I need to make a plan. I have time, I have space, I have some funds. The world is, right now, my oyster. The specter of lack of income looms, though. It doesn't worry me too much right now, mind you, but I'm aware that it can't go on forever, and I'm also aware that I don't know under exactly which set of circumstances this will change. The ideal situation would be to have a guaranteed job starting in six months, allowing me all the time and spending I need to complete the various projects I have on the boil. That's unlikely, though.

Today finds me on the bus again, on my way to Waterloo again. This time, however, rather than blowing on small bits of intricate metal and plastic, I shall be sitting astride considerably larger bits of intricate metal and plastic. I'm off to buy a bike. There's a big shop there, and I'm meeting a mate who seems to know all there is to know about bikes (I mentioned the bike my flatmate has to him and he immediately reeled off all it's pros and cons, together with a particularly unique feature that he doesn't personally like. Impressive. I have a feeling that this is going to be a bit of a 'personal shopper' experience. I'm going to give him a budget and a list of requirements, and he's going to go and source me a few products to try out (hopefully while I sit in the pub across the road, supping on a refreshing beverage.)

Tomorrow should find me playing rugby. However, due to a mix-up, the skipper thought I wasn't available. Now, while I can turn up and get a game, this does give me a neat excuse to not play. Difficult. I still love rugby, I love playing and I love it when I've played. I don't like the idea of playing, though. I can take or leave tomorrow – particularly as it involves a thirty-minute train journey north of Liverpool Street. Perhaps I should force myself, though. After all, I'd only have to find something else to occupy me.

Shoes

It's gone and got itself all intermittent again, hasn't it? The trouble is, I guess, that I can do several things when I'm sitting in front of a computer. One of them – the techy computer-y bit, I occasionally get paid for. The other – writing about things – I don't. It becomes difficult, then, to decide just what I should do at any given time. You may wonder why I'm writing this, then, and not generating reams of text which make whizzy things happen on other people's computer screens. Well, it's because I'm on the 'Tiny Tim' (no, not a euphemism or, indeed, rhyming slang. It's the little laptop I carted around Africa with me). You can't do much technical on this, but you can write on it when you're sitting on a bus (which I am now).

Anyway, I took the vibrams out for another run t'other day. My flatmate has now got himself a similar pair, and I don't know if this is now more or less embarrassing when we go out running together. His are a slightly different design, and a different colour in a way that would stand up in a court of law but would leave you looking a bit defenceless in the pub ('yes, technically it's a different shade of lime green and grey.... but you're still both wearing the same silly shoes’). I’m getting on much better with them, though, and it’s I managed a good run around the Common and a leisurely jog home, rather than the usual ten minutes on the pavement. My calves much preferred the softer grass and mud surface, so I guess I shall stick to turf until my legs are able to handle it. Still not sure we’ll be able to do the Helly Hansen ‘Hellrunner’ in them in November, mind you (10km over mud, sand, bogs, hills). We shall see. We managed a couple of classic 'open mouth' moments, though. To see a ten-year-old boy staring, slack-jawed, at our feet as we ran past had us chuckling all the way home. We got lots of funny looks from school kids. Whether it's to do with their height, or simply the fact that they're not yet jaded by conventions, but kids tend to look around more, to notice more, and to look at our feet as we run by. Luckily (for kids can be viscious), by the time they'd thought of something witty and cutting to say, we were well past them. On balance, perhaps next time we won't go out near school home time.

Meanwhile, I have to psych myself for harmonica action. The downside with the second time is that I’ll probably be expected to have something to say to everyone. Hmph.