31 August - Almondsbury

Coo, just about made it for a journal entry in August.

The month has been pretty interesting:  'dinner party guest' on BBC Radio Bristol, on 7 August;  return to work on 16 August;  interview and photo shoot for the Sun on 20 and 27 August, with a view to a feature article within the next 6 weeks.

Return to work was not as bad as a I had dreaded - and it was good to have my first pay-slip for 2 1/2 years.  Even so, life for everyone at the university is uncertain at the moment due to reviews, re-structuring and cutbacks and so I shall just have to suck it and see as to what my future will be in this respect.  Rather interesting to see the outcome.

In the meantime, my daughter has just moved out of home, as forewarned before my return (but still weird, all the same, to have an empty bedroom!);  and my son would like to just up sticks and travel for a year (now, from where could such a notion have come?!), but staying put for the moment.

I have cycled to work a couple of times, but unwilling to do so in the rain, of which we have had a deal recently.  In two months I have only used one tank of petrol, which is quite satisfying.  And I finally have been able to stop my high-squeaky bike brakes from making that awful noise - by taking it to a helpful little bike shop guy, who quickly adjusted the pads and, hey presto!  no more noise.  This is both a big relief, but also a little surprising, considering I had had no joy from my bike shop, who just told me to get the wheels wet to stop them squeaking;  or from a big name bike shop nearby, who needed to know if the rims were ceramic or not before they could proceed to look at the bike;  or from some cycle workshop people during the bike film festival, who kindly made adjustments, but which did nothing to alleviate the noise.  So, thanks hugely, to Pete from Pete's Cycles, Thornbury;  it's a joy cycling again  :-)

I am receiving invitations  to give some talks, which is great.  I shall also be arranging another talk in my village, as there were a few people who were unable to attend the first one and others keep asking to hear about my trip. Usefully, I met recently a woman, Deborah, who, besides planning her own 2-year round-the-world from next May,  is an established speaker on her life as a Fleet Street photo-journalist and who gave me useful info on life as a speaker.

My book is progressing slowly - although I am enjoying writing it.

OK, well that's it for now - otherwise I shall be going over into September!