Whoops!

This book was bought as a Secret Santa present for a colleague at work. He was moving to Elgin from Glasgow. It definitely 100% should not have been in Stornoway two years ago on Christmas Day. It should not have been opened by Iain TwinBikeRun as his Christmas present.

It was meant to be a thoughtful gift to a colleague. Instead, I mixed up the presents and my colleague received Iain’s gift and had no idea why ‘Santa’ had sent him a book called “So You Want to be a Gold Digger?”.

As I said, whoops!

But the book was only part of the gift, I’d actually bought Iain a one day gold panning course at the Leadhill Goldmining Museum.

Unfortunately, COVID and lockdown meant that all courses were cancelled in 2020 and they only resumed in August 2021. Luckily, we were able to book one of the few dates this year and popped down to Wanlockhead last month to find… GOLD!!!!!

But how do you find gold?

Well, first of all you need to dig out some earth and soil and gravel from a river. Then you have to sift it using either a large plastic ridged sieve or a plastic pan, just like the prospectors of the Eighteenth century. Once sifted you have to carefully swirl the lightest soil and gravel around the pan to separate it from any gold. Gold is a heavy element so it won’t move as easily as other rocks and stones. If you swirl water around the pan then the gold should sty in place, as it’s heavier than the water, and the soil can be washed away.

While the theory is fairly simple, it takes a lot of skill to move the soil and not the gold and to keep the gold in the pan while removing larger rocks.

“How much would you make in a good day,” I ask our instructor.

“About £200” he says, which is more than I thought, but to put that into context, there were 15 people on the course and over 4 hours they made around £50, which just shows how hard it is to find gold.

Unless you’re me!

And you have the gold touch!

As I found £50 in just one pan – woo hoo! I’m going to be a trillionaire and fly into space like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk! Looks at this beauty:

Is there gold in them there hills? Absolutely!

It is cheating. It doesn’t just feel like cheating. It is cheating pure and simple. I stop pedalling, I look down, the speedometer says 15mph and I’m still going up hill. This isn’t a bike, it’s an escalator.

I recently moved office from Larbert to Glasgow. With the world opening up and people returning to offices, I didn’t want to return to commuting by car five days a week. Instead I moved office so I could work most of the week in Glasgow city centre and commute from Glasgow Southside, roughly three miles away.

It’s been seven years since I worked in Glasgow. When I did, I would always cycle into work. Not only was it good to get out on my bike, it was normally faster too as I could get to the office in the same time it would take to walk to a train station or bus stop and catch a lift into town.

However, I had one problem when it came to commuting by bike again. There was no shower in my new office! And I would be sharing a room with one other person, who I assumed, because I’d seen it and because most people have one, has a nose. And a sense of smell.

So, I thought an ebike would be ideal. It would mean I could still commute back and forth but with no effort and no chance of turning up to the office drenched in sweat.

I looked at a number of different bikes and settled on the Eovolt as:

• We have limited room so a folding bike was ideal as it wouldn’t block any corridor
• A folding bike could also fit in the car or be taken on a train if I wanted to go to Larbert while in Glasgow
• It has chunky moped like wheels which made it very stable and comfy to ride.
• It was cheaper then a Brompton, which I know is the traditional folding bike but with slimmer wheels, it didn’t feel as good to ride on pothole ridden streets.
• It has a range of around 40 miles before it needs recharged. I’d looked at cheaper bikes but they all had shorter ranges and would have needed charging more than once a week. I was wanting to buy a bike, not spend all my time plugging and unplugging it.
• It has a removable battery. The battery is in the seat post, which can be removed by unclasping one clasp. The seat post can then be charged in the house and the bike kept in my shed.
• It was bright orange (though other colours are available). I used to have black bikes for commuting but, with winter approaching, I’d much rather have one that stands out in a garish colour to help with it being seen at night. Bike colours can be cool, but. do you know what’s cooler? Not getting run over by a bus.
• It is relatively light (for an bike). I looked at full frame bikes but they were all closer to 30kg, this one is 17kg. While I couldn’t recommend it if you need to carry it up three flights of stairs, I’d definitely say it’s okay for one flight.

Overall

This is a cracking wee bike that has transformed my commute. I have 2.5 miles of flat and then half a mile uphill to get to the office. The flat now feels like a down ride and the uphill feels like a flat. And my roommate hasn’t complained about any smell so I’m counting this as a success.

I’m lying on my side staring into my stomach. I’m getting a nasal endoscopy – a video camera at the end of tube inserted via my nostrils – and I think I’ve been conned. 

Before coming to the operating room, I had a chat with a nurse who checked my medical history and then gave me a spray to numb my nostrils and throat. 

“We’ve just started carrying out these procedures at this hospital, but don’t worry, you’ve got Dr Sinclair and he carries out lots of them. There may be some other doctors though as they want to know what to do.”

Great, I thought. I’ve got good ol’ Steady Hands Sinclair. Nothing to worry about.

Except, I’m now on my side, a cable down my nose and throat and stomach and the doctor pushing the cable down my gullet is shouting “Whoa ahh! I always perform best under pressure!” like he’s Tom Cruise in Top Gun. This can’t be Steady Hands Sinclair?!?!

I’m not nervous, I don’t know enough about what’s going on to be nervous. I just trust that everyone knows what they’re doing. But now the Doctor is saying “I’m running out of scope!” and I’m not sure if I’ve got a surgeon or a submarine captain.

It’s a strange experience to see your insides on a screen in front of you. I don’t even know why they do so. Who thought: “I know what a patient wants to see when we carry out an endoscopy, they want to see it live on screen, so lets get a second telly so they can watch it themselves.”

So, I watch the camera approach my nostil, which I assume will be the easiest entry the Doctor will have all day as my nose is so big you could thread the Flying Scotsman down it. Then I watch it pass the back of the throat, through my vocal cords and then into a pink ribbed stomach and gut. 

I stop watching.

“Are you okay,” asks a nurse.

I can still talk, the cable doesn’t block my mouth but it’s uncomfortable with my throat numb and the plastic snake sliding through my belly so I just nod. But what I want to say is “Switch the channel! I don’t want to watch this! Put on Homes Under the Hammer!”

While the Doctor is pushing the tube and saying “C’mon, c’mon” like he’s a ten pin bowler trying to direct a strike. 

This only takes four minutes. It feels longer. Maybe it was longer, but it feels like it won’t end until it does and I’m handed some wipes for my face and the doctor says “everything looks normal.”

That’s good to know but I didn’t need to see it. I would have just believed him. 

Happy people on bikes. What’s not to like?

Well…

EVERYTHING!

Watch the video and watch the three presenters from website BikeRadar smile their way through the Dirty Reiver 2021 gravel race. Now read my report on the exact same race with almost the exact same bike: Dirty Reiver.

I hate them and their happy faces. I couldn’t sit down for a week!

When we used to work in offices it was easy to buy swim/bike/run gear without anyone knowing. A parcel would arrive, it could be opened before you got home, and no one would know that you’ve just bought another pair of trainers.

However, during the pandemic, we no longer get deliveries at work.

Or, to be more accurate, I still get deliveries from work but work has now become my home. And, instead of reception wondering why I get so many round boxes shaped like a tyre, I have my wife asking if I’m getting another delivery instead?

But she’s not complaining about the number of deliveries. She’s desperate for more. That’s because she’s discovered that when the online retailer, Wiggle, sends a parcel, it also includes a wee bag of Haribo sweets.

No sooner do I start to open a parcel before she’s ripping it out of my hands and tearing it open like a lion and a bag of Hula Hoops (assuming lions like Hoops).

“Where it is?” She says.

“What,” I ask.

“You know what,” she says, “the good stuff!”

I think she’s addicted and I think Wiggle know this and that’s why they send a bag of Haribo with each order. They might as well send crack cocaine, it would get the same reaction.

“Where’s my baggy?!”

I tried to search online to see if there was an official reason for why Wiggle includes a bag of sweets but all I could find were complaints.

I’ve never had any problems with missing Haribo, however, having read the comments, I have bought a spare packet, just in case. I would hate to think what would happen if my wife didn’t find a Haribo the next time a parcel arrives.

There are many, many strange genres on YouTube. If you want to watch someone take new shoes out of a box then just search for “unboxing” and you’ll find a million videos of people taking their trainers out of a box. If you want to watch someone whisper into a microphone then welcome to the world of ASMR and a million videos of people being really, really quiet.

My favourite genre of YouTube video is a bit more specialist. I like the genre known as “Man Goes For A Walk And Then Takes A Photo”. In the UK, photographers like James Popsys and Nigel Danson are great at this – every week they release a video where they walk somewhere and then take a photo. It’s not a complicated plot to follow. Usually, they’ll explain why they’re taking the photo but most of the time, it’s just an excuse to see various mountains and woodlands around the UK.

If you want to get started in this exciting sub-genre of filming then I highly recommend this week’s video: Hiking The Length of Skye by Thomas Heaton. Heaton is a great presenter and filmmaker who, earlier this year, walked the length of Skye while taking photos. To say any more would be to spoil the surprise that… there is no more to it than that. He walks a bit. He takes a photo. He walks some more. But it’s a very enjoyable two part video that shows off Skye’s spectacular scenery.

No running this week. Instead a woman is asking: “Big man with the glasses?”

“Yes,” I say.

A big sigh and the woman, who has just taken our PCR COVID tests says, for what seems not the first time. 

“You won’t get your results tonight, you’ll get them within 72 hours.”

We’re in a car park beside Toryglen football pitches. There’s a small tent and a couple of people walking around in yellow hi-viz and face masks. It’s not very clinical.

When we drove drive in. I put on a mask and rolled down the window. 

“Please put it most of the way up,” says the volunteer at the entrance, making sure not to come near our now open window.

I do. 

“Higher,” they say.

I leave an inch. 

“Perfect,” they say before they try to pass through two test kits in plastic bags. The gap is so small and the bags so big that it’s like watching someone try and coax an elephant to limbo.

“If you pull the car up, read the instructions, follow them and then put on your hazard lights to let me know when you’re done.”

It sounds straightforward but in practice it feels like we’re dogging. Or setting up a illicit boxing fight. We’re not the only car in the car park. Nor the only one thinking we need to leave some space between us and the next car meaning that every car is circled, everyone is looking into every other car and every couple of minutes emergency lights flash until a man approaches the window.  

“There is bound to be someone somewhere who’s made the mistake of starting to strip,” I say.

“NWAH, MAAW, NNAHFFFGGHH,” says Mrs TwinBikeRun, who has a cotton bud down her throat.

“That was disgusting,” she says when she takes it out. 

“BAAAWWWWWKKKKK,” I say, retching after touching my tonsils with the bud. 

“Three more times,” says Mrs E. 

“BBOOOOKKKKEEEE, BBAAAWWWK, BBBBAAAARRRFFFF. Done.”

“Now you have to stick up your nose too,” says Mrs E.

“The same end?”

“Yes.”

Now I do feel sick. But I stick my phlegm speckled throat swab up my nostril too and circle it 10 times. “I don’t know if I have COVID but I might get laryngitis of the nostrils,” I say.

“You might get a new friend if you keep those hazards on too,” says Mrs E as someone approaches. A large man with glasses.

“You’ll the results later tonight,” he says as he makes sure we close our plastic bags containing the samples correctly. “Just drop them off on your way out.”

Which we do only to find that we would have got better information if he’d actually been a dogger as the woman at the exit tells us the man with glasses doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

LATER

We don’t get our results but Mrs TwinBikeRun’s parents, who were also pinged and tested at the same time in a different location, receive confirmation that they tested negative.

I text Iain TwinBikeRun to tell him we’re still self-isolating until we hear more. He says: “That’s because it takes longer when you also test positive for syphilis.”