still in the back of the mind

I'm conscious of the approaching anniversary-of-camera-upgrade as it unfortunately coincides with the anniversary of ceasing-to-cycle-nearly-as-much-as-I-did and-carrying-more-camera-stuff-around-with-me. I've been walking far more instead and am still fit and healthy but occasionally worry that I'm in danger of becoming a cyclist-in-principle rather than a proper cyclist. To be fair I did start decreasing the amount of cyclage long before upgrading partly due to increased camera-walking but also due to the fact that the annoyances of cars, buses and taxis attempting to kill me along with other cyclists doing stupid things would make it a much more stressful experience than was probably entirely healthy. Even off-road travel was annoying due to encounters with neds, off-the-leash dogs (and their droppings) and all-too-frequent piles of broken bottles. Still, all those things annoy me as a pedestrian too so I might as well travel more swiftly at the same time.

Now that I've settled down with a small and manageable amount of lens and no longer really need to traipse everywhere with a medium-sized camera bag and schoolbag containing lunch and flasks I shall start making sure I cycle somewhere more than the current once-a-week-if-lucky by resuming cycling to work once or twice a week. It doesn't really save any time by the time I've put on all the extra bits of clothing required and attached all the lights and checked the tyres and locked and unlocked everything and waited at a few extra sets of traffic lights along the 1.86-mile journey but it will mean that it's easier to get further after work. Long walks home are all very well but they do all have to generally tend towards generally heading not too far in the wrong direction. With a bicycle I can pretty much head anywhere within the A720 and be back home within half an hour.

I'll have to clean my rucksack out first though. At the moment it's full of everything I've cleaned out from my wallet and pockets and camera bag over the last eight months (I remembered to check it for pointy metal things or liquids before heading to Munich but haven't really emptied it since) but I'll try and get somewhere interesting, blippable and slightly further away from the flat than can be conveniently walked in a couple of hours before the end of the week.