This morning's commute and other commuting stories

No wind on the way back. Just drizzle and grey skys that slowly turned into that all-penetrating fine rain and grey skys.
Better than wind.
No majestic angel wings though.

month ago • #29325
Avatar for underuser53929underuser53929
First northbound cs7 journey after rain and the new raised bits for bus stops cause enormous pools of water to form .

One of those was completely flooded this morning, had to go on the pavement to get past it, time for more emails

Cold toes. Both ways. But lovely stillness and frost.
Tonight, saw two amazing Owls.
Coming back through Wallingford, there are three pubs within 100 yards of each other (which isn’t remarkable. The town has about 500 pubs. Probably.) and they were rammed, plus multiple fireworks parties. Happy Lockdown Eve, Sarf Oxfordshire.

fucking hell farmers smash cutting hedges and leaving a ditch of verge mud and cuttings across the lane its like riding along a stream bed jesus christ anyone riding the chilterns bring fucking 40c knobbly tyres grrr

Evening to all you close passing cunts in and around South Oxfordshire. Now I can remember the last three digits of your number plates, I shall keenly look out for (two which I have a special place in my heart for) you and administer clipped mirrors with the d-lock.
Fuck. You.

Windy out, eh.
Lovely chat with a guy on a mtb loaded to the gunwales with every type of bag I’ve ever seen! Could hardly see the ride for packing, frying pan, bottle of olive oil, everything; apparently he wild camps during the week while at work(!) Could well believe it, looked like he could commute to Algeria and back.
Good you meet you man :)

Learned how to spell gunwales there cheers. I've always said gunnals and would have spelled it phonetically. I like learning new random shit.

Gunwales is how my phone autocorrects gumwalls, I always wondered what it meant.

If I mention gunnals my son (in Sheffield) thinks I'm talking about ginnals...

Wait, what? "Stuffed to the gunnels" which I've only ever heard, and "Full to the gunwales" which I've only ever read, are the same thing????

I'm not sure what I thought gunnels actually were. I had a vague feeling they might be a something 18th century gentlemen wore when they got stout in middle age, like a male version of stays

Yeah they mean the same thing afaik.

Still don’t know whether I’m pronouncing it right tho.

Ghunnals was the original name for cyclist bib tights, worn by dandies on these.

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This has truthiness. I believe it.

Everyone is right, except maybe @crossedthread who I suspect is messing with us. Gunwales, pronounced ‘gunnels,’ are the sides of a boat, so stuffed to the gunwales means fully loaded.

I knew my pointless nautical knowledge would come in handy on a bike forum one day...

Thought it meant the top rails. So even more full than full. Brimming!

Yes, the top rail of the side of the boat.

IIRC there are various other nautical terms with unexpected pronunciations, e.g. boatswain ('bosun'), and bowline ('bowln'). I don't know if this is slang to confuse outsiders, or because of vowel/pronunciation shifts in the centuries since the terms were introduced.

“At The ClerkenWell, I espied an Obby Oser stuff’t to his ghunnils (sic) and, after the manner in these wards exclaimed aloud ‘Sire, do a skide’, which, owing to the incline, he was nobly able to oblige”
Coleridge, London Findings Gathered o’er Severall Seasons, 1803

#rep

Forsooth!

Went for a pootle to test the rubbiness of my re-fitted mudgards this morning to Greenwich Park. Sat on a bench for 5 minutes at the bottom of the hill and 3 different cyclists in that time slowed down to ask if everything was ok.

Made me feel all warm inside

passed a pistachio-green, full-fairing recumbent(?) at Blackfriars last night.

So you told them to fuck off and the balance was restored

Lots of smiles this morning on the way into the office! Amazing what carrying something out of the ordinary does to people’s engagement with you. Cargo bike riders must guess this a lot, I guess?

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Props to the guy sitting on a bench eating a magnum in 3 degree weather this morning.