The corner has been turned

In the weather stakes, of course. What else occupies every third moment of my waking hours? Last week was more than bearable, after a cod ordinary Tuesday. Today (note: Sunday) was lovely and sunny, with a moderate southwest wind blowing. And next week we'll be scaling the dizzy heights of 15 degrees celsius! Quelle phwoar!

Strangely enough, I won't be here to experience it as I have put my Contingency Plan A into action. That involves hopping on a train on Tuesday and going to Orange, near Avignon in the South of Fworce, to visit Hedwig and Rich for a spot of work, sun, and possibly a winery. Probably not in that order either. Hopefully we'll get in a bit of Black Stump Bordeaux, which, to quote Monty Python's "Australian Table Wines" sketch "is rightly praised as a peppermint flavoured Burgundy."

Furthermore: "Old Smokey 1968 has been compared favourably to a Welsh claret, whilst the Australian Wino Society thoroughly recommends a 1970 Coq du Rod Laver, which, believe me, has a kick on it like a mule: 8 bottles of this and you're really finished. At the opening of the Sydney Bridge Club, they were fishing them out of the main sewers every half an hour."

After that, meine liebe schwester Lucy is coming to Visit at Easter, so that should be rather fun. She's got a real job now in Londres, and has a posh email address. Well, it's posher than mine.

Crikey, then Jon Devich is coming to stay for the classics in April. It's all happening.

Training reportage

As there has been no reason to interrupt my riding too much this week (well, apart from Paris-Nice and stuff), I have taken full advantage. Getting in the miles is the aim of the game at this stage of the proceedings, and that has been achieved on my creaky bike. I worked out what the creak is today and it was easily fixed, otherwise I'd be up the creak.

For the first time this year, we (being the Schelde bunch) did the Sunday mountain parcours, which is a bit easier than the Saturday one which we haven't started yet anyway. We did the Trap Op in just over 6 minutes, a far cry from the 5'20s we were doing last year. But I am sure it will get faster. The wind was from the west again so by the finish, we were down to eight riders, just like Saturday. My sprint is almost nonexistent at the moment, but it'll come back to its merely awful level soon enough.

It's still a bit cold to be going really quick, but the sun and plus zero temperatures have definitely made a difference to the speed. I must dust off the Flandria soon...