onionbagblog

It was a toss-up between a gentle row in the kayak or an afternoon of cricket on Sunday. I was pretty knackered after all my exertions the day before. At the end of the day, cricket always wins.

Wivenhoe Sunday 11 were playing a 40-over game against Gawd knows who. I arrived fashionably late, with Wivenhoe having already put 30 overs on the scoreboard.

My first obstacle involved locking up my bike. A bit of a lock situation developed. The lock I use for the electric is pretty robust. It’s also started to develop a tendency to jam. That’s not a good sign. There could be worse places than Wivenhoe Cricket Club to have to leave a locked-up bike.

It looked bloody hard work out in the middle for the Gawd Knows Who batsmen and the Wivenhoe pace bowlers. I found a king-sized bench close to the boundary to lounge upon. I did ponder going on the piss but thought it best to play safe. You never know what’s going to happen with that bike lock situation later in the afternoon.

It was good to find some silence and solitude for once in the day. I was within throwing distance of a cricket ball of the allotment. I think I had the better deal in lounging around watching the cricket rather than digging for victory.

The two umpires were doing a fine job. I did admire the satirical look of one of them, wearing a green t-shirt and a pair of baggy red shorts. It wasn’t quite the Dicky Bird cricketing etiquette look.

The poor Wivenhoe wicket keeper then had to undergo that strange bollocky dance after being hit in the unmentionables. Shit. I think I’ve just mentioned them.

A couple of looseners from the poor ginger kid went for consecutive sixes, one of them landing right in my cabbage patch over in the allotment.

I confess to dozing off for a few overs. When I awoke, Gawd Knows Who had racked up 229 after 40 overs on the scoreboard. This seemed like a tough chase. I cut my losses and cycled back to base.

I needed an escape from the Estuary Wilds' punishing heat. Hey! How about a shortish bike ride over to Brightlingsea where I could cool off in some of the sea air breeze? Job’s a good ‘un.

The ride over to Brightlingsea was so-so. Some dickhead family in an open top sped past me going up Tenpenny Hill. The rather fat female in the passenger seat shouted out an obscenity at me.

I don’t think she counted for the fact that I was riding electric. The stupid family got snarled up in the busy Brightlingsea traffic. My electric bicycle had soon caught up with them.

Awkward.

I asked the rather rotund lady why she felt the need to shout out an obscenity at me, especially so having two young girls in the back of their crappy car. She pretended that she hadn’t said anything. My on-board camera begs to differ.

I was dithering but I think I will probably give her the benefit and not dob her into Essex Police. I don’t think shouting out PEADO very loudly at a cyclist is an offence.

Oh well.

Soon I was in Brightlingsea. The circus was also in town. A big top had been set up down by the seafront. It looked bloody hot in there as the scorchio conditions burnt through the big tent.

In cafe news: the cafe by the beach is still not built. I’m not entirely sure what the story is here. Construction started pre-covid, it then stalled. I suspect funding has run dry.

I took up a seat on a bench close by to Batemann’s Tower. A couple of smacks looked stranded out in the water, waiting for the tide to come in and rescue them.

I looked over across to Mersea Island and pondered life. I was bored after a couple of minutes. I turned to a Forest Focus podcast instead.

Half an hour later and I was pretty much done. I walked along the promenade. The wind had picked up, which was good news for the dinghies that were launching for a race by the sailing club.

The bicycle ride back to base was uneventful. I still find it astonishing that in 2026 dickhead motorists find it amusing to shout out at cyclists. Maybe I should start to answer back.

To the Table of Dreams! …on Sunday morning. We got our timing all wrong. I was in search of a wellbeing bollocks table tennis therapy session. Instead all I got was the bloody church bells doing my absolute nut in.

Oh well.

The next decision was which ball do we play with? Although the Estuary Wilds heat had already started to build, there was also a strong breeze blowing across the park.

We opted for the wind ball. Later in the day I remember that the wind ball was covered in dog shit when we played back at the Oval a couple of weeks ago.

The park was surprisingly quiet apart from the bloody church bells. The lack of activity only served to amplify the right old racket made by the people tugging away on their bell ends.

I stormed to a 2-0 lead, if that is, you can ever storm to a 2-0 lead.

I started to get cocksure. I’m going to win this, right? Nope. My 2-0 lead soon became a 3-2 defeat. The stupid dumb bells still hadn’t stopped by the time I was walking away in shame.

To the Sailing Club!… midway on Saturday afternoon for a friendly WivGigs social row. This was always going to be a chaotic row with plenty of jeopardy and confusion for us to overcome.

The Rowhedge Regatta was in full flow ahead of launching. We also had the tricky task of landing at the public pontoon to pick up a potential new club member who wanted to give rowing a go.

The session got off to a comical start when the cox unveiled an interesting new look. A new pair of waders have been bought by the club. They are a luminous yellow with navy blue boots on the other end. It’s hard to take a cox seriously and follow their instructions when they look like a character from Rainbow.

A little more serious was the launch. It was tricky to find some space when a car drove down the sailing club hard. I was surprised to see this happen, especially so when the fella taking his car, where it’s not allowed to be driven, was a prominent sailing club member.

I was placed on stroke for the afternoon. We took the strategic decision to head downstream at first to avoid all the confusion and chaos of the Rowhedge Regatta.

We had our rendezvous with the Come and Trier on the public pontoon. The Come and Trier came: he tried and I think he rather enjoyed himself. I would give eight, or possibly nine out of ten for his early efforts.

We were then back down to our main crew as we dropped off the Come and Trier once again. The weather had cooled down slightly and so this was a good opportunity to pick up the pace.

There was still plenty of river traffic around. The Wivenhoe One Designs that were out racing. We also almost came a cropper when a tacking small dinghy decided to zigzag whilst on a course collision with us. We escaped all the madness and continued pressing on downstream.

We heard some loud music coming from one of the remotest parts of the estuary bank. How bloody annoying, I thought. There was a rather romantic couple with their extremely loud Bluetooth speaker. My anger evaporated when the fella fired up Row, Row, Row Your Boat for us.

I’m never one normally for all the nature bollocks that take place throughout a row, but I did enjoy being tracked for a couple of minutes or so by a beautiful Essex Blue butterfly. It seemed quite content to bob along with us and enjoy the company.

I got to jump out of the boat at the end during the recovery. The cold water of the Colne was most pleasing on what was an incredibly hot and challenging afternoon.

A return to the 10 km estuary running route on Thursday morning. Woh, I have bloody missed this. At a push it’s my fave running route - and yep that even trumps the well-trodden and well-tested King of Clapham Common.

My calf injury has kept me away from the 10 km since last September. I managed a 9 km route around the University at the weekend. What’s another extra 1 km? Surely I can manage this?

The heat was already building by the time of my mid-morning run. This led to an interesting aroma down by the estuary, as the baking mud was starting to evaporate off all the other shit that it collects.

I passed the army of nursery pram pushers by the sailing club. The girls do a great effort in getting their little ankle biters out and about. It looks bloody hard work as they double up with pairs and often triplets of prams.

The tide was low. Parts of the trail were overgrown. I wanted to take it easy so as not to have any scratchings on my legs ahead of another heavy ink session, which is imminent.

I reached the Creek. The field had a dozen or so sleeping cows. It looked quite the life.

I took it easy on the back leg of the route towards Alresford. 10 km was crossed off in what was a semi-decent time.

I’m back!

Winning design chosen for Clapham railway bridge makeover

I preferred the old Welcome to Wankerville, tbh.

Neither proud nor ashamed to say that I’ve listened to this hundreds of times - but not in the past forty years or so. And none of it sticks, apart from the singles. Nothing was memorable. That’s not to say that it’s a poor album, far from it. It’s a very easy, smooth listen, as you would expect. But apart from the lead tracks, I wouldn’t find myself humming along to the more minor tracks whilst I’m looking for an ear worm. The early 80’s were very much like that; the same could be said for Let’s Dance. Save a Prayer is the exception, and is worth the extra star alone.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐

The sound of an artist learning and showcasing his craft in real time. Which is kinda what demos are… Still, it’s a fantastic listen, and raw as fuck. Almost 70 years later and there is still an air of excitement and danger. Plus no one ballads like Elvis - even in his early Elvis incarnation. Extra marks for sounding ace in mono.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

The Sony Rollins album What’s New was a decent find. It came, as ever, via the always excellent Late Junction.

I had my morning catch ups and one of the tracks dropped. Interesting, I thought. This sounds like some mid-eighties pastiche jazz by one of those rather cool retro bands like Camel. Not so, it was way, way back with a jazz original from the early 60s with Sonny Rollins.

I’ll have a bit of this. I fired up Spotify and played the album from start to finish. It gets off to a good jazz start, and then without warning delivers some delightful calypso. I wasn’t expecting that but enjoyed it all the same.

We then go back on a jazz footing before a little more calypso is added to the mix. A superb find, and one of which I am already hunting down a cheapo cheapo eBay copy of.

Nice.

To the sailing club!… on Monday evening for the latest in the sailing club table tennis get togethers. Except it wasn’t that social; no other fuckers had turned up.

There was a GC meeting down below. This meant that the club was open and we had access to the loft for our own private game of indoor table tennis.

Despite the lack of different opposition, I really wanted to play. We had stunning views from the loft looking out down towards the estuary. It was a little stuffy in there but this didn’t hold us back.

Fifteen minutes also of TWATTING the ball back and forth, and a third player rocked up. This meant we could play winner stays on.

This is a great approach to table tennis. A and I seemed to rotate frequently with the third person pretty much anchored down with his position on the table.

I optimistically declared that I am the best player in the club towards the end of the session. This was justified when I went on a winning streak and knocked the other two off.

King of the Table, modesty in motion. That’s me.