onionbagblog

Saturday’s ride was all about the gin. I was under strict instructions to return with a bottle of the finest and cheapest Lidl gin that money could buy. Which all meant this wasn’t a day for the road bike. I set off on the Raleigh Electric with a couple of panniers, also known as gin bags.

We are now entering sloe pickling season. Hopefully in three months' time we’ll be into sloe gin getting pissed season. We’re still using the tried and tested recipe kindly handed over to us by R almost 15 years ago.

But first how about a bicycle ride?

I made my way down through the University. It’s that one weekend of the year when returning students and new undergraduates start to rock up on campus. I remember those days well. They’re best off behind me.

I crossed over the Dirty River and made my way over towards Fingringhoe. Traffic was particularly heavy. I can’t be arsed to make a piss poor joke.

There was a rather quaint village scene by the village pond that is overlooked by Fingringhoe Church. There was a grandad, a father, and a young grandchild all fishing together. It really was quite sweet.

I’d mistimed my own personal rod dangling escapades completely wrong. I was caught short and had to pull over.

My timing was a lot better with the sleeping lion back in the cage, just before the next car turned around the bend.

Nothing to see here, Madam.

I reached Abberton Reservoir. There was a very excitable gathering of twitchers.

A little further along the route I could smell the fresh soil from the fields. It was all very rustic.

About 30 seconds later I realised it was actually manure.

The run-in involved seeing some poor fella roadside struggling with a puncture. I’ve learned that we don’t talk about this though.

Destination Lidl was reached. The cheapo Lidl gin wasn’t as cheapo as I was anticipating. I still went for the lowest price one, natch.

Objective achieved. Another bicycle ride ticked off.

Chapeau!

And so after all the waiting around following the RACE DAY in Manningtree last weekend, Friday afternoon was a much more relaxed affair with another WivGigs social row.

I don’t think I’m alone in the club in coming to the conclusion that race days are a little bit too much stress without much reward.

I don’t personally get stressed out with it all, but hanging around all day with some very tense rowers for what can be a 20-minute burst is difficult to justify at the weekends.

Social rowing it is then. You have time for conversation, you have time for gossip, you have time to do not a lot of rowing and just sit around in the boat and take pretty pics.

Whatever.

We launched at the Sailing Club hard, having been kindly waved through by a couple of dinghy sailors waiting to launch. The chap, in particular, had the most magnificent sailing beard.

I was also experimenting with my own appearance. It didn’t quite go to plan. I opted for my wet rowing shoes and then some ridiculous cycling luminous bib shorts that I rolled up to my knees as I waded in the water.

I won’t be troubling the front page for any fashion shoot of the next edition of Sexy Rowers Monthly.

We headed downstream, which was a surprise to me. I was half expecting the row to be cancelled. It was rather windy and the waters were incredibly choppy once we reached the Creek.

I’m not into all this nature shit but perhaps the highlight for me was some birds (GAWD knows what) that decided to speed past us at an incredibly low angle, almost hugging the water.

We reached a buoy. I’m not sure which buoy it was. You come back to this blog for these kinds of details, right?

The turn was made and then we had a bit of a brief water break before making the row back upstream. We must have downed oars for no more than two minutes. We had drifted around 500 km or so already back towards the Sailing Club. It was that kind of tide.

Talk in the boat then returned to race rowing. I had absolutely no idea there is a 300 Club option available for the Harker’s Yard series.

To qualify you need to have at least 300 years of age in the boat for all four rowers and a cox.

This could work perfectly if you somehow got a centurion in the boat who did pretty much fuck all and then some rather energetic 50 year-olds.

We recovered Varuna with still plenty of water around the Sailing Club. This was a nice ying to the yang of the Manningtree chaos of last weekend.

I returned to the road bike for Friday morning. Something just felt right about this. The Estuary Wilds still insist that it’s late summer and not early autumn. Road bikes are for summer, right?

The windy conditions were incredibly warm albeit windy. There was some debate about whether rowing would take place later in the day.

I opted for a gilet. It was the right decision both in terms of the atmospheric conditions and my aesthetics. I looked cool as fuck with a Brixton Cycles gilet.

The last-minute decision to neck a big fat bowl of porridge was a wise one. I had that Ready Brek glow as I rolled out to see where the road bike would take me.

I opted for the Lawford route. It’s an absolute breeze to get there now, with the new Road to Nowhere being open, but not really open. It throws me out along the Lawford to Manningtree stretch within no time at all.

I was singing along to Edwin Collins, having heard the magnificent Girl Like You shortly before setting off. No one else was around. I say singing, it was more like shouting out the lyrics and grunting that bloody great guitar riff.

The lanes were absolutely empty for Friday morning, all apart from one dickhead van driver who approached me in the opposite direction in the middle of Gawd knows where.

I did slow down and indicated I was going to pull over. The twat didn’t slow down and didn’t even attempt to head slightly to the left of the lane.

Oh dear.

Hey hoe, live to ride, ride to live, and all that bollocks.

Two birds, one stone for the Thursday afternoon bike ride, aka the Abberton Reservoir loop, which conveniently takes in a local Lidl for the weekly food shop. One panniers load up rather well with cheapo Lidl Greek yoghourt, whilst the other takes on board cheapo Lidl lager. Never forget the lager. Nope.

Chapeau!

It may have been the 1st of October but it felt like early August. Local workmen were perched high upon scaffolding as I rolled out. They were stripped down and topless. We are closer to Christmas than we are to the previous summer solstice - I think? These dates are made for riding.

Once again the mechanics of the Raleigh Electric continue to amaze me. Somehow I clocked up 44 km/h going down Boundary Road on a 27 kg bike. This is absolutely bonkers.

Up above were big fluffy clouds. These lingered throughout the 40 km ride as I made my way out towards GAWD knows where, but basically around Abberton Reservoir.

It was pretty uneventful. There was an abundance of birdwatchers on the short stretch that crosses over the reservoir. One fella in particular stood out. He wasn’t wearing all the usual camouflage crap. He had bright cycling Lycra on. That’s going to clash a little when it comes to the birdwatching thing, fella.

It then became clear that he was combining his two passions - cycling and birdwatching. One out of two ain’t bad etc.

I had to stop to syphon my own Python about 2 km past the reservoir. The Lycra-clad bird bloke then slowly cycled past me.

“GOOD AFTERNOON!”

Whoops.

Destination Lidl was reached. One pannier was stuffed full of cheapo Lidl Greek yoghourt whilst the other balanced it out rather nicely with some cheapo Lidl lager.

Live to ride, ride to live.

I hate rock. Bailed after one track.

⭐

It’s surprising how much you think you know about Bob Marley when, actually, there’s still more to explore. The obvious tracks leap out here: Get Up, Stand Up, I Shot the Sheriff. but beyond this there’s a lot more of a soulful side to Marley that I’ve not heard before. I’ve never understood why Small Axe isn’t held up as an absolute Marley classic. It has everything: the music, the message, and a masterful delivery. This feels like an album rather than an individual collection of songs. It somehow just all holds together.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

Indoor chores and crappy weather conditions meant that most of Wednesday was spent indoors. That’s no place to be.

Late afternoon and the bloody Estuary Wilds skies had cleared. I had cleared out the To Do list of indoor chores.

Hey! Let’s head out for a walk. How adventurous. You know how it goes by now: the usual schlep around the 10 km or so Estuary Wilds circuit.

It was still a little slightly overcast when I set off and incredibly windy. Remarkably however, it was warm.

Rowing had already been cancelled earlier in the day because of the wind. However it still felt like the dog days of August, even though we have October rapidly approaching.

In the AirPods was the latest pub cast from Deserter. It meant I was walking along with endless chuckling. The AI News in particular raised a smile.

There were signs of a particularly high tide earlier in the day, with water still lingering down at the quayside.

I was pleased to be wearing my walking boots and not having the OCD stress of having to clean up a pair of trainers back at base. The conditions were definitely soft to firm.

Dog walkers were out there getting in their last session of the day. I had just enough light remaining to get around my circuit at a fairly steady pace.

I reached Whitehouse Beach. The summer camps and the celebrating sixth formers and other students have long since moved on, although the remains of their barbecues haven’t.

I had a bit of a moment on Whitehouse Beach, taking in the serenity of it all. The shingles all around look like my new garden. Maybe I should just stay at home to have these hippy shit moments.

I think you know where you stand when you see a song title of Prison Sex. Christ, this did my fucking nut in. I bailed after 30 seconds. Unlistenable shit.

⭐

A real mixed bag here.

Let’s first start off with the Triffids and their the 1986 album In the Pines. I’ve taken a punt on this purely on the strength of what followed, with Calenture a year later.

I went through a very obsessive phase with Calenture last year after it appeared on the Album of the Day list. I recognised the Bury Me Deep track from radio play back in the day, but somehow the rest of the album passed me by.

I’ve also fast forwarded slightly and bought The Black Swan that followed in 1989. By then I think the band were on the decline.

I love buying random albums that I know I’ve got perhaps half an interest in. I can take a gamble with £3 or £4 or so, and I’m often rewarded with some absolute listening gold.

And then we come to Bruce.

Oh dear.

Only the Strong Survive got absolutely slated by critics and many fans a couple of years ago. It’s basically Bruce’s blue-eyed soul effort.

But Bruce doesn’t really do blue-eyed soul. He’s more of a screw up your eyes, clench your fist, and shout out blue collar anthems.

GRUNT GRUNT GRUNT.

But it’s all good, apart from Only the Strong Survive…

There are some interesting covers on there, such as Frank Wilson’s Northern Soul classic Do I Love You, The Commodores' Night Shift, and even a take on What Becomes The Broken Hearted.

It’s not a poor album but obviously it’s not the first Springsteen album you’re going to turn to whenever you feel in the mood for Bruce. Like many artists of his age, his past is behind him in terms of the recorded output.

I’m nothing if not a Bruce completist. This was picked up for £3 and it will sit quite happily at the end of my Springsteen section, with possible plays if I want a bit of a late night bop with the Boss.

I’m playing catch up here, severe catch up. R pinged this Spotify link through early this morning. It’s the album Anika by Anika from 2010.

Who says we’re behind the times?

He knew I’d love it. I knew he would bloody love it. We’re both suckers for some cold, dry electro-pop with not much pop and a Germanic female voice.

It’s what the Velvets might have sounded like in 2010, right?

Possibly…

I don’t know how this one completely passed me by. Anika is a trio which includes Jeff Barrett of Portishead. The pace of the album is a lot faster than his usual Portishead slowed own beats. It’s all the better for it.

But of course the killer vocals are what define this album. Gosh they are so harsh, so cold, so unforgiving.

The choice of covers is interesting. There’s the classic motorbike ballad, Terry, as well as The End of the World.

The album’s all over after 36 minutes, as all good albums should be.

I wonder what else I missed during my fallow music listening period?