30% chance of traces of rain, max of 18d, yeah right ...

8 June - The sky looked ominously grey when I took Celeste out the front door but I didn’t pay it too much mind. The man had told me of a slight chance it would drizzle down a bit - there'd been a tiny bit of spittle last week so I wasn’t really expecting too much. Sometime around 12 after I’d headed back from a somewhat fruitful trip to the side it started to rain half heartedly - when I loaded up to go back over to the side it was pissing down and it didn’t stop for the rest of the day or night. The side is probably not the best place to be when its raining heavily - there's much more time between trips when you're getting wetter and wetter (until you can’t get any more wet) and colder and colder (and you can always get colder) - I used to prefer it because it meant less time getting in and out of the bag which just gets everything messed up (blackberry shorts out, radio falls apart and trips and manifests disintegrate) but I don’t think I quite hold that philosophy anymore - I was cold. Completely unprepared for it, of course, just shorts, singlet and novex jersey which meant when I was reallypumping up a hill I was okay but most of the time I was just miserable. Also had to be reallycarful about riding Celeste in the wet - i'm still not perfectly attuned to riding a fixie and the razor thin pizza cutter wheels mean a higher chance of havingher spin out from under me but no spillages thus far (except for yesterday's little fall but that was a pedal problem, not a riding problem). The rain scard some of the guys off today and we were down a few (only 9 bikers! however can we cope???) - Ryan had a flat and gave up and Ben cracked his frame in the morning, effectively cutting him off for the day. I told him he could borrow Baby blue for a short while before he got his own one back - i'm sure he'll be respectful of hm but I hope its ot too longbecause I don’t like the idea of not havinga backup when i'm still in learning mode on Celeste. Also, whilst the blackberry survived the day okay in the evening it appeard to have been f**kked up by the rain. I'd had my last physio appointment today and whilst there's a fair bit of discomfort I seem to have most of the movement in my wrist back - I think that’s as far as the Canadian government (... agency anyway) is going to go to aid me in my recovery - well, they did a fair amount, as good as any government and better than most. Sometime in the morning Scott disappeared off the airways and was replaced by a new guy, Rick, who seemed to be fairly good at what he does. I'm not sure ithis is a permanent change but of coure they'd never do anythingas drastic as actually telling us what was going on - if it is, i'm hardly going to cry about it - Scott's okay but I certainly haven’t developed a strong relationsip with him and I wouldn’t be devestattd by his absence.
Absolutely wrecked at the end of the day and could think of nothing but showering (until the hot water gave me third degree burns), eating (takeaway Stormin Norman burger - i've still got a tentative boycott but Frenchy wasn’t there today so I thought it was safe to get a hamburger without him putting his poppy hands all over it) and slumping on the couch watchinga crappy DVD (aeon flux which was not nearly as bad as I’d heard it was). Ben came over to take baby blue, Mat came home and got a lesson in Australian geography and Kevin came in and did whatever Kevin does ..