The three motorised things in my life … the covered Vespa (which I don’t ride at the moment), the Töffli and the lawnmower

Look at how shiny the bike is now that Rene cleaned it with the jet hose! Some paint came off as well, but hey … it’s clean …

Turned up a bit late for work today. Not because I had the first-day-back blues, but because I didn’t open my eyes. Silly me.

Jumped excitedly on Bruce the Töffli, keen to see how smooth the ride would be after his service and … spluttered to a stop after 200m. Luckily I was still close to home, so I pushed the bike back, tried unsuccessfully to start it again, accepted defeated and walked to the bus.

When I came home, I saw Rene and he said, “Oh yes, I turned the petrol switch to ‘off’ while you were on holidays so the petrol didn’t leak out.” Ahhhh yes … the petrol lever … located on the right side under the tank. If it’s pushed all the way forward, it turns off the flow, if it’s facing straight down, the flow is open, and if you push it backwards, it goes to the reserve tank, which I learnt about the hard way.

You’d think I would have thought to have a look, seeing as it’s caught me out once before? Ah, no. It seems my knowledge of bike mechanics needs a lot more work. But the short ride I did, to get the petrol flowing, felt great and the speedometer works now too! Woo hoo!

At least I can count the 40 minutes of walking to and from the bus as my exercise for the day! I walked past the corn fields, which have grown huge in the past two weeks. I always love seeing the ‘hair’ on the corn. A few years ago I saw it when it was purple and red, which reminded me of punk grandmas with bad frizzy perms. Today, the ‘hair’ was burnt brown. I wonder if it will be a good crop this year because it’s been so hot and dry, or if that makes the corn not as sweet?

You my, brown haired corn. Singing tra la la la … (apologies, Van Morrison)

The grass is turning green again too

After breathing a sigh of relief about the bike, I wrote a review of the first of two books I read on holidays, Bruno, Chief of Police which you can read here if you fancy.

And then I pottered around the garden for a little while. The gladioli are blooming and my geranium planter boxes on the upstairs balcony are going gangbusters.

The glads in bloom … to the right is a small patch where the glads from last year died, and then a few more orange ones are blooming

Healthy! The two geranium pots add some much needed colour to the brown exterior

Wishing you a wonderful day.