WEEK 1: Day 4: The Agony Continues
Headwinds. In every direction! Is that natural? Or is it another example of the deleterious effects that large conurbations have on the local climate? Your average metropolitan area of between 2 to 5 hundred thousand people typically increases local air temperature by as much as 2 degrees! This is more than enough to create interesting and unique weather patterns in the locality, such as fecking bastard headwinds!
Another fascinating and extremely aggravating feature of this local climate is the daily pattern of wind changes. In the morning I travel generally North East into town. In the evening I return South West to the surrounding urban sprawl. Unfortunately, the wind adopts an exactly opposite routine. Maybe it works nights? Maybe it's the graduating temperature inversion across the Cheshire Gap between the Pennines and Snowdonia. Maybe the wind is just a contrary bastard that likes to really piss me off! At the risk of anthropomorphising what amounts to nothing more than a pressure differential, I'm going with the last option because this allows me to Curse the Wind in all manner of creative and debauched ways, when I'm not suffering from oxygen deprivation, that is.
My suffering was magnified by the fact that 5 minutes before I left it had been raining heavily, so I donned my cumbersome water proof trousers in addition to my customary light weight Regata jacket. The entire trip home was bone dry. Not only that, but my waterproof trousers are very bulky, so you can imagine the effect on my aerodynamic profile! If Mr. Poncey Wannabe Professional Cycling Git had showed up today, I think he'd have escaped me. That would have been a severe blow to my male pride. However, as it was, Mr. Poncey Git turned out to be a Pussy Git as he was too cowardly to venture out in conditions of horizontal rain and gale force winds. This boosted my machismo a few notches, which was a good enough reason to yet again triumphantly collapse in a sweaty, agonised puddle in the back garden when I got home.
Another fascinating and extremely aggravating feature of this local climate is the daily pattern of wind changes. In the morning I travel generally North East into town. In the evening I return South West to the surrounding urban sprawl. Unfortunately, the wind adopts an exactly opposite routine. Maybe it works nights? Maybe it's the graduating temperature inversion across the Cheshire Gap between the Pennines and Snowdonia. Maybe the wind is just a contrary bastard that likes to really piss me off! At the risk of anthropomorphising what amounts to nothing more than a pressure differential, I'm going with the last option because this allows me to Curse the Wind in all manner of creative and debauched ways, when I'm not suffering from oxygen deprivation, that is.
My suffering was magnified by the fact that 5 minutes before I left it had been raining heavily, so I donned my cumbersome water proof trousers in addition to my customary light weight Regata jacket. The entire trip home was bone dry. Not only that, but my waterproof trousers are very bulky, so you can imagine the effect on my aerodynamic profile! If Mr. Poncey Wannabe Professional Cycling Git had showed up today, I think he'd have escaped me. That would have been a severe blow to my male pride. However, as it was, Mr. Poncey Git turned out to be a Pussy Git as he was too cowardly to venture out in conditions of horizontal rain and gale force winds. This boosted my machismo a few notches, which was a good enough reason to yet again triumphantly collapse in a sweaty, agonised puddle in the back garden when I got home.
posted by Mike Ranson at 7:59 pm
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