Firstly, for my overseas readers, I can assure you that I am safe and well, and not directly affected by the Christchurch earthquake. Everyone in New Zealand knows people impacted, but luckily all those I know are safe and well. It will be a hard road for the next few years for Cantabrians, but I’m sure they will rebuild, in a distinctive style that will last them the next 150 years.
Now, people have been encouraging me to writea book about some of the things I’ve done over the last few years. Now, when you’ve lived through stuff, you don’t always see it as that big a deal, but I guess it is a bit different to most people’s perception of “normal”.
So, to that end, I’ve been reading through some of my old journals. Most stuff ends up both on the blog and in the journal, but there’s stuff that is only in the journal. Some of that will never be published anywhere else, but some of it is fit for public consumption. So I’ll try and string it together, along with some content from here, to create a more structured book. Should make it a bit easier to follow things, and maybe answer some of the common questions people have.
It has been strange reading old journals though. It brings back a few memories of strange places, and strange lands. Looking at things like the riding distances and times does seem faintly ridiculous, especially when I was covering enormous distances in western China. Given that I now sit behind a desk for 9 hours a day, it seems crazy to think that for a while I was regularly riding a bike for more time than that.
We’ll see how I get on with trying to write up something that requires a bit more planning than the off-the-cuff blog posts I used to bang out in smoky Internet cafes.
Oh and I saw a good sight while out for a ride around Mangere the other day. A car did a U-turn in front of me, coming uncomfortably close. Nothing unusual there for Auckland. But what was funny was seeing the driver lighting up a cigarette…even though the car had a large “No Smoking” sign plastered across the dashboard. Classic.