A Pause for Breath - Pt 2.

I found a racing pigeon in the neighbour's house extension the other day. It looked like it was quite badly wounded because it was flapping around on the floor but not getting anywhere. I picked it up and took a closer look at it. It appeared as if its next was bend badly because it wasn’t moving its head at all.

After chatting with the neighbour he said that he saw the pigeon on Sunday but was too busy to do anything about it, it was Tuesday when I saw it! The builders of the extension also must have seen it but done nothing about it as well.

I noticed that it had some pigeon racing tags on its feet so I looked up the details online to find a number to call. Unfortunately it was late in the day and I only got an answering machine. By the time I got back to the pigeon it had stopped flapping its wings and barely moved. I noticed that it was still breathing and figured that the only thing I could do was to break its neck to put it out of its misery.

After having to kill the pigeon I buried it in my back garden. Fortunately Lola hasn’t dug up the pigeon to this day. Quite sad really but there wasn’t anything else I could have done for it.

The work allotment is looking very healthy recently. We’re even getting a lot of produce from it as well.

Last Thursday I went out for a welcome brief cycle ride with Susan and John from work. I really wanted to get Susan back on a bike as soon as she was able to ride and get her on a beginners ride to get her confidence back. John had always hinted that he wanted to come along on one of our after work excursions, so this was the ideal time for him to tag along.

Susan back on a bike! Yipee. ☺

We did a short one-hour route that I had done before. There was a really heavy rain shower just before we were about to set off. We decided to wait in Susan’s car till the heavy shower had passed, as we would really have been soaked through if we ventured outside.

Here’s John just after the good short downhill section.

The shower passed quite quickly. And we stared off on our ride. The start of the ride consisted off roads and a couple of minor hills. About half way round the ride we went off road on some single track-trails.

I must admit that I really enjoyed the ride even though it only lasted for an hour and was on gentle terrain. The downhill section was quite muddy and as a result quite enjoyable too. It was ideal for Susan to get back on her bike and for John to have a go at some off roading.

Me, a little muddy after coming back from the ride.

On the same day as the bike ride there must have been some air show near work, or a practice session from RAF Benson. Earlier on in the day we heard some low flying planes overhead but didn’t take much notice of it. Then later on in the afternoon the Red Arrows overflew the office!

It was a spectacular site to see them flying around the manor house in formation, with smoke trails as well.

I guess that the manor house where I work must have been the centre of their display as they flew all around us.

Just before we set off for our ride we saw a Eurofighter doing a vertical climb above us. It was so loud we could barely hear each other. It must have gone almost vertically straight up into the clouds which was very spectacular.

Deirdre and Allen have been visiting the UK for the past couple of weeks. I’d been out with them a couple of times around Oxford. We finally went out in Oxford along with Kate and Mike, for some food and beers last Friday.

On the way into the town centre by bus we had an incident on it. The bus had stopped to pick up some passengers when all of a sudden the bus had to turn off it’s engine and not move as there were two young girls standing on the doorway stopping the bus from closing its doors.

There had been an angry exchange of words between the bus driver and one of the girls. Then one of the girls called out to the rest of the bus that she was sorry that she had to stop the bus but the racist bus driver wouldn’t let her and her friends on the bus. I just shouted out that I didn’t care and to get off the bus!

As it turned out what had happened was that the girls had jumped the queue to get on the bus. The bus driver told them to go to the back of the queue and they replied with plenty of attitude, to this the bus driver told the girls to get off the bus as he wouldn’t let them on. So then the girls decided to stand in the doorway and not get off. The bus driver then called for help to deal with the situation.

We had to wait around half an hour before some help arrived, a police officer even walked pass the bus and wasn’t called for help. The other bus company officials quickly sorted out the situation by giving the girls a lift to their stop by car and we went along our way. I guess this is a case of Oxford’s finest teenagers in action!

My bed partner Colin, for one evening at Kate and Mike’s place in Oxford.

We eventually all had a good time out on the town in Oxford. We even went to one of my favourite pubs The Star Royal where I used to often go as a student in Oxford.

I was very sad to have to say goodbye to Deirdre and Allen as we parted ways on Saturday. I’ll have to visit them in Sydney sometime next year! ☺