frozen cyclist solidarity

I cycled to my last rowing practice of the year on Monday evening and noticed something funny at the stop lights. Usually cyclists don’t look at each other or speak to each other, but each time I pulled up to a light, there’d be this heart-felt conversation about how cold it was, and this glow of shared communal pain. I’m hoping Stuart gives me a warmer cycling hat for Christmas.

Christmas drinks for us rowing newbies was very cosy, at the Yacht pub next to the club. The instructor grew up as a steel worker in the East End, just across the river. When we plied him with a couple drinks, he was this amazing human history book. The last person I met like that was the guy who works with the letter presses in the Camberwell art college basement. It’s an amazing little world down there, tiled in dark reds and greens like an old tube station. He’s worked with so many of the greats in British illustration and he retired this year. The college needed the space and decided to get rid of a lot of their letter press equipment, which meant he was leaving on a kind of sad note. I hope they don’t get rid of it all entirely.