This Standard Scottish Life

… honest Gov.  Did you know I have another life ?  It’s over here.

I have been reading the books about cycling training and fitness and looking at the Tour de France website.  What more training do you need to do ?  I also cycle 10 miles to South Queensferry every Thursday to go to Tai Chi class and then cycle back (sometimes moderately inebriated which presents a challenge when trying to dodge the foxes and rabbits).  I most every day cycle the 10 metres to work too.  4,500 miles across North America ?   Pah – piece of piss! Tour de France ?  A measly 3000 miles?  Ya bunch of skinny sissies!  Kiss my nappied arse!

And today I joined the gym.  It looks pretty in the gym.  Don’t think I’ll go on those machines though.  They look dangerous.

…. I willnae be able to do that!  I said at Tai Chi class tonight.

Sandy the cycling snail and T the speed boy (with the carbon fibre racing bike) are dedicated Tai Chi-ers.  We cycled 10 miles to class in South Queensferry tonight and then I cycled the 10 miles home.   For two hours we tugged at birds’ tails, unhooked hooks, tried not to crash our Mercedes into the garage door and I’m sure at one stage I was biting a tiger’s ear (I’m not sure I got that move right).  So we can do four moves now.  Then the Tai Chi master said, Will we do the short form or the long ?  Long, the rest of the class said, all 108 and moves.  How will I remember 108 moves ?  I can hardly remember the 4 I do badly.  About 50 moves in they did this standing on one foot thing while moving the other foot around really high up and very very slowly, with no wobbling.  Not a chance!  No way will I be able to do that.
I’ll get my coat then …..

… it was at the veggie patch today. I was sweating over the weeding, but not in my garden. I don’t like to weed in my garden anymore, I like to weed other people’s. Two hours of weeding Derek’s allotment and I was happy (he put up my greenhouse so I traded weeding in return). But I was weeding in my t-shirt and now my arms are burned! Ouch! And not only are my arms burned but also a little strip on my back. Double ouch!

(I don’t think the water skier is really a water skier. I think he’s a Rocky Horror Picture Show extra from Florida.)
While on a break from the weeding and being fed and watered on choccie biscuits and Fanta orange I got chatting to Rab. He told me that he didn’t like to use pesticides on his garden coz he practised Dharma and was a Buddhist. I told him about Hotboy and his hut meditations.

So it’s dharmic not organic gardening! Do all allotments have Buddhists ? Is it the rules ? I am clearly almost nearly a buddhist coz today practised:

• right actions – eeeding other person’s garden
• right livelihood – I ate thinnings of my lettuce crop and no meat (except a small slug by accident). I’m not sure if Hagen Daas ice cream counts as right livelihood tho
• right exercise – I cycled to my garden
• as for the other 5, well they are hard and I’ll get to them tomorrow

… my bicycle got a flatty. Clearly out in sympathy with Hotboy’s slow flatty. I hate repairing punctures especially on the back wheel. It’s so grubby and dirty. Hmmm … maybe I’ll just take the bike to those nice men at the bike shop.

I asked T the speed boy if kevlar tyres would stop punkchurs. He growled You’ll never get the aff the wheel. So, kevlar’s nae the solyushun tae ra punkchurs. Oh well pass the swarfega.

… you know the best thing about cycling across America & Canada? The planning. It’s great! I lie awake at night thinking about my route, what I’ll eat, the lovely folks I’ll meet, finishing. Never does it ever cross my mind to actually get on my bicycle and practice. (I do go on my bike but that’s just to go to work or the allotment). So, I have decided to plan an initial training route. Boundaries for said training route are:

• it must be nearby (if my training route is in the Highlands I will never ever train)
• it must have an uphill bitty (apparently there are hills in America and Canada e.g. The Rocky mountains)
• it mustn’t be too long, otherwise there will be crying
• and it must have potential for being looped over and over again

So, I have chosen “its volcanic pluginess” Arthur’s Seat. Look at the lovely 10km loop I plan to do it one day …. maybe after I finish cycling across North America.

… I’m an alcoholic this much I also know about cycling.

11. In the Bicycle vs Taxi in the City Centre during the Rush Hour and heading to the pub Race, the bicycle always wins.

12. Cyclists never remember cycling home after drinking more than half a bottle of wine but they will remember singing Scissor Sisters songs in the underpass. (Great echo! – I sounded almost as good as Jake Shears.)

…. and this much I know …. about cycling.

1. Your bum and bits are always sore. It doesn’t matter how many layers of nappy padding short liners you wear. Or how sofa like your saddle is. You’ll always be a bit Ouch.

2.. You will initially hate hills …

• crying at the bottom of a hill doesn’t help. You just have to do it.

3. Then you will come to love the hills, you will even like mountains …

• the crying at the bottom of hills will cease and you will even go on detours to seek out hills of increasing steepness

4. Coming downhill is over-rated

• unless of course you are on a dual carriageway with no cars and singing along to the Scissor Sisters
• unless of course you are coming downhill on a mountain on a mountain bike and Mr Imelda MacKillop has not yet split his elbow open
• the most over-rated coming downhill is 10 miles of twisty road in the Rockies, doing 40 mph and surrounded by Yankees. Plain boring.

5. Cycling into the wind will make you cry for several reasons

6. Jumping on the rear wheel in frustration is not good and will lead to a bit of a wobble that has nothing to do with alcohol consumption

7. After time, you will love your bike more than your Beloved / Chef / Dog

• NB don’t be telling your Beloved / Chef / Dog that they are second on the list of loves of your life. You’ll be shown the door.
• I think you might love your bike like this coz it intimately knows your bits. TMI ?

8. The best book about a bike is Flann O’Brien’s Third Policeman.

9. In the Bicycle vs Bus in the City Centre during the Rush Hour Race, the bicycle always wins

10. All bicycles must be red. It is compulsory. If you can’t manage a red bike then at least take something red along with you. A red face will suffice.

[Where does My name is xxx and this much I know come from ? Is it a CSI Las Vega-ism ?)

The Beginners Big Book of Buddhism [as lent to me by Hotboy] says …

Life is suffering (Yes I knew that. I suffer going to work. I suffer only having 24 hours in the day. I suffer coz Le Chef is playing Rome Total War again on MY computer (well it is our computer but mostly it is mine!). I suffer coz I have run out of Neutrogina Norwegian Paw cream and my paws are sore from digging and bashing and poking at the allotment. Oh wo is me. Wo Is Me Oh! ME WO IS OH! This suffering is almost as bad as being crucified (I feel a smite coming on).

Aparrently, according to the BBBofB I can cure myself of all this suffering if I follow a thing called the eight-fold path.

[MunchkinVoice]

Follow the 8-fold path
Follow the 8-fold path
Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow the 8-fold path
We’re off to see the Buddha, the wonderful Buddha of bhodi

[/MunchkinVoice]

The Eight-Fold path stateth:

1. Is Right viewpoint (i.e. knowing that you are suffering). See above. I know it. Look at my paws – they are red and suffering.
2. Is Right growth (i.e.Commitment to mental and ethical growth in moderation). Yes, I am doing this too. I am moderately commited to mental growth through regular reading of Imelda MacKillop’s copies of The National Enquirer. And I have an allotment and a bicycle so that’s quite ethical [or maybe that's just quite middle class - oh the angst, oh the suffering of middle classness]
3. Is Right actions (i.e. wholesome action, avoiding action that would do harm). Does eating wholemeal bread count as a wholesome action ? And today at the allotment I didn’t bash the slugs I just lobbed them over the shed into the rubbish heap – I didn’t hear them shriek when they landed so I don’t think I did them any harm
4. Is Right Speech (i.e. one speaks in a non hurtful, not exaggerated, truthful way). Oh for goodness sake, not exaggerated??? That’s ridiculous. This path is impossible to achieve.

I propose …. to alleviate all this suffering that one should follow Sandyha’s special short cut one-fold path

1. Is Right winning (i.e. winning £20 million on the Lottery). This will lead to packing in the suffering of work, buying lots of Neutrogina hand cream and salving the poor paws and going on a giant spending spree (shopping relieves all suffering dontcha know) but ensuring you keep back some cash to bribe the Buddha (or your own favourite diety) so you can skip paths 4 to 8 and go directly to Nirvana.

Unfortunately I was unable to follow the one-fold path this week due to some inconsiderate random number generator not randomly generating the right numbers on my ticket. Bloody computers! But never mind coz it is a £64 million EuroMillions rollover on Friday! Surely it will be me, surely.

I was thinking that I really need to increase the readership on ThisStandardScottishLife coz it seems that Gussie, Hotboy and that Dirty, dirty burro are the only visitors. Those spam robots don’t even come – I think they mostly hang out a RaBlissBlog. How can people’s life not be complete with out reading my highbrow insights into … eh … the mess that is the inside of my head. Maybe I am aiming too high, perhaps I need to dumb down TSSL ? But can it get any dumber ? Oh yes it can!
So, maybe I can get it so dumb that there are only photos of dumb animals.

So here goes ….

Sheep we have loved and / or eaten. This is Flossy the Arran sheep. She was quite dumb. Me and The Cyclist captured her while on a tour of the island. She gave a nice chop. Is that dumb enuf ?

…. you can call me Sir
This morning somewhere in between ironing my shirt and getting dressed for work in my daily routine I had to rake in my drawers (that’s drawers as in drawers not pants) for a pair of pants (that’s pants as in pants not what dogs do or what American’s pretend are trousers). So, I raked and I raked and thought I knew I needed to do some washing but this is ridiculous. So I raked around some more coz I always, always find a pair of pants. But what a shocker. Not today. No clean pants! It is not possible for a grlll to go to work in a pair of pants that she wore yesterday (I know you men do, but you are just dirty and nasty and smelly), so you’ll understand that I was a bit traumatised. Would I have enough time to wash a pair of pants and then blast them dry with the hairdryer (we are nothing if not resourceful us grlz). No, no, no, no time at all.

And then I thought “Ooooh at work I have my gym stuff and there are always clean pants in my gym bag“. But the problem is how to get from here to there with no pants. Would I have to take a long commando walk past the Castle (I wonder if the soldiers in the castle barracks are commandos too). And then I came up with a cunning plan …. I would wear my cycling shorts and cycle to work. Pants are not allowed under cycling shorts coz they interfere with the padded nappy bit – so I could easily get away with no pants. Hurrah … my cycling shorts saved the day and I made sure I put the washing machine on when I got home from work so I had a plentiful supply of clean undies for the next day.

HotBoy knows lots about cyclists coz he’s always asking Are you boys cyclists ?

• Oi HotBoy! Did you write that Amazon review ?
• Oi HotBoy! Impressive Amazon ranking too. Right up there with The Bible. Hopefully this post will boost your readership

PS Sorry if this post was a bit TMI but this sort of thing happens occasionally in a StandardScottishLife