Backhoe hoe hoe

December 24, 2025

Merry Festive Diggermas to all who celebrate

Digger adorned with fairy lights.

This year, like last, I’ve been getting a bit crafty with some of my gifts, which is as much for my benefit as the recipient’s, if I’m honest.

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Mrs Pepperpot wanted bird decorations for her minimalist Christmas tree and I spent a happy afternoon obliging.

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And Mr Pepperpot is finding driving his mobility scooter hard going with bare hands in this weather but doesn’t feel he’s got enough control with gloves on. It’s a well-kept secret in the knitting world, that fingerless gloves are actually really easy and quick to knit, but always look dead impressive when they’re done, so I sprang into action a couple of weeks ago and now I’m almost done. So that’s my Christmas Eve plans sorted out.

Hope you are all more organised and have everything under control …

And now, if you need me, I’ll be on the sofa, knitting furiously.

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That Christmas Spirit in Full

December 20, 2025

Coming out of the pub yesterday after an early evening drink, I was alarmed to reach the bike rack and find half the bikes on it skittled, including partially my own. Someone had been marking ‘Black Eye Friday‘ (no, I had never heard of this before yesterday either) by messing with the bikes, including, weirdly, removing my front light from my handlebars and my bottle from the bottle cage, but not making off with either, just scattering them around the place. They’d had a go at my pump too, but were clearly defeated by the concept of a velcro strap, and yet had somehow not taken my pannier bag off or my back light, and – the real bonus – not tried stamping on the wheels or causing any lasting damage.

My past London self is hyperventilating at this point at the fact that I leave all this stuff on my bike at all, let alone on the last Friday before Christmas, but that is – or was – one of the joys of Bigtown cycling: it’s just more convenient to put your bike lights on in daylight when you set off, rather than be fiddling around in the cold and the dark on your way home, so that’s what I do. And having a handy pump on the downtube is more convienient during hedgecutting season than having to rummage around in the bottom of the bag for it. And pannier bags are wonderful on bikes but a giant pain in the neck off them, so it’s easier to leave them on. All of which supposes your bike will be left in peace which, until yesterday, it always had been.

Some of this might be the fact that I’d parked it on the rack used a lot by the asylum seekers whose bikes do, sadly, attract a lot more unwelcome attention these days. Only on Wednesday we had been attempting to unpringle a back wheel on a bike that had been badly vandalised in the local park (possibly by an aesthete offended by what was objectively a truly terrible bike – one of those full suspension bike shaped objects made apparently of scaffolding poles and cheese – but its owner loved it and was insistent that we fix it if we could rather than swap it for something simultaneously less heavy and more solid as we’d offered). So maybe I should be warned. And at least relieved that the mischief in question was so half hearted. I think I preferred it when the run up to Christmas was all carol singing and mindless consumerism, rather than mayhem and vandalism. But that’s the modern world for you I suppose.

Anyway, Black Eye Friday or no, it’s not Christmas around here until the Festive Digger appears (I can’t believe I haven’t blogged about this yet but apparently not) – a fairy-light festooned JCB that gets parked on the outskirts of Bigtown right before Christmas itself (presumably until then it’s busy doing digging things). It hasn’t been sighted yet this year, but it should be arriving soon. And then it really will be Christmas.

And how are you celebrating this year?

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Sneaking Out …

December 13, 2025

… between weather warnings yesterday, with glasses-snatching Storm Bram finally subsided, and rain all weekend in the forecast, I managed to cycle down to Bigtown and IT support call to the Pepperpots in what counts as a lovely day in December in these parts.

Partially blue skies and flooded fields

There’s an inspirational poster version of this post in which I claim that it’s the endless days of wind and rain and grey gloom that make weather like this all the sweeter, but I’m not sure I buy that.

Perhaps if we promise to be REALLY REALLY appreciative of the nice days when they come, the Weather Gods will only grant us an week of rain between them, instead of an entire fortnight as seems to be the pattern now.?

Sunshine showing through bare treas on a winter day

(Braces for whatever punishment they deem fit in response to this barefaced cheek)

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You Wait Ages for One Blog Post …

December 10, 2025

… and then two come along at once. Because no sooner had I pressed post on yesterday’s offering than I remembered that I needed a carrot from the garden and headed out into the teeth of Storm Bram to pull one up. It was no weather for cycling, that was for sure, with the wind apparently gusting over 60 mph, but I didn’t think any harm could come of going into my own back garden – even after I’d had to wrestle with the back door just to get it open against the wind. And then, just as I was surveying the bed with the carrots in it to find a likely victim, the wind snatched my glasses off my face and they were gone.

How gone, I didn’t realise until I staggered back to the back door, wrestled with it once more to get it open, got my spare glasses (which are made of sturdier stuff) and went back out to retrieve my main pair. By this time it was starting to feel a little bit scary just to be outside, with the wind buffeting my back every time I turned it, and everything in the garden whipping itself into a frenzy in the howling gale. I didn’t want to go back in without my glasses because they were a) expensive lenses (ultra thin due to my general blind-as-a-batness) and b) hard to replace frames. Indeed, the only reason why I was wearing a pair so loose and easily snatched by the wind was because the frames I favour (padless metal bridges) are hard to find. The last time I was in this situation I let the frames get so loose they ended up flying off my face while I was on my bike and being run over by a tractor. But at least I could actually find them even if they didn’t really function that well as glasses after that. But this time my poor old glasses could be anywhere. I’ve searched the garden and as much of the field downwind from the house as I could manage in the fading light. and had no luck They are just too small to be easily seen and apparently light enough that they could have ended up almost anywhere.

For now I’m having to do with my spares, but they’re no longer really spares as they have a different, stronger prescription for use on my bike, while the ones that were taken were optimised for working at the computer (and being extremely comfortable). So I will need to get some replacements as soon as I can. Some concentrated googling last night has tracked down some frames that look like they might suit my needs (for ‘only’ £180) and I suppose after ten years I can hardly complain at needing to replace them. But the lenses will be at least that and more – and then probably need to be replaced after a year as my precription is still apparently changing.

Long long time readers may recall that when I first started growing vegetables, I kept a spreadsheet of my profit and loss which revealed mostly that you’re never going to save much money growing your own veg, but if you don’t go mad with the seed orders and fancy tools, you can probably break even, which is more than you can say for most hobbies. But that was before I headed out into the garden to dig up approximately 20p’s worth of carrot … and lost myself 400 quids’ worth of eyewear.

Broken flag pole

Oh, and a flagpole. But I’m not going to shed any tears for that.

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Holding my Head High

December 9, 2025

I doubt I’m the only one who’s struggling with the current run up to winter – although I know that it hasn’t actually rained every single day since the end of September, it’s starting to feel that way and its getting a bit relentless. Added to which generalised grimness for me has been the recurrence of my shoulder pain, although now the most acute pain seems to have migrated from my right to my left shoulder, combined with a lot of neck tension and stiffness. Having spent a long time following the normal protocol of hoping it would get better, trying random exercises off the internet, and wondering if it was just my age and I should get used to it, I finally bit the bullet and went to see the guy everyone recommends for miraculously fixing shoulders and backs.

After an hour of having my back and neck massaged (nice), cracked (sort of OK but accompanied by involuntary swearing on my part) and my left shoulderblade put into a more conventional position (bloody miraculous), I was sent home with a set of exercises, which I have been dutifully doing night and day, and a newfound ability to move my head around. Since then, I have been oscillating between being completely pain free, and back to square one, with the exercises either sorting things out or not, apparently at random.

From what I can tell, years of bad habits mean I am causing myself problems by doing any of the largely unavoidable activities of sitting at my computer, sleeping, and simply having a head, as there doesn’t seem to be any comfortable way any more to carry the damn thing about on top of my neck, which I’m now starting to think is as poorly a thought-through arrangement as the human knee (if the intelligent design people would like to get in touch and explain … actually on second thoughts, don’t bother). It think the problem is that I have started to unlearn the habit of poking my head forward, as I have been doing for most of my adult life, without yet learning a more sustainable arrangement, with the net result that after 55 years of walking about this planet reasonably competently without giving my head much thought, I find myself constantly aware of what I’m doing with it and trying to do it better. Sadly there doesn’t seem to be any way to take the stupid thing off and walk about with it under your arm. Maybe that’s an upgrade for humans 2.0.

A few months ago I’d have added ‘riding a bike’ to the list of problematic activities, but I do feel that since I switched to the Thorn, I’m at least not aggravating my neck while riding, even with my head still sitting on my shoulders (although imagine the room I’d get from drivers if it was under my arm…) It doesn’t quite give me the queenly posture of a fully upright Dutch bike, but it’s upright enough that it’s possible to avoid the whole head poking thing, at least when I remember. And it’s something of a novelty to be able to turn my head enough to see behind me too.

Obviously, the answer is to spend more time on my bike and less at my desk – except that (after a few months of drought) the work seems to be back, and the weather is, as I mentioned at the start, uninviting. So I shall keep on with the exercises and with periodic visits to mr miracle man, and meanwhile if you meet me in person and I seem distracted at all, it’s because I’m trying to remember how this bloody ‘neck’ thing is supposed to work.

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Seasonally Maladjusted

November 25, 2025

It’s fair to say that when I set out for the Pepperpots’ house this afternoon, I was not feeling the whole bike love. Or even any leaving the house love, if I’m honest. It wasn’t raining and it wasn’t quite as baltically cold as it has been in the past week – it was just a bit cold, a bit blustery and very very Novemberish* and I didn’t particularly want to be out in it. This is partly a heat pump side effect – it’s just too pleasant indoors – and partly because I just don’t particularly like winter and it’s not even started yet and just generally bah.

And then the sun came out and did this.

Late afternoon sunshin picking out trees and a farm under clouds

And I’m moderately cheered. Two cheers for nature (but, frankly, winter can still do one)

We kind of need all the transcendent afternoon light we can get at the moment. I haven’t posted about it on the blog but those of you who know me or are connected via social media will know that my niece, Zoe, is on trial at the moment as one of the ‘Filton 24’, having broken into an arms factory back in August 2024 (and having been in remand on prison ever since). It’s been an eye opening experience for all of us, not least hearing about her experiences of the prison service first hand (which combines elements of pure farce with disturbing flashbacks to my own boarding school experience). Now that the trial has started, it’s been equally eye opening to compare the version of the trial as reported in the media (if it’s even covered at all) with my sister’s own dispatches from the court all last week. I actually have quite a lot of time for the ‘mainstream media’ on the whole, especially in contrast to getting your news from whatever snippets scrolls past on your social media feed, but (as I’ve discovered whenever cycling policy is covered even by otherwise sensible people), once you know a bit about the subject yourself, you can see the limitations – of time, space, knowledge – more clearly. I don’t intend to get into the rights and wrongs of the case on here, but if you have only heard about this case in passing or on the news, then I would strongly recommend reading the trial coverage from Real Media (you can read about the first week here). They have their own angle on the story, of course, and one that not everyone will agree with, but at least they are including enough detail in their daily reports not just of the prosecution evidence but also the cross examination of the witnesses, to allow you to make up your own mind.

Road with bare hedges on either side, caught by the afternoon sun.

* I can’t find the original comment now, but at this time of year I am always – I think – grateful to the commenter who pointed me to this particular seasonal gem. Anyone quoting Keats and his season of effing mellow fruitfulness take note.

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Wake Up and Smell the Coffee

November 20, 2025

Tune up your tiniest violins, folks, for with the world rapidly turning into a binfire at home and abroad, here at Town Mouse HQ we are wrestling with that most middle class of middle class problems: the coffee blend that we have been drinking in one form or another since – jeeze, how am I this old – approximately 1995, has been withdrawn from sale and we cannot find anything we like as much.

Screen shot of Cafe Direct Intense Roast Ground Coffee, out of stock

Cafe Direct Intense has been our brand since you had to go to your local Oxfam shop to buy it and over time we’ve followed its evolution as it’s got more mainstream and actually been found in supermarkets, although Tesco’s policy of never consistently keeping it in stock meant we eventually started buying it in bulk online. The one we like has been rebranded a couple of times (its latest incarnation has been called ‘Thrive’) and recently underwent a bit of shrinkflation, but we’ve always been able to find it and keep a supply at home. But a few months ago, when we went to reorder, we discovered that Cafe Direct have gone upmarket with their coffees and no longer do that blend, and we’ve been searching for a substitute ever since.

This has proved a little painful, not least because once you purchase a pack of coffee and discover it’s no good, then you have to finish drinking it. And then you have to remember which ones you’ve tried and not buy them again, hence our extensive tasting notes on the ones that haven’t hit the mark.

Post it notes listing brands of coffee and our verdict, including 'nope' and 'tastes funny'.

We’ve now pretty much explored all the fair trade options readily available in Bigtown, and found that most of the similar strength coffees available are more bitter and just generally harsher, and have all sorts of other flavours which I’m sure are wonderful but they Are Not the Same. I’m not going to pretend that it was the most gourmet of blends – it wasn’t pure arabica but mixed in a bit of robusta, which gave it a bit more body, and it is stronger than the real coffee connossieurs would recommend. But when you’ve been drinking something for over a quarter of a century, then that is the something that you want to drink, and we would just like it, or something close to it, back.

A few months ago, hoping to find someone in the same boat who might have found a reasonable alternative, I did some more googling and – glory be – came across an online seller who still had some in stock, so I did the reasonable thing and ordered 18 packs which pretty much cornered the market (my tea drinking friends were startled to learn this wasn’t even three months’ supply). And now we’ve drunk all that and the magic supplier is also out of stock, and we’re back on the hunt for our morning brew.

So hit me up with your coffee recommendations people. Especially if you too have been a devotee of this one and have found an acceptable substitute. Because, trivial an issue as it is, life really is too short to drink the wrong coffee.

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Looking on the Brightish Side

November 11, 2025

There’s nothing pleasant, in my opinion, about cycling in the rain, especially in November, with a yellow weather warning and no window forecast in the weather all day.

But there is, just, something pleasant about having cycled in the rain in November, and come home damp, and got changed into dry things, and knowing that even though the rain may be set to persist for the rest of the day, you don’t have to go out in it again.

Although this works better if you remember you need to go out and dig up the carrots for supper from the garden before you’ve got warm and dry and changed, rather than shortly after.

View from Ward Law looking out over blue skies and green fields with some flooding in the fields below.

(photo from Saturday to reassure readers – and myself – that it hasn’t been raining solidly for the entire week, and because who needs more photos of the rain?)

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One Day I Will Learn …

November 6, 2025

… not to energetically taunt the Weather Gods by revelling in all the additional gardening time I was enjoying, which of course has meant that the last two days have been both busy with (sadly unpaid) activities I had to actually attend in person, and extremely, relentlessly wet.

That’s meant a lot of climbing in and out of various not-actually-as-it-turns-outwaterproofs and attempting to dry my dwindling stock of usable gloves in between outings – something which would be more effective if it wasn’t so mild at the moment that our heating is not actually coming on.

Yesterday, after turning up twice in a row at the Pepperpots in full-blown drowned rat mode, and having turned all their radiators into impromptu drying racks for the latest installment of wet gear, I was forced to admit defeat and borrow a pair of gloves from Mrs P (of all the less pleasurable aspects of cycling in all weathers, attempting to put on a damp pair of gloves is right up there alongside the way drivers’ brains apparently melt when it rains). Fortunately, although she’s clearly as prone to losing gloves as I am, she is much more even handed about which ones she loses, so I was able to assemble a not-quite-matching (but rhyming) pair for yesterday’s ride home which was in the end merely damp.

Clothes drying on racks and radiators

And how is your November shaping up?

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Death, Taxes and …

November 3, 2025

In recent months, I’ve found myself grappling with a novel problem – or at least one I haven’t had to deal with for a long time. After more than a decade of freelance editing and often having more work than I can reasonably deal with, there’s suddenly very little in the pipeline. Indeed, two jobs that were in the pipeline have been cancelled, another won’t start until the new year, and then after that there’s just the regular job I do each spring in prospect, assuming even that goes ahead.

All of this is potentially a bit worrying, especially in a world where AI is apparently coming for everybody’s job, even if I thought I’d get a few years more out of my editing work before the robots take over. But then again, having been flat out busy for the first half of the year I have actually earned enough already this year that we’re not going to starve for a while yet, so I’m saving that worry for later. For now, I’m reminding myself that it’s been a long-held ambition to find myself put on gardening leave and here I effectively am. Being not busy after so long a period of being nothing but busy takes a bit of a mental shift, but I am trying to remind myself how much I complain when I am busy and learn to lean into it.

There are a lot of things I can potentially do with my unwarranted free time: writing, of course, although I don’t seem to have the stamina to do that for more than an hour or two per day; some Pepperpot duties; and cycle campaigning (at least at a local level). Normally given a few weeks without work I start another cycle campaign and so far I’ve mostly held off from that (although if we could find ourselves a suitable building, the refugee bike workshop might end up turning into a full-blown bike project). Instead, I’ve actively tried to embrace doing things that are really just for my own benefit: craft projects, reading more books and, yes, some actual gardening.

Obviously this would be more rewarding if it was spring, but we take our leisure time where we may, and autumn holds plenty of opportunities for purposeful puttering in the garden – leaf clearing, putting the summer veg plots to bed, bulb planting and the ultimate end towards which all gardening tends in the end – compost wrangling.

Two large compost bays with more compost beside it

We’re going to need another bay aren’t we?

It may not be all that productive and not at all lucrative but at least this makes the robin very happy.

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As, despite all the foregoing, it does me.

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