Third time lucky

Remember my witter about 'silly' cycle jerseys? No? It was the one with the photo of boobs. Ah, you remember now.

Anyhoo (as people don't actually say), in that post, I mentioned about ordering a Foska Kwik-E-Mart jersey from Evans Cycles.

As is customary in these affairs, I paid for the jersey and it arrived in the post. As is also customary in such situations, I wore this jersey while cycling (just the once), the hem unravelled and a long white thread tried to make its way into my gearing (thankfully failing to do so). Evans was phoned, apologies were made (by them, not me), the jersey was sent back (with me paying for the shipping), time was waited and another jersey (as if by magic) arrived in the post.

Again going with custom, I opened the package and looked at the jersey. This time, I didn't even need to put it on to see it wasn't good. Down the left side, a thread had been caught, pulled and left the jersey laddered/hitched up. I'm not sure what the actual expression is but hope my stumbling wordage gets you in the right ballpark. Oh and it had dirty dusty warehouse smudges on it but they were washable.

So, on the phone to Evans I went again and this time had a good whinge at them about having to spend so much on posting the jerseys back, driving to and from the post office etc. (although I'm not sure there actually as an 'etc.'). The nice chap from Evans told me to hang on to the faulty jersey (which is wearable but not of merchantable quality) and had another one (which he inspected beforehand) sent out to me.

The new jersey, so far, seems to be in good condition and has not fallen apart after one wear. We'll see how it survives a mild wash.

In summary, the lessons learned are; Evans Cycles eventually seems to sort problems out to customers' satisfaction and whinging at people is the best way to get results.

Onto other matters...

Hasn't this week been appalling! Being one who, whenever possible, doesn't cycle in the rain, I've been going spare. I've had a terrible case of cabin fever, sitting indoors getting gradually angrier and angrier about and at the weather.

The weather isn't a great thing to get angry at. There's never any satisfactory conclusion. I can be angry at it for rainy weeks, become friends again when the rain subsides and it'll still turn round and rain all over me without any concern for how it might make me feel.

I suppose it's better to direct one's anger at the weather than at other living beings. However, in writing that, my cabin fever has made me even more insufferable to live with than normal. It's amazing quite how depressed the inactivity was making me feel. Getting out for a quick (in terms of time, not my speed) ride yesterday was like opening a frustration valve.

By nature I'm a fairly lazy chap. I don't particularly enjoy exercise for exercise sake. In fact, if I perceived cycling as exercise and not an activity, I'm not sure I would enjoy it very much. Other than cycling, I haven't been doing much cardiovascular exercise and I miss it terribly when I'm housebound by the weather. I could (and should) use a treadmill, spinning bike, cross-trainer, rowing machine and suchlike and attempt to keep get fit that way but it's not something I derive much pleasure from and find it hard to motivate myself to partake in such activities. If I was more of a fan of banging Eurotechno, I might find it easier.

Thanks for reading and may the weather where you are be always sunny (although not really because that would probably lead to some terrible problems with crops, water supplies and all that auld caper).