(music) #1214 - Bikes - Monday Boring Objects - Let Me Bore You To Sleep (14th October 2024)

Hello and welcome to Let Me Bore You To Sleep. Today is Boring Monday. No, Boring Monday's Objects.

Objects? Monday's Boring Objects or Boring Objects Monday? Monday Boring Objects. Something like that, anyway. And please only listen when you can safely close your eyes.

My name is Jason Newland. My website is jasonnewland.com. All my recordings are on there. Every time I do a new one I upload it.

So you can download all six versions of the recording. Also the, I make a video every day as well. Whenever I'm making a recording that is 10 hours long.

It's on YouTube and it's a dark screen. So the first 10 seconds there's an image and then it goes to black screen. So you can watch the video at night and not be disturbed.

By the shining light of the mobile phone or whatever device you're using. And that's it really. Yeah, I started doing six versions of the recording.

A little bit overkill but hey. And so there's three versions without music. Three versions with background music.

And go to, you can find the information about the background music on my website. Just click on background music and it'll show you the details. In fact, let me have a look.

Let me have a look. Jason Newland. Where is it? Yeah, background music.

So it's copyright free. It's deep relaxation. Kevin MacLeod.

Incompetech.com. License under Creative Commons by attribution 3.0 license. Creativecommons.org forward slash licenses forward slash by forward slash 3.0. Yeah, that was interesting. So I use the same song every time.

As I said, it's copyright free. So you got the one without music to start with. Which is a link for the recording.

Then there's one, a five hour version, 10 hour version without music. Then there's one with music. And then a five hour and 10 hour version with music.

The longer ones also have counting down, positive affirmations, body scans, stuff like that. For like five to 10 hours. So yeah.

It's taken me so long for that introduction. It's now time to say goodbye. So Monday, was it Monday the 14th of October, it's 10.36 in the morning and I need to think of a subject to talk about.

What subject can I talk about? I have to think of something. I did kind of like a kind of boring objects ish one on Saturday, but it didn't. I'm not sure what I ended up talking about.

So let me think. Yeah, talk about bikes, bicycles. Yeah, bikes, pedal bikes, or any kind of bike really.

So my first memory of a bicycle was when I lived in the kid's home, the children's home. There was a massive roundabout in the garden. I want to say roundabout like the, do you know, it was a huge building.

And when you went in, there was this big bit of grass that was in kind of like a roundabout basically, and the cars would go around it. So I think there was this like little pedal bike, but with not like a proper bike, but you know, one with like three wheels, the toddlers kind of ride or little kids ride. And I don't think it was actually owned by anybody.

We just shared it and played on it. And I think that was that was the case with a lot of the toys. There wasn't a lot of toys, but you know, it was just shared stuff.

Didn't kind of have her own stuff. I think the only thing I owned that I remember was a book. A Jackanory book, which is what I kind of used to really learn to read properly.

So, so I was 23 at this time. And so yeah, that was my first memory of a bike. Now, I don't know if I rode the bike or I watched someone else ride the bike.

I can't remember. But I do kind of remember this like metal frame thing that couldn't fall over. Well, it could fall over, but you know, it was basically, I mean, if you if you rode right into the roundabout, it could you could get it to topple over that.

Or if you push someone that was riding it into the roundabout or into the wall. But it's that's kind of very vague memories of that. However, I mean, this is still a vague memory.

I mean, I'm going back now. My next memory is the summer 1977 where we'd moved from the kids, me and my three brothers, so two brothers, we moved from the children's home in Southend called Nazareth House. Check it out, baby.

There's a lot of information about that on in the newspaper archives. So I went to, we moved into the house where my dad lived with his new wife. He'd only been married a year.

So that I just, that must have been such a shock to the system to suddenly have three kids, one, nearly seven, nine and 11. That must have been a yeah. Wow.

I can't even imagine that. Anyway, we got bikes for, I don't know if it was for our birthdays. I think it might just been we just got gifts.

They just gave us bikes, bought us bikes. I've never had a bike before on my own. I've never ridden a bike with two wheels before.

You know, basically the one that the kids own, you could go to sleep on it and not fall off. I can say it's like a hammock, but it was nothing like a hammock. That would be a weird, a weird kind of comparison.

But then I suppose you could have it on the beach like a hammock. Then if you're going to go that way, then you could say anything that's on the beach is like a hammock. So what a boat is like a hammock.

It's kind of shaped similar, isn't it? A sunbathe is like a hammock. A seagull like a hammock. Sand is like a hammock.

I mean, you know, perhaps I should stop now. The wind is like a hammock. The wind, you don't really have a wind.

We do have a wind on the beach, don't you? The sun is like a hammock. Seaweed is like a hammock. Okay, so we get these bikes.

My oldest brother knew how to ride a bike. So he didn't need help learning. But me and my other brother didn't know how to ride a bike.

Never, never sat on a bike with two wheels before. Not sure if I'd even seen a bike with two wheels before. So here I am, I'm like seven, maybe just before I'm seven years old.

And it's like, wow, what is this thing? Is it a spaceship? And they thought I was joking. They laughed like, well, I don't know what it is. What is it? It's some kind of contraption.

I don't know. Is it, is it connected to electricity and you power it by pedaling? So you understand electricity, but you don't understand about a bike. What kind of child are you? Okay, all right, I'm making it up.

Don't remember the bike. I think it might have been a grifter. And so my brother, obviously we had different sizes.

I struggled to, yeah, I think the grifters were good because they didn't have a bar in the middle, which meant you could get, if you were short, it's basically like what I say now is not supposed to be offensive. But you know, women, women, in the old days, they used to have women's bikes. Men's bikes and women's bikes and the women's bikes were comfortable.

They're comfortable seats and the bar in the middle where you have to, it didn't have a bar. You could just put your leg through. Now, I don't know if that was something to do with etiquette, you know, hundreds of years ago when bikes were made, like, I don't know.

But having, they are much easier to ride. The ones where you just put your leg through to the pedal rather than have to put all the way around over. It's a very uncomfortable design.

But this bike, I think the grifter is the one I had, just put your leg through. Which meant, if the good thing about it is if you're not tall enough, or you don't necessarily feel confident on there, it's easy just to get down and put your feet on the floor. There's no bar stopping you.

There's no bar that's going to prevent your crotch from going down even further. That makes sense. So, it, yeah, I definitely preferred those type of bikes.

Now, when, it was still the summer, so it might have been my birthday. I might have got the bike for my birthday because my birthday is August. But my, yeah, I'm not sure.

Because back in them days, the summer seemed to last longer. They seem to, but from what I understand, kind of the, you know, the 75, 76, 77, have very hot summers. Some of the hottest summers on record.

Partly making that up, but I think it is true as well. I think it was 75 or 76, which was the hottest summer in the history of this country. Like, I mean, continuously.

There's, I think they went, they said like 100 days without rain or something like that. I mean, that's, you know, we rarely, it's usually the other way around. We rarely go 100 days without rain.

Isn't it weird? It sounds, it's the same sentence, but it sounds different. It went 100 days without rain, but we rarely go, these days, go 100 days without rain. Every day, that is.

Yeah, I suppose that makes sense. I say every day. We rarely go 100 days.

We rarely go five, six days with sun. I don't know. Anyway, and the bike, I don't remember the colour.

I think it was yellow. And I didn't know how to ride it. I thought the design was a bit rubbish.

To be fair, I thought, I mean, I didn't say anything out loud, but I was thinking about my dad, you cheapskate. Why couldn't you buy a bike with all the wheels? It's supposed to have three wheels, because that's what I knew in my brain. That's what I knew.

I knew that bikes had three wheels, because that's what I was, that I'd seen before. I was like, cutting corners at this point. What's it going to be like when we get a house? I was very practical back then.

And I thought, surely, what's the point in travelling in something that you can't stop? Can you imagine cars, but you were never able to stop the car? Every time you stopped your car, you'd have to quickly jump out and balance it and try and hold on to it, you know, traffic lights and stuff. That's with bikes, isn't it? You can't, if it doesn't stay upright, then that is a design flaw in my mind.

Still, I still think that.

If it doesn't stand up on its own while you're seated, then there's something wrong, isn't there? There's a reason chairs have four legs, because otherwise they wouldn't stand up. If there was three legs, you'd have to balance, and that would be difficult. And how relaxed could you ever really get with a three-legged chair? Now, I'm not being discriminatory here when I say that.

There's nothing wrong with three-legged chairs, and they're equal to four-legged chairs. I'm just saying that, like, from practicality, it would make sense for a bike, really, to have four wheels, I would say, but at least three wheels. But, you know, someone probably in their mind thought, well, no, this doesn't look groovy enough.

It's not fashionable enough. But if they'd have just stuck it with the three wheels, and then everyone, that's all they'd know. Or four wheels, even.

It's a form of transport. It's not, it's, for me, it never was kind of a way to attract attention. And it was like getting from one place to another.

Why don't they have tops as well? You're getting rained on. You can't balance the thing if you stop. And it's cold.

Why don't they have cars for kids? Not fast cars, but just a car. That goes maybe five miles an hour. And they, and if you see a little car as well, so it has to be little, painted pink or something, or, you know, just the adults know what it is.

And anyone in an adult car has to kind of just give them, give their way to it. And just be careful. That way the kids don't get rained on.

Because, you know, doing a paper round, it's not fun getting soaking wet, coming home, then having to, you know, be soaking wet and go get all changed, go to school, get soaking wet again, going to school. And then just as your clothes are drying, you're going home and getting soaking wet, and then you're getting changed and you're going out to do a paper round again and getting soaking wet.

If you've got two paper rounds, one in the morning and one in the evening.

Which I did have at one point. I had more money when I had a paper round. I did.

I had more spending money back then. I used to buy books. I went through this little phase when I was working in the bakehouse, the restaurant bakery part.

This used to be Saturday, Sunday mornings. And I think it was during the summer, and I'd work every day, and I'd come home and I'd buy some top trumps. I got addicted to these top trump packs, and they were so random.

There's cars, helicopters, all different types. And I don't know why, but I just had to buy them. And I ended up buying about 15 different packs, but I had no one to play them with.

So I don't know why I got them. I mean, I did, you know, I did ask, did you want to, I remember asking my brother, like, do you want to play top trumps? And he said, no, I don't like you, don't want you near me. Oh, wait a minute, that was my dad.

No, I said, no one wanted to play top trumps. Top trumps, top trumps. And then when I eventually did find someone to play it, I realised that I didn't want to play it, because it was boring.

But he liked it, and he wanted to play it all the time. And it was like, oh, it's one of those things, like, I wish I'd never mentioned it now. So I, with the bike, see, I'm very good at coming back to the subject.

I actually impress myself sometimes. I do. I find it, I don't know about you, but I think it's quite impressive that I'm able to keep coming back to the subject quite effortlessly.

And not only that, I don't brag about it, I don't keep mentioning how well I'm doing. And although I am doing really well, you know, don't keep going on, I just, just mildly step back into the subject again and continue. It's like a really, I don't know, very, very simple flow, kind of easing in, so that you wouldn't even notice that I'd strayed off and I came back.

You know, like I'd gone off talking about top trumps and working, doing a paper round, and no one wanted to play with me. And then when I did find someone plays with me, I didn't want to play anymore, because they kept winning. I mean, because I didn't like it anymore.

And I just ease back into the subject effortlessly. So no one would even notice that I'd strayed off the subject. And that's a skill.

It's a skill, ladies and gentlemen, that is a skill. And I don't like to mention it very often. But so my, I had a bike, the first was seven, seven.

But I couldn't ride it. Because every time I got on it, it fell fell over. And I was like, what's the point of this? What is the point? Well, honestly, it should just stay and you might say, well, you've been going on about this bike should be should just be able to balance and yeah, but I still feel that way.

700 years later, I still feel that way. And hasn't changed. You know, I still go for the same type of woman that went for when I was 10.

Which sounds weird, but I really liked older women back then. Just you know, let's just like put that straight. And honestly, what was the name that I really liked? Was that woman that played a skeleton in that horror movie? Oh, no.

Oh, yeah. Miss. What's her name? Murder, she wrote woman.

Oh, I used to fancy her. Jessica. Or it's just, you know, I knew what I wanted when I was 10.

And Jessica. Jessica is who I wanted. I just just, I fancied her so much.

But at the same time, I don't know if I don't want to actually spend time with her. Because I'd be a bit worried. Because it's a bit like, you know, if you date, I don't know, an airline pilot.

And always off somewhere, you know, always like, you might not get to see them so often, or because they'll be flying to another country or, or if you was to date someone, you know, in a in the police service or someone, and yet they might get called out. You know, you'd be having a restaurant meal, and I have to go because, you know, there's an emergency or whatever.

Like, oh, okay.

I mean, that'd be a similar thing with Jessica. For murder, she'd just be, is it Jessica? Fletcher, Jessica Fletcher? It'd be a similar thing, wouldn't it? It's like, should we? Sure, do you want me to run you a bath? I know you can't go in there. Why is that? Because I found a body in there.

Like, what can't we go anywhere if I'm finding corpses? This is ridiculous. So yeah, see, Jessica Fletcher, I'm pretty sure it was Jessica Fletcher. Oh, I mean, she was 90 then.

She was, I used to love that show. What was the tune? But she wrote, was that the Smurfs? That might have been the Smurfs. So I, I just had this idea that, like, bikes ease back into it effortlessly.

They should be able to, should be able to just balance. And I said that to my dad. I said, look, not being funny, mate, but you know, so far you've been doing all right.

You know, you ticked a few boxes. We've moved here. I like your beard.

I've got to admit, I do like your beard. I like a man with a beard. Might sound strange coming from a seven-year-old, but there's safety.

I feel safe with you. And also the, what's his name? Adams. Remember the big beardy man with the bear? He was on TV and he was very popular back then.

And giant, then you got giant haystacks. He had a beard. So there's a lot of safety in beards, I kind of felt, I don't know, maybe.

And he said, what are you going on about? I said, I'm just trying to explain something to you. Please don't interrupt again. I said, so dad, listen, a lot of things have gone well.

You know, you've got a set of that place. So it's nice. We're not living with the nuns anymore.

Do I miss them? No. So what's next? Oh yeah. So you got a beard.

That's good. I mean, it's not, it's not important necessarily, but please don't ever shave it off. He did shave it off, you know? Yeah.

A year later, shaved it off. Things weren't the same after that. I mean, it might seem superficial, but that beard, there was something about that beard that when he shaved it off, something changed.

Yeah, I don't know. He's got a beard again now. And that, that, I kind of got that little feeling back again for him.

Just that like, oh, because he always shaved all the way through pretty much since the age of eight until a couple of years ago. Clean shaven. And then he grew a beard during a period when we weren't allowed out.

So he grew a beard. He just decided to grow a beard just for the fun of it. And which I say, if you're growing a beard for fun, you need to find yourself a hobby.

And he didn't like that when I said it. I was just joking, but hey, I mean, there is some truth in that, I suppose. And then he shaved it off.

And now last time I saw him, he had a beard again. And it just softens him. I don't know why, just something about it.

Because now he looks like Father Christmas. Or some might use the name Santa Claus. But Father Christmas is the correct one.

And so it looks like Santa now. And let's face it, there is no baby Santa. That's what Christmas is about, isn't it? So it's a really kind of, I don't know, it's something special.

And you might think, well, is that why I've got a beard? And not really. I don't know. Why have I got a beard? I suppose I've had it.

I'll tell you part reason why I've got a beard. It's because when I was young, I couldn't grow a beard. And when I was young, young, I mean, someone say, yeah, but you're only nine.

Why did you want a beard? I wanted a beard. It's none of your business why I wanted a beard. But I did want a beard.

And just because I was nine, doesn't mean I shouldn't be allowed to have a beard. So, you know, try and suspend your judgment for a little bit. There's no need.

We can all get on together. If I want a beard at nine, I can have a beard at nine. The things back then weren't allowed now probably would be allowed.

I'm not quite sure how. Hormone injections probably. So I couldn't grow a beard.

And I had what we call it in this country's bum fluff, you know, like a teenager where it's just a bit of hair, but it's not really it's not beardy. It's just so I had that was the term. It's the medical term here, bum fluff, when you have a little bit of hair on your chin and, you know, and your cheeks and that when you're a boy, generally.

And I had that. And that's kind of all I had really, for the first 43 years. That's what I had when I was when I left school.

But I heard somewhere that the more you shave, the more it comes back sort of more beardy. So I was shaving every few hours. And it didn't work.

I looked so young. And if only I'd known what a good thing that was. What a wonderful gift to look so young for my age.

I didn't know. People I can't even I can't even lie and say no one told me because they did. I used to get these ancient really old people that are in their 30s telling me you, you should feel lucky that you look so young at your age.

You appreciate it when you get older. If you if you if you look that much younger than you are when you're older, you'll appreciate it. I said, I want to look 15 when I'm in my 30s.

And she said, No, I don't mean you're going to look the same age as you are now. But when you're 30, you might only look 25. Because at the moment, you only look about 10.

I said, Come on, I don't look 10. 13 maybe but not 10. Come on.

That's you just being silly now. And I would say possibly a little bit disrespectful to be saying that I look like I'm a 10 year old. I'm 15.

There's a big difference between 10 and 15. In what way? I don't know. But not okay, not in me there isn't but I've seen it in other people.

Because I went to school with kids that were adults. 11 I mean like physical adults with all the physical adult bits. And they were big and muscular.

And then I was I looked about six. Seriously, I was so tiny. And he had bikes.

Yeah. So my first bike was... What the heck was I talking about? I don't know. I was shaving.

Oh, beards, blimey. So what I did is I wanted to have a beard. But I didn't realize that once I got to probably my 20s, early 20s, I was growing beards.

I was, it was just growing. I quite a quite a big, you know, kind of groafy beardy thing. It was a ginger though.

I had a ginger beard. Wasn't all ginger. But it was a lot of ginger.

Especially around like the the jaw bit like the sides of the jaw, not the actual chin, but the sides of the jaw and parts of the beard itself and the kind of moustache area with ginger like proper, almost orange. And by the color of leucozade, if you imagine, I was gonna say actually urine that's that's bad, isn't it? But very kind of metallic-y kind of reddy ginger.

It was I mean, I didn't know at the time that I had ginger in my family.

And since then people have said, well, your whole side of your mum, your nan's side of your family is all Irish. So of course you're going to have ginger in there. I was like, just a bit of a blanket statement.

Not all people from about ginger. It's Celtic. Scotland, Ireland, maybe Wales as well.

I don't know. But it's a Celtic thing. So ginger is wherever Celts come from.

And I thought, I just didn't really like know what to think of it. And it was weird because the ginger gene seemed to have missed a generation. So two of my nan's, one of my nan's brothers, and one of his sisters was ginger, or red hair.

And they, none of them had ginger kids. But the grandkids, blimey. So I've got, I don't know what they are.

Are they cousins? Second, I think, I think at least three of my cousins, if not four, have got ginger kids. And then I'm going on my dad's side of the family, but that's the only side of the family I have. So I don't know on the other side.

I mean, they might all be blonde on the other side. Or though I know my mum had dark hair. You know, when I was younger, and she had glasses as well, which would explain why I had to wear glasses at such an early age.

Why my eyesight's so, not so perfect. I personally think I look better with glasses. I think any part of my face I can cover up.

Improves the way I look. You know, those masks we had to wear, that was like perfect for me. I was like, that improved my appearance by about 80%.

I get better looking the colder it gets, because I'm covered up. I'm walking around, all you can see is just my eyes. And they're like, yeah, I get more attention.

Lot of attention from the ladies. All they can see is my hands, my fingertips. That's not true at all.

I don't know why I said that. So bikes. Now why did I, why did I have it? Why though? Why did I grow a beard? I think it's laziness, I think.

Yeah, I actually do believe it was probably laziness, because I'd be getting up in the morning, going to a job, early, early hours in the morning. You know, like getting up at six or 530 or whatever. And I just wanted to get in, have a quick wash and then go.

If I was lucky enough, I'd have a shower. But my landlady in one of my places didn't want me to have a shower or bath that early in the morning, because it was too noisy. I said, okay, well, what if I stopped screaming when I do it? I stopped singing.

But she said, well, wait, you've got your, if you didn't have your bedroom so close to the bathroom, then it wouldn't, you wouldn't be disturbed. And then she pointed out that she was disabled. And that's why she didn't live upstairs.

And I felt really bad. Like, well, why can't you swap your sitting room for your bedroom? And she said the sitting room is bigger. I'd like to spend more time in there.

If I did that, then literally, the TV wouldn't even fit in the bedroom. Once it's like, I said, okay, I feel even worse now. So all right.

But the thing is, she snored, and she slept. I could hear her snoring. She, I don't think I ever woke her up.

I think, I don't know. I just think she'd like to, what was she doing listening to me anyway, when I was in a bathroom? She knew I was naked in there. Why was she listening? Why was she listening? Eh? Huh? What was she imagining? She was about 76, 78, nearly 80.

This is back in 2000, no, back in 1991. So how old would she be now? 91, 2001. 2011, 2021.

She's about 110. Yeah, she'd be, she'd be getting on now. So she, she would, weird.

I don't know. She thought, I think she thought she was in the mafia. It's totally true.

She, she was Italian. And, you know, she's like, Jesson, how are you? And she told me my name would be Jessona, Jessoni or Jessona, if I was in Italy. And I said, I'm not though, am I? And she said, no, you're not.

But if you was her, but I'm not though, am I? And she said, but I said, I'm not, am I? So are you going to let her into me or not? It wasn't a good start really to our relationship. And she kicked me. So there was weird because I didn't even realise we had a children's home next door to us.

Literally, we lived in a cul-de-sac. And right next door, there was this building. And I didn't know what it was, just, just a bunch of houses.

But it was a children's home, which was for me, it was kind of like, when I found out, I was like, Oh, cool. And I got to know there was this one kid and he kept breaking into local cars and going missing and stuff. And it was just, it was so funny.

And it was just like, and I used to come like hang out and I'd see him as I was walking in. But they used to chuck stuff. There was another tenant and they used to chuck water at him and they never bothered me.

I guess maybe they, I don't know why, but, and I had to have a word with them about him and they stopped doing it to him as well. But one day, my landlady called me into her office, which is her living room. She said, Jason, I have an offer to make for you.

She didn't say that. She said, I need you to do something for me. I said, oh no, can't I just pay you the, I know I'm behind on the rent, can't I just pay you the rent, pay you extra? Oh, please.

She said, no, no, no, not this time, not that. I want you to, I couldn't really believe, I could not believe, even to this day, cannot believe what she said next. Right.

She said, I used to be, I used to be, oh, oh, who wants to be a Womble? And I said, that was very strange. She said, no, no, I don't know what's going on with me. I think I need to perhaps get some help.

I said, yeah, possibly. And she said, oh, that was silly. She said, I need you to do me a favor.

I said, all right, well, because I used to go to the shops for a supermarket, get a shop in sometimes, things like that. And basically I get a taxi there. No, actually, I think I'd walk there and get a taxi back because all her stuff was in the back of the taxi.

And I'd sort of go, I remember once I went to the supermarket and all I bought for her must have been, I don't know, months worth or whatever, but it was toilet roll and cat food. And I'm just thinking, the person on the counter, because these were the days when you'd actually go up to the till, you put your stuff on the, on the, the, you know, the conveyor belt thing and move along because they used to have conveyor belts.

I don't know if they still have them now.

And you'd pay with money, like actual money, money, cash, notes, like paper. And the notes were made of paper back then as well. They're not, they're not anymore.

They're like plastic now, which makes me wonder, like, we're trying to reduce plastic. We don't have to have plastic carrier bags anymore, but we can have plastic paper. Makes no sense to me.

I suppose they think, well, no one's going to chuck money in the sea, are they? I've never chucked a plastic bag in the sea. So anyway, stop blaming me for what the dolphins do. I'm not responsible for that.

So I did a, yeah, I thought it was that, I thought she wanted me to go. I tell you what, don't ever buy toilet roll and cat food, but in bulk at the same time. It just, I got the impression that she thought, or the person who was, you know, taking my money, thought that I had some kind of weird eating habit and clearly it was upsetting my stomach.

And I was like, so I thought that's what she wanted. Another time she got me to take a cat to the vet and stuff. Didn't tell me what she wanted me to take the cat to the vet for.

Unfortunately, I wish I'd known because I would have said no. Anyway, um, she said to me, she said, I need you to do me a favor. I said, what? I said, next door.

I said, yeah, I need you to chuck a brick through their window. This is totally true. Absolutely true.

A brick, a rock, whatever, something like that. I said, um, what? I thought I'd misheard her because she didn't have a very strong accent because she was from Italy. She'd lived here for a long time, but she had a very strong accent.

Yeah. She was determined not to give it up. You know, I don't know how, how do you keep, how do you keep an accent when you're around? If you're around, like I'm pretty sure that if I went to Australia or America, that after 30 or 40 years, my accent would be very different to how it is now.

I'm pretty sure. I mean, you could say, yeah, but you'd be 90 then. I don't mean 40 years from now, but you know, if I'd have gone there when I was a young person, which she came here when she was young and she lived here for like 45 years or whatever, 40 years.

So, but her accent was still really strong. So I'm wondering whether she spent a lot of time with other Italian people. I don't know, but she didn't seem to, she said in it every now and then, but other than that, she didn't seem to really embrace the, the London accent.

So I, I said, come again. What did you say? He said, I need you to chuck a brick through the wall, through the window of the house next door. I said, it's a children's home, isn't it? She said, that's, do you mean the children's home or the one next door? Because you know, there was a house next door, the other side as well.

She said, no, the children's home. And I was like, this is totally true. This, this is not even a lie.

Most of what I say is a lie, but this is true for the first time ever. I said, let me get this straight. You want me to chuck a brick through the window, which will very likely, which we know contains children, but that's not, it's a children's home.

There's a clue in the word and you know, there's a name. It's full of children. And you want me to chuck a brick through that window? She said, yes.

I had to, you know, delve a little bit more into the why really. I said, why, why, why would you want to do that? She said, because I can't get out there. Because she had to, she had, she did her physical stuff.

And I said, no, I don't mean why don't you do it yourself? That wasn't really the question. It's why would you want to do something like that? Because I'll be honest, at the time. Yeah, at the time, that was probably one of the worst things I'd ever heard anyone say.

One of the worst things, like as an adult, to hear someone want to do that. I mean, but mean it. There's one thing saying something out of anger, but she meant it.

I found out she meant it and I'll explain why in a minute. She really meant it. And she was upset because they were being noisy, something like that.

They were making too much noise. Maybe ruined her plants at the front of the building. So she was, you know, she had a legitimate reason to be disgruntled.

However, you know, the expression of that disgruntlement was on a different level. I said, why can't you just maybe talk to the people, have a word with them? And she said, the time for talking is over. I said, you really want me to chuck a brick through a window? I mean, that in itself is something I would never do anyway.

But not when there's kids in it. So what she didn't know is I had lived in a children's home. So that was even more of a, I didn't like her after that, ever.

I didn't like her at all after that. Because it's kind of unforgivable, to be honest. You think me of all people are going to go and chuck a brick through a children's home with a window.

No, that's not, nothing could make me do something like that. I didn't tell her that. I just said, how much? How much are you going to pay me? And I said, look, no, no, no.

And she kept going on and on and said, you like living here, yes? I said, what? You want to continue living here? I said, huh? She said, huh? And I said, um, I said, look, I am not going to chuck a brick through anyone's window. If that's it. I mean, I'm not going to say that I'm a moral person in any way, but that, you know, there's certain lines and that is definitely a line that I would not cross.

Apart from the fact, they were just kids. Yeah, they were naughty kids. But I used to be one of them naughty kids.

And they're bored. I don't have any parents. You know, as such, maybe they do get visited by their parents, or maybe they've lost their parents.

But that, you know, they're, live in a degree of chaos. And I used to be that I understood on a level, kind of where they were coming from. But I also understood where she was coming from as well, because it's, you know, I'm not a really big fan of noise myself.

And I think anyone should be allowed to live in their home, feel safe, and to not really be hugely disturbed by another person. You know, but at the same time, they should be able to not have a brick thrown through their window either. So I said no.

I didn't tell anyone. I did think like, this is a perhaps I should call the police. At the time.

I didn't know anything about potential reasons why she might be acting like this. I didn't know about that stuff. You know, whether it was her lack of judgment, mental capacities, I didn't know anything about that.

You know, I was 20, 21 years old, just really didn't know about that stuff. So I didn't really question it. But the fact she was in her late 70s meant that she possibly she might well have she might have been unwell.

I don't know. But she definitely had personality did change in the last couple of years of living there. And she became very angry, very, very sort of shouty.

And that I kind of put up with it. But just, you know, I had to move down in the end, while she was on the toilet. That's a different story.

But some bloke moved in. And he tried to take over. He tried.

He was because she never let me sit in a room. I don't mean a bedroom. I mean, the living room.

She never let didn't want me anywhere near from the very start of living there. Occasionally she didn't she said come in. I watched the opera with her and she explained everything that was going on.

And I thought, well, if you have to have a whole thing explained to you, then it's not worth watching, is it? It's kind of just singing English. And she said, I don't know why she just didn't answer. She just spat at me.

And this is when she was well. And I just this bloke moved in. And he was really, um, really sneaky.

He started spending time with her. He would be in the living room with her. He'd be doing stuff for her, be cooking for her.

He'd be doing all these really getting right. Like I don't care to explain, because from the outside, that sounds like a really nice thing to be doing. But he wasn't a nice person.

He was very devious. It's almost like he was trying to get in a will or something. I don't know.

I might be wrong. But he started telling lies about me and turning her against me. It's really strange setup.

Very weird. And I don't know if they were in a relationship or whatever, something was going on there. And I just I moved out in the end because I couldn't couldn't be around that anymore.

But it's just the weird thing about it is when I said to the I said I'm not this is like probably a year or so before I moved out. I told her about like no, I'm not gonna chuck bricks anywhere. And she said okay.

The next thing I hear and I said, I'm walking I'm walking home and I see her a gardener. So she had a gardener and the gardener's girlfriend used to come and clean the house once a week. And we're going I think sometimes do a shopping and things like that.

But Jimmy do the cleaning. Well, squeaky chair time. And he would come and do the gardening.

So I think she started working as a cleaner. And then she's, you know, she said, Well, my boyfriend can do the gardening if you want. So he did that she had quite a lot of plants in his conservatory that led to the from the front door to the other out front door.

And then there was there was flowers in the front garden. But the back garden was nothing. It was just a concrete bit with some big walls that backed onto an old cemetery.

And he's walking and walking towards me. I said, What's what's going on? They look like so I used to see them every now and then and they were very friendly. And we go out the back of a cigarette and we just chat and stuff.

And it was funny. And we, you know, I didn't see him a lot, but every every few weeks I'd see him. And he said, Oh, just been sacked.

I said, What? He said, Yeah. And what's her name? It's just, she's got rid of me. And my girlfriend.

She said not for her not to come back either. I say, What happened? He said, She asked me to chuck a brick through. This is true.

This is true. And the order might be wrong, but it's definitely a true story. She asked me to chuck a brick through the children's home window next door.

And I said no. So she started shouting at me and she kicked me out. I was like, What? And I thought this is weird.

And then something else happened. Where this is just before this man moved in. There was a young chap was young, probably older than me, around the same kind of age, he moved in to the room next to mine.

And there was only two people ever lived there the whole time I was there, other than me. So he moved in. And I come home from work.

And he's standing outside with all these bags, black bags of stuff. And I thought, What's going on here? I recognize the black bags because of that's how I used to move. We just stick stick all these stuff in black bin bags and just get a taxi.

And that's that's how I've done that so many times moved in that. And so I recognized it. I said, You're right.

He said, No, I said, I will be like that. He said, I'm sorry, mate. So it's a little kiss.

And he said, Look, I just, I'm just something really bad has just happened. I said, Well, that's like, my mind is going all over the place. Like what? He said, Well, I was in the kitchen.

And I had a seizure. I didn't, you know, and then, unfortunately, the landlady came in. Now, I, you know, I can't can understand it's scary in that, but she kicked him out for having a seizure.

And I mean, he should have told her, he should have told her that he had epilepsy, he should have told her, you know, just in the preparation, and she probably would have not let him move in. Because perhaps in I know, that's, I think that's illegal anyway. But at least, I mean, it's one thing being ill having an ambulance called, I didn't get kicked out your house, get kicked out where you live.

So I wasn't, I was an even lesser fan of her at that point. And then she moves this bloke in, and he's like some kind of demon. It was very weird.

The first couple of years was okay. And then it kind of went downhill. It was strange.

I should have called this podcast, my landlady, shouldn't I? Maybe I'll talk about her another time. Anyway, no one, no one chucked a brick through the window, unless you got her new man to do it. In which case, I hope that he got caught.

But I don't think, I don't remember seeing anything in the paper about that. And I think I would have done. So the bike, with the bike, I didn't know how to ride it.

And my brother had a bike as well. He didn't know how to ride it either. So that was his first bike at nine, my first bike at seven.

And so my dad, he got me stabilizers. Now I don't think my older brother needed stabilizers because he was, the thing is, I know people like to brag about their family and stuff. He was super clever.

Both my older brothers were very intelligent. One was academically intelligent. He went on and got A levels and he, you know, he could have, he could have gone on pretty much and do anything he wanted if he wanted.

But he was very academically, really good academically. But my other brother, the younger one, but my older one, but the middle one, he was super quick. Like he talked quick, he thought quickly, he moved quickly.

He's got the opposite, complete opposite to me. You know, he was super clever. And there's me, you know, so, so he didn't need much learning or much time to learn how to ride the bike.

Plus he was nearly nine. So I think there was really that advantage. He may have rid a bike before.

I don't know. You know, I didn't spend my whole life watching what he did. But he, he learned pretty quick.

I struggled. I kept falling off. So I ended up in a few bushes.

My dad got stabilizers for me. And that was cool. So I thought, okay, good.

I didn't realize the stabilizers were short term. Why can't all bikes have stabilizers? It's basically like having what do they call it? A stand, a bike stand that's permanently on whenever you need it. It just makes sense.

Stabilizers are really cool. All bikes should have them. But you know, it's a temporary thing.

And they were on the back, I think. So I, you know, I was just riding it and I've kind of got used to it with the stabilizers. But I did, I still couldn't ride with the stabilizers without my dad holding the back of the bike.

Because they had like really quite high seats, like at the back. A little bit like motorbikes, you know, the really big motorbikes. They, I think they were grifters, the bikes I had.

So he would hold the back of the seat. There was my little body on it. I've just about fit on.

And I was cycling. And I think my legs just about reached enough to be able to pedal. But I felt safe because I knew he was holding it.

Even with the stabilizers, I would lose, I kind of, my confidence wasn't there and I'd end up, you know, cycling into a car or cycling into a, into a boat or whatever. You know, I just kind of end up, I mean, I did, I did hit a few parked cars, but it didn't matter because it was just the neighbors and they didn't see. But I just like, needed that bit of confidence.

And he gave it to me because he did that old trick of like saying, and he's like running with me, along with me while I'm on the bike, to be fair, it's probably just walking because I wouldn't have been riding particularly fast. And he said, I went, I said, don't let go. Don't, don't let go Daddykins.

And he said, I won't Sonnykins. And I won't, but don't call me Daddykins. I said, oh, but Daddy, said you, you can call me Daddy, but you still, probably Dad would be a better word really.

Because you're nearly, you know, you're seven years old. I said, yeah, but you've only been my dad for like two months. Can't I, can't I, I want to, I need to, I need to say Daddy for a few, just for a while.

He said, okay, okay. So we're just doing that. And I said, look, you just, just, just please don't let go.

He said, I won't let go. You promise? Or rather, I promise. He said, yes, I promise my son.

So I'm cycling and like, it's going really well. Keep looking back. He's there.

It's like, great. And then I start building some speed up and I'm thinking, because I think to myself, I want to make him work. Let him run.

Let him run. Let me, let me just see how fast I can go. You know, I want to, and I thought he's doing really well.

So I wanted to find out if he could run fast. It's always good to like find out stuff about your parents, isn't it? And I'm just like, cause I know he used to do judo when he was a kid. It was a brown belt, which just below black.

So he did that when he was a kid. But I was wondering, what was his stamina like? Was he any good at long distance running or maybe the hundred meters? So I thought I'd test him on that. Well, I got so excited and I like, yay.

And I was like, shooting along and I stopped the bike and I looked back and he's like about 200 yards away from me. I didn't measure it precisely. I didn't use to carry a tape measure back then, but he was definitely, I mean, to be, you probably need one of those things that you pushed along the floor, you know, that measures stuff.

That would probably be more. When did I use one of them? I used one of them once, but I can't remember what for. I did.

I have a memory of, do you know those things that got a wheel and you push it against the floor and it measures the distance. Why would I be using one of them? Maybe one of my jobs I had. Maybe it was a school thing, like a school assignment.

Maybe. So he was like back there, let go. I thought to myself, okay, so you're a liar then, are you? That's how it goes, isn't it? Lying to me.

And, but it was a little bit like, oh, you promised, but then I'd done it on my own and I did feel good. It felt nice. And I was still crashing a bit after that for a while, but there was a degree of confidence.

I never stopped crashing my bikes. I was still crashing my bike when I was in my twenties. So that, that didn't change.

I mean, yeah, the last time I crashed a bike was about five years ago, maybe four years ago. I got a push bike from a local, we call him Del Boy, but well, we call him, me and my friend used to call him Del Boy. He, he sells stuff at the market and he's always got his trailer outside his house.

He's always got stuff to sell. And every now and then he'd like call me up. He said, oh, you want, I think he's, I don't know where he's from.

He's like, you want to buy a, buy a golf cart? I'm like, no, I got a golf cart. If you'd like to buy a golf cart. I said, no, I don't want a golf cart, thanks.

What about the golf cart? He really just like, are you not hearing me? I don't want a golf cart. Have you ever thought about taking up golf? I said, no, you know, if you did, I know, I know you got a golf cart you could sell me. How did you know? But he always had stuff.

He always, I used to got quite a lot of fishing stuff for my friend because he was really into fishing. And so I was passing by, you know, kind of just trying to avoid him. And he, he called me over, he said, hey, young man.

I said, to be fair, at my age, it's nice to be called young. I don't get to hear that very often. And he said, I didn't like it though, when I was young.

I hated it when old, old people used to say young man, because he used to be just annoying. But now to hear someone old saying it is like, yeah, I am younger. I might not be young, but I'm younger than you.

You're right. I'm a young man compared to you. And he called me over, he said, I have a bike for you.

I said, what? You want to ride a bike? I said, like, it was so random. I'm just walking past. I just was going home.

And he said, what do you mean by random? And I said, well, I'm saying I was just going home. He said, yes, so you could cycle home. Use the bike, you'll be home quicker.

I said, this is like a five minute walk. He said, but it'd be a 30 second ride. Like, I'm not in that much of a hurry.

But then I started thinking, well, fitness wise, it wouldn't be a bad thing. We've got the fields, I could ride around the fields and maybe. And this was the period, to be fair, probably about three years ago.

Wasn't that long ago, really. So I thought, yeah, okay. So it was like 30 quid or something.

So I got it off him. It was a little bit too small for me. It was a kid's bike, I think.

But my friend sort of raised the handlebars, raised the seat for me, pumped up the tires. He was really good with bikes. So he got it all fit and, you know, working well.

He lubricated and that. And I took it for a ride and I fell off. It was going so well.

Provided there was nothing in the way, I was good. A bit like when I was younger. If there was nothing in the way, I could cycle.

But as soon as there was an object, an obstruction, that's when I used to come a little bit unstuck. But what happened here is, I tried to stop, but I was on mud. And the bike stopped, the wheel stopped, the bike kept on going.

And then the bike stopped and I kept on going. So it was a bit of a weird kind of maneuver there. And I did have a few bumps on me.

And I pushed the bike back, crying all the way, as you do. I never really rode it again after that. It's just like, yeah, I don't like it.

So bikes aren't, yeah, bikes aren't really for me. But I did have a tendency of crashing. There was one time, I had a bike with my friend.

He had a bike and I had a bike. I don't even know how on earth this happened. All we were doing was cycling up and down a road.

He'd cycle up one way and I'd cycle up the other way, or a dirt track or something. And we were just, just playing around, you know. We ended up hitting each other dead on.

Like, and ended up like all mangled, like all just tied up. And it's like, how did we even get here? It's not like I couldn't see where he was. He could see where I was.

Really strange. Another time, the amount of times I slipped off my bike when I was doing my paper round. Or there was once where the brakes didn't work very well and I went down a hill.

Luckily there was no cars and I ended up on the beach. And yeah, it was weird. Probably the weirdest, strangest one was when I was living with my dad for a little while.

He had a, my ex, step mum's ex bike living with him. It was in the garage and I used it to go to work because I was working in the co-op. It was only up the road, but it just meant I could get home, watch a bit of TV, get something to eat, have a break from the place, you know.

So, and it was nice weather. So I was cycling to work and I could leave like five minutes before work started. Well, I was going at it a little bit more than I should have been, going a little bit faster than I should have been.

And there was this kind of like a dirt alleyway. I say dirt, I mean there was houses in it built, but it was just still like a drive-thru. But it was sort of not dirt, but not sand, kind of a weird kind of, but it was slippery.

I'm half asleep, I'm cycling and there's a car ahead of me stopping and they're waiting to pull out of this alleyway thing. And I pull the brakes on and the brakes, the brakes are working, but the bike's not stopping. And because I had no weight on me back then, I was really light, there was nothing, gravity wasn't helping, you know.

If it had been now, I pretty much, if I ride a bike and I press the brakes, it's probably just going to stop. In fact, it's probably going to be quite hard to get the bike to start in the first place. But back then, you know, I was almost floating away, because I was so light.

And the bike didn't stop. And I ended up going into the back of this car, it wasn't parked, it was just waiting, it was still like, it's still switched on, like going whatever. But it was waiting to pull out and I smashed into the back of the car.

And I'm sprawled all over the back of it. Like, you know, I land, not the bonnet, the back, which was, I don't know, it's not the bonnet, but the back bonnet bit, you know. So I'm just lying there on my front and I'm bricking it.

I'm literally like, I know I'm not hurt, I can feel I'm not hurt. But I'm thinking, what's this bloke going to do to me for smashing into the back of his car? And I really, I was 17 at the time. And I was like, oh no.

So I just lie there. He gets out of his car, but instead of being angry with me, which is what I thought he would be, that was my normal experience of adults, is them getting angry and that. So I thought, oh no, if I just lay here long enough, maybe he'll forget and just drive off.

But he came out and he was concerned about me. And he said, are you okay? Are you okay? And even though it wasn't his fault at all, he actually was helping me off the bonnet or the back part of his car, the boot, I guess, the boot part. And he was like, are you okay? And I said, oh, I don't know.

Oh, where am I? And just playing up a little bit. And I said, I'm so sorry. I tried to stop, but the ground just wouldn't work.

He said, what do you mean the ground wouldn't work? Well, the grippy part of the ground wasn't grippy. He said, oh, okay. I think I understand what you mean.

I said, yeah. And it just, I couldn't, everything happened. It did happen in slow motion.

It's weird. It really did seem to happen in slow motion. And I said, I'm so sorry.

And he, he looked at the back of his car and there wasn't even a mark, like a bit of dirt probably, but there was no dent. There was nothing. And he said, don't worry about it.

And he just drove off. As long as you're okay. And I said, yeah.

I had buckled the wheel of the bike though. So there's an additional thing, or how am I going to tell my dad? That's even worse than, than the driver. Now I've got a worse thing.

It's like, oh, but I just kept driving it buckled and it seemed to work out. Okay. I tell you one of my, um, this is another true story.

It just shows you how my lack of belief even then. So I was what? 12, probably 13, 12, 13, 12. Probably.

I was hoping for a bike because at this time I didn't have a bike. And I'd had bikes previously, but this time for whatever reason, didn't have a bike anymore. And all I wanted was a racer.

I dreamt about a racer and how good it'd be because I'd be able to get my paper round done a lot quicker. I just whistled then. Did you hear that? Quite a lot quicker.

And I wouldn't have to walk all the time and just, you know, it just be lovely, be beautiful. And I kept dreaming about this racer bike that I wanted to get for Christmas. I even got to the point where I was looking and I was going past the bike shop every day, looking in the window, looking at the races, thinking, Oh, I wish I had a racer.

And sometimes I'd go in, I'd look at the ones inside. I think on this occasion, it was raining. So I went inside and cause the paper shop was next door.

That's where I used to get my papers to deliver them. So that, and it was particularly busy cause it was raining. All the kids were in there.

So I thought, well, I'll wait. I don't want to get wet. Well, I'm going to get wet anyway, but I might as well just stay dry for as long as possible.

So I go into the, uh, into the shop. We're talking probably at this point at four o'clock in the afternoon. So I go in there and I see this bike and I go to have a look at it.

And it's got paid for and it's got my name on it and my address. Okay. Even though I saw that with my own eyes, I still didn't believe it.

It's strange, isn't it? I didn't believe it. I didn't believe that I was actually going to get that bike. Now it didn't even spoil the surprise, which is weird because I genuinely didn't believe until I saw it with my own eyes.

And the thing about wrapping a bike is they look like bikes. I think my brothers, my brother had a bike as well. Uh, maybe both of them.

So that was a really good gift. That's like really well, brilliant, brilliant present. I still didn't believe that it was real until I actually saw it.

Even though I'd seen it in the bike shop, I didn't tell anyone about seeing it in the bike shop. Um, or anything like that. Didn't tell my brother or nothing.

I just, just kept it to myself. But I genuinely didn't believe it. I didn't know if I, it's all, I don't know, it's weird.

Yeah. It's a very strange. Why would it just, I mean, if it was now I'd say, Oi, who bought that for me? I don't live there anymore.

I've not moved. I haven't lived there since I was 15. I just, I wouldn't want to race it now anyway.

It's quite weird. It probably still wouldn't be too small for me even now. What about the size I'd need? I don't have, I don't have long legs.

Not really, not really long legs. Trying to think of other bikes. Oh, I got a BMX bike and like everything, I was always probably about two years out of date, two years too late to be fashionable.

So at my school, two of the most fashionable kids lived right next door to me. They always had the most fashionable clothes. They were skateboarding when skateboarding was fashionable.

They were break dancing on a street on lino when that was fashionable. They had BMX bikes when that was fashionable. You know, they were on trend.

I probably would be a correct term nowadays. I was always behind. And when I got my BMX, I knocked on their door to ask if they, uh, they could help me with it.

You know, help teach me some tricks and that. They said, no, we've moved on from that. They didn't have BMX bikes anymore.

And they've been driving for 10 years. We've moved out. We don't live here anymore.

We've got kids now. Why are you getting a BMX at your age? But yeah, I was so late at getting stuff. And it's just because, and I got this myself, I bought it myself, got on the catalog, paid for over a year or two.

I mean, they did make a comeback. BMXs. Some would argue they never went away, but they did.

But you know, as far as being popular, but it's an, is it an Olympic sport now? BMX riding? The thing is in our town, we had one of the top BMX riders in the world. Uh, like for doing tricks and stuff, he was quite famous and he lived in our town. So that, I think that kind of stirred the young people on as well to want to get involved.

A true story, true story. He'd won loads of awards and everything, all that kind of stuff, traveled the world and everything. And I, I love it when my stomach gurgles.

It means it's time to eat. Whenever I do these recordings, there's always time to eat. Weird, isn't it? When did I eat last? Three, four, five.

I woke up really early this morning, or should I say I was woken up really early this morning by a little Vinnie. And I just, just got up way too early. Then I went back to bed, then he woke me up again.

Blimey, I don't know what's going on with him. So, so eight, so eight, nine. Yeah, it's probably time to eat again.

I could eat. Yeah. I'm trying to think what other bikes.

I had a bike. Yeah, I did. I had a bike.

The last time I had like properly had a bike and used it was during. Ah, yeah, I moved into this room. I lived there for a year.

It was, yeah, it was not far from where I worked. And I got a bike. And I asked one of the people at work there, is there any way I can put the bike? And he said, you've got to be careful around here.

But if you put it into here, they're like, it was like a cellar, kind of like a coal, an old coal thing. You know, a brick thing that kind of was a little bit underground. And so I put it in there.

It was stolen. Someone someone nicked it. Which wasn't good.

And then when I moved from there into the Buddhist community, I got another bike, which I used to cycle to work. And I couldn't even tell you what happened to that. I might just left it there.

Because I'd cycled to work. And man, it was so uncomfortable because I would just be soggy. That's the best way.

And I'm not talking about from rain. I would be absolutely soggy. By the way, I didn't realize this.

No one told me. And because I used to have to walk for about 50 minutes to get to work. It was nearly an hour.

It's quite a long distance walk and I'd get wet. Even with shoes on my feet would get wet sometimes. My stomach's proper gurgling.

And I got in trouble. Apparently, I'm the only person to ever had a disciplinary in that company for putting their socks on the radiators. In the office.

I didn't know. You know, actually that the wasn't like underwear, but, you know, generally socks, mainly just socks. And it's like, well, how am I supposed to dry them? He said, what you could do is bring in dry ones and then just change them in the toilet and then, you know, take the soggy ones home.

And I thought, oh, OK. OK. I mean, OK, that.

I didn't. I didn't think anyone would notice, but apparently because of the air conditioning, the people in different parts of the building could smell the socks. I guess I think the supposed the message on that one is if you're going to do that, wear clean socks.

Make sure that you've changed them at least in the last month, otherwise it can affect people's work. Yeah. Other than that, I can't think of any other bikes that I've had off the top of my head.

Trying to think. No, I didn't have one the whole time I was in London. I didn't have one.

I haven't had one the whole time I've lived in this town, apart from that little period. I don't know what happened to it, to be fair. I gave it to my friend downstairs and probably someone sold it.

You know, I don't know who knows. A lot of his stuff got sold when he passed away. So I don't know.

Other than that, I can't think of any other bike calls that I've actually had. Just trying to think. I've got an exercise bike that I've had for a few years.

That's in the bedroom. It's like a clothes rack, really. It's like, you know, it's exercise bike slash clothes rack slash dust collector.

So I think it's still there. I should have a look someday. See what's underneath that big heap of underwear.

Yeah, no, I can't think of any other bikes that I've had. There might have been over the years. So I've been around and I'm trying to think.

No, nothing during my 20s. Two bikes during my 30s. One, in fact, I might not have had any bikes during my 40s.

And there was that one in my 50s, like maybe a couple of years back, three years ago. Maybe four years ago. It's hard to keep track.

It is hard to keep track. So yeah, that's my bike experience. My bicycle experience is so that is my Monday boring objects.

Yeah, and I stuck to it completely, didn't I? All I talked about was bikes the whole time. Aren't you proud of me? Hey, hey. So I'm going to go get something to eat.

And thank you for listening. Yeah. Please remember to be kind to yourself because you do deserve to be happy.

Be gentle with yourself. Lots of love. Bye.