A long day


Today was a very long, drawn-out day. This was partly because we didn’t sleep well – La Serpiente Aquatica Negra was up at 1:30 – but also because I had to get up at six to ride down to the parkrun at the East Coast. I was a bit sluggish and only managed a 20:45, well off my best time. Blame that on Japan and not getting much rest while worrying about moving house.

After the race, wife and child came down to meet me at Starbucks, and that meant I didn’t set off homewards on my bike until ten, which in turn meant I didn’t get home and washed up until eleven, at which point I had a nap. Somewhere along the line it got to 2pm but felt like 5, at after that the day just got slower and slower. I took our daughter out to see the chickens but they were all AWOL. We played with her Seattle Seahawks basketball for a while, and then I took her back home, about the time she spotted a cat sleeping in a bush and about the time I saw the corpse of a pigeon by the cat. And still it was only about 4.

Downstairs in the square it was line dancing Saturday. There is meant to be a lion dance every Saturday afternoon for the tourists, but all the lion dancers were probably busy elsewhere on the island, raking in cash. Our daughter likes to watch the lion dances so to console her, we went to get pizza and then came back along South Bridge Road. As we approached the Hindu temple, we passed eight or nine Indian guys on motorbikes, parked by the side of the road. They looked a bit odd; they were all on very tricked-out, expensive looking motorcycles: BMWs, big Japanese sportsbikes, some of them in full race replica livery. But the guys riding them were wearing jeans and the kind of crappy bike helmets you see on a young lad with a moped. They stood around, not doing anything for a long time before kicking their bikes into action. There was the loud sound of the apocalypse, of sheets of metal tearing in two, of possibly illegal exhausts as they revved up their engines, then rode about a hundred yards down the street while our daughter quivered in fear at the noise. So it turns out she won’t be attending any motor races in the immediate future.

The bikers came to a halt again and somebody filmed them, and we scarpered before it got all loud again. The evening wore on for another four hours, during which I packed a box of shoes and then searched the internet for nothing. And so to bed again. I worry that today I discovered the secret to eternal life, and that it involves as little going on of note as possible.


One response to “A long day”

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.