Shoes just got a call from the cops: they found his old bike! I use the exclamation mark to indicate amazement rather than joy or excitement, because as expected, it is completely fucked. Apparently it has been dropped several times, which means the fairing is almost certainly cracked - a write-offable offense in insurance terms. My first response was to wish a messy death by shredding (tearing all your skin off when you come off a bike) upon the chavs who stole it, but my team at work are far more creative. They said death, however messy, would be too easy, and I should be wishing uncomfortable and humiliating afflications on the delinquent thieves. My favourite offering so far is genital warts and piles - at the same time. And paralysed arms, so he can't scratch.
The bike was found at a nearby council estate called Phipps Bridge Estate - exactly where we told the cops it would be. After it got stolen, we traced some CCTV footage that showed the backs of the 2 kids wheeling it away, and which direction they were going. A local security guard near our complex told us about Phipps Bridge and how the path they were using led straight to the heart of the estate. We got Neutrino to drive us around the place to see if we could spot it, but of course, there are many places to hide a bike where we couldn't venture. I know there's not much the cops could have done, but it is quite frustrating to know that we knew where it was all along, gave them the info they'd need to track it and yet still nothing was done. Oh well.
The new bike is awesome; bigger, better and faster than the first edition, so Shoes and I are both thrilled despite the extra money we had to fork out for the incident. On Sunday we tested out our favourite new pastime, which goes something like this:
*Open Googlemaps
*Pick random place on map anywhere along the Thames
*Put postcode of nearby pub into GPS
*Get on bike and ride there as fast as possible!
It's so satisfying to get out of London for a bit, travel along country roads and most of all, spend a bit of one on one time together. Our house is like a cross between a train station and a refugee camp, and alone time is as rare as Manto Tshabalala-Msimang making sense (for my foreign readers: this is our particularly inept former Minister of Health, quite a feat amongst a gaggle of extremely inept Ministers; google her if you fancy a horrified chuckle).
I love my friends, but sometimes I forget how satisfying a weekend alone can be. This past weekend not a single person came over - not to pick up/drop off something, not to pop in for coffee or to say hi, not to watch a movie or share a few beers on a Friday night - NOTHING! It wasn't planned, it just happened that way. And do you know what I did? I spent the weekend cleaning my room, scrubbing down the bathroom, emptying all my cupboards and throwing away the massive collection of utter crap that we've collected over the years, arranging my shoes in neat rows and decorating my scrapbook. Oh yes, and riding on Sunday. That's it. And it was one of the best weekends I've had this year!
The bike was found at a nearby council estate called Phipps Bridge Estate - exactly where we told the cops it would be. After it got stolen, we traced some CCTV footage that showed the backs of the 2 kids wheeling it away, and which direction they were going. A local security guard near our complex told us about Phipps Bridge and how the path they were using led straight to the heart of the estate. We got Neutrino to drive us around the place to see if we could spot it, but of course, there are many places to hide a bike where we couldn't venture. I know there's not much the cops could have done, but it is quite frustrating to know that we knew where it was all along, gave them the info they'd need to track it and yet still nothing was done. Oh well.
The new bike is awesome; bigger, better and faster than the first edition, so Shoes and I are both thrilled despite the extra money we had to fork out for the incident. On Sunday we tested out our favourite new pastime, which goes something like this:
*Open Googlemaps
*Pick random place on map anywhere along the Thames
*Put postcode of nearby pub into GPS
*Get on bike and ride there as fast as possible!
It's so satisfying to get out of London for a bit, travel along country roads and most of all, spend a bit of one on one time together. Our house is like a cross between a train station and a refugee camp, and alone time is as rare as Manto Tshabalala-Msimang making sense (for my foreign readers: this is our particularly inept former Minister of Health, quite a feat amongst a gaggle of extremely inept Ministers; google her if you fancy a horrified chuckle).
I love my friends, but sometimes I forget how satisfying a weekend alone can be. This past weekend not a single person came over - not to pick up/drop off something, not to pop in for coffee or to say hi, not to watch a movie or share a few beers on a Friday night - NOTHING! It wasn't planned, it just happened that way. And do you know what I did? I spent the weekend cleaning my room, scrubbing down the bathroom, emptying all my cupboards and throwing away the massive collection of utter crap that we've collected over the years, arranging my shoes in neat rows and decorating my scrapbook. Oh yes, and riding on Sunday. That's it. And it was one of the best weekends I've had this year!
3 comments:
Ah so good to know I was missed ;-)
When I was 16, I caught the guy that stole my bike red handed. He was very close to 18 if not already. I had to "subdue" him, drag his ass to the nearest establishment with a phone (this was 1993, no mobiles then) and I kept him in check waiting for the police to come arrest him. After 1 hour and 3 calls, no police showed up. I had to drag his ass along with my bike to the police station, around 2km of walking I might add.
When we reached the police station they asked me, "So what do you want us to do?"
I told them, lock him up. They said no, he is underage and this is something small. They don't have time and they let him go!
Quiet weekends are indeed blissful...
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