guys on return home, but other people care about seagulls too, and he was already on his way - driving all the way from coleraine to fetch the bird. (which will likely have to be put down, but still better than a slow lingering exit, i think.) so, sad but also nice that people had already rung it in.
er. that is all. i am making bolognaise sauce. tardington is a jammy wee sod and is now in amsterdam with a patient having just returned from a trip to orkney with his lay-dee, where he saw all the cool archaeology that i have never seen, bah! my fingers hurt. i still haven't zipped my MJ photos in a manner that lets me upload them. there is 1/3 of a bottle of white wine left in the fridge: i think i shall drink it while straining roasted tomatoes through a sieve.
*interesting fact: "the Canadian Medical Association Journal compared the services of Dr. Hibbert and Dr. Nick.[2] It concludes that Dr. Nick is a better role model for physicians; Dr. Hibbert is a paternalistic and wasteful physician, unlike Dr. Nick, who strives to cut costs and does his best to avoid the coroner." Patterson R, Weijer C. D'oh! An analysis of the medical care provided to the family of Homer J. Simpson. CMAJ. 1998 Dec 15;159(12):1480-1.
p.s. kanzenhanzai? i HATE you!
so very very much!
ETA: i did not think it was possible to hate MORE. but it is:
ETA again: hugh, callum and, um, chris kirkpatrick. n*sync, get out of my lj!