Bonfire weekend bimble?

[MuddyPete]

Yup, fireworks purchased .
Blast-off for me Friday or Saturday night. Not sure yet.
But don't feel constrained by tradition, whatever time's good for you .

[benconnolli]

So are we still doing this? Tonight? Saturday? Both? Not at all?

I feel any physical social interaction is off the cards.

Personally I will write up a report of what I would have done, with some artistic impressions on the ubiquitous ms paint of the pictures I would take.

Feel there is a distinction between making a logical exception to do a niche activity that the rules were not designed for, say sleep out on a hillside far from anyone else with next to zero chance of spreading/catching the virus that nobody would ever know about, and telling other people to go out to break the restrictions then chat about it online.

[Verena]

Fair enough, agree, just wondered whether people were doing stuff in their gardens...guess that novelty might have worn off after the spring...

[MuddyPete]

An excellent weekend chasing an e-MTBer around the local countryside, complete with backyard barbecue and sparklers .
https://www.instagram.com/p/CHWaeZwFQFt ... 4pxgmn5o05

Hope everyone else had as good a time as possible .

If you missed a display here's the one Reg conjoured up last week, using only a box of Swan Vestas, a couple of sparklers and a Sony Walkman. Marvellous

https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_contin ... a4AZP-WE7U

[benconnolli]

So along with the rest of England I'm grounded so can't go out to play. Obviously it would be silly for me to not only break the rules, but then tell on myself about them. Therefore here is a completely fictitious story of what I would have done*.

*Turns out writing in this weird conditional tense is quite difficult so I apologize for and grammatical slip ups. This did not happen.

I was especially looking forward to this trip. The whiz of a rocket launches me back to the scouts Jamboree and that childish awe that is now only accessible through nostalgia. I'd pack my bike up, kit choices submitting to the claws of winter. I'd be able to cover up any exposed flesh apart from a slither of eye, but end up riding in just a top as the clouds held the heat of the day. My luxury item would be a candle in windproof jam jar. It's something I really care about as it has become a symbol of hope in these dark times.

The route would follow the resolution race guidelines on the match the miles app, but planning started and ended there as I am a proud member of the no plan clan.

Lumberjack shirt and knitted ginger neck warmer/beard would be the best fancy dress I could come up with. Wish I'd had face paint, will have to keep that idea in the bank.

Setting off into the sunset, tick, would feel all the more romantic knowing that other people across the country were experiencing the same underwhelming grey blur on their bikes. This contradiction of being virtually together while physically apart is such an important skill for surviving lockdown.

The ev charging station was in a multi-storey car park in town. My mischievous inner child would smirk as they suggested time trialling up the tight switchbacks as if part of some urban hill climb event. Naturally I would do it, exploding my lungs and nearly ripping my back muscles off as I wrestled with the loaded bike then collapse at the top in a pool of oxygen debt, sweat, and giggles.

Good job I didn't have to actually live with the consequences of my actions as I headed off onto my next task of crossing water, just before bed. Impeccable timing that would have been. Along this green lane from Bisley that turns into a river. I had previously only ridden at mincing pace, catastrophically underbiked on a tourer. The larger wheels would make light work of the choppy rocks, but the reflection of my lights in the water would make picking any kind of line impossible. I would have to walk, downhill, in water.

It would be about now that I'd try and remember when I'd last replaced the batteries in my head torch, and how much I'd used it since then. The answer to both these questions is too long. I put my eyes to the test as they ran the doomed race to adjust to the fading levels of light before my batteries died. It would be somewhat fortunate for me to be on a bridleway, with sleep kit, if some situation like this were to ever happen. My resourceful self would chuckle to himself as he remembered the candle he had packed. Lantern in one hand, bike in the other, I would wander through the woodland in search for a place to sleep. Hopes of the hillside displays fizzled out.

Like the entirety of this trip, the plumage of the fireworks was left to my imagination as I was rolled up amongst the trees. Let me tell you, WOW! My community lead display started with golden spirals ending with a pop that I interpreted to be my popcorn. Then there was this one that soared up in flying v formation then timed the explosions to form a rainbow, and another which glimmered blue and imitated the ripple created by a stone skimming across the stars.



Brewing my morning coffee by candlelight would be satisfyingly daft and eccentric. I'd then transfer this caffeine high info a literal high atop the Painswick beacon. I would likely remark how much of a honeypot the Cotswold way is and vow to take the alternative whenever the choice was offered.

All I'd have left to do was find a duck, if you accept my winging it with local knowledge as a plan. Now I know some duck spots, but decided to avoid them in the name of a wild goose chase. Indeed I'd find some elegant geese and try to train them by shouting "duck" with the associated mime to no avail. This duck game quickly mutated and transferred onto equally unimpressed sheep and moody cows before a foolish dog fell for my devious trap.

[RIP]

Superbly off-the-wall tale there Ben. What a real shame it never happened. "You ain't seen me, right?"