redwelly.co.uk

Woo - I have done all of the essays, assignments, project work, revision, exams and last-minute cramming required to say: I’ve finished my degree!

As with most things with such a build up (like at least a couple of years thinking ‘OK, it would be silly to quit, it’ll be alright really, just get it done however frustrating it is’) it was a bit of an anti-climax. Oh well, it is quite nice all the same.

I don’t have the crushing realisation that I will be leaving Aberystwyth for good though - because I’m not! I’m going to be working here doing website things with a company based in the Technium on the Marina.

Before that though, I have an action-packed summer of unicycling:

• Ride The Lobster - A five-day long distance road race (think Tour de France for unicyclists) with 100 of the world’s top distance riders. I’m on team #78 called “Smile” (I was hoping to get sponsored by the ethical internet bank of the same name, but that didn’t quite happen).
  After the week of racing I’m going to make the most of my transatlantic flight* and go on a train adventure down to New York City and be a tourist for a week.
• Luxembourg to Liechtenstein - A 500 mile cycle tour between the two smallest European countries which begin with the letter ‘L’, hostelling and camping with some good friends old and new.
• UNICON 14 - Copenhagen, Denmark: the World unicycle convention and championships which happen every two years. I’d describe it as the Olympics of unicycling - all the disciplines of one-wheeling from synchronised freestyle dance routines to trials stunts to track racing to off-road and long-distance racing (that’s what I’m entering, and hoping to bag a bit of bling, if I’m lucky).

I’ve been fortunate enough to be awarded a travel bursary from the University’s ‘Tithe and Capitular’ fund which will cover the transport for the two big competitions.

* Hello, yes - I know I’m a ‘greenie’ type who can happily tell you about how damaging climate change is and how flying contributes so much to it. It really is serious, and we - the rich - contribute way, way more than our fair share to the problem; especially unjust as we are not the ones whose houses easily collapse in flooding or whose subsistance-level farms grow less and less. So…

A return flight to North America will emit about 1.3 tonnes of CO2 per person (me). I think I will ‘offset’ this by paying a trifling £11.14 to ClimateCare who invest in carbon reduction projects. But really that’s a far less convincing thing than actually not polluting in the first place. For excuses I could say that because I don’t drive a car around (12000 miles/year in a small car emits about 3 tonnes), or eat much meat, I already have a ‘footprint’ of only a couple of tonnes, compared to the UK average of 10.

That really doesn’t ‘allow’ me to go and pollute more than I can avoid, but at least it makes me feel a bit better about it. My logic is that this is the biggest unicyle racing event ever done, and it is a wonderful thing to have people from across the world getting together for something like this - it’s not just a random urge for an exotic holiday, honest.

For the other two European trips I’m doing this summer I’ve chosen to go by train (figures vary, but it’s at least a third less carbon-tastic than flying the equivalent journeys). It won’t cost much more, and we’ll see much more of the places we’re going to as well. Trains are cool.

There we are. Hopefully that wasn’t too much in the way of liberal hang-wringing for you.

This should not shock those who know me and know that I like cycling.  But it may shock those who know that my usual number of wheels is one, and that to defect to a ‘normal’ bike is almost heresy.

Don’t panic, I still love unicycling, and have masses of it planned for the next few months.  But I do also have a basic bike which has not been in regular use since I came to Aberystwyth, and now that I have it here I am learning how nice it is to be able to shove a bunch of stuff on the back, to shift down to a granny-gear going up Penglais hill and still be able to breathe at the top, and to cruise down hills however fast you like.  You can’t do those things on one wheel.

Bikes are fun.  There, I said it.

The joy of english is that ‘read’ and ‘read’ mean both the present-continuous and past tense, and you can’t tell without either context or pronunciation. I meant the past-tense version, like the colour, not the riverside plant. I don’t often get a paper at the weekend, and don’t make a habit of reading the Women section (although, thinking about it, I secretly like reading ‘girl’ books or whatever, as a non-girl can often learn more about them by seeing what they want to say when it’s not supposed to be for guys than what makes it as far as the ‘advice about females’ in general or men-targeted stuff - it feels like a kind of back-stage thing), but there were Circumstances. Yes, they deserve that capital letter.

It involved a conspiring combination of my phone’s clock, Which (and indeed What?) Digital Camera magazine, McCoy’s crisps, Arriva Trains Wales, darts, dominoes, Jeremy Clarkson, John Humphries, gentle but persistent rain and a pint of Greene King in The Green Dragon pub.

So, for reasons you really shouldn’t expect me to expand upon, I was reading the glossy Women section which falls out of the Observer Sunday newspaper. Most of it didn’t interest me that much, but I did read an interesting article:

Is virginity the last taboo?

Yes, says a group of hip, savvy and successful Christians. Elizabeth Day meets today’s new radical twentysomethings

You don’t get the whole effect with the online version, as it doesn’t have the several photos of the girls being interviewed - very glamorous etc., and much like any other professional models on the other pages. Apart from the rather petty (given the context) comment I could make on how perhaps Christians shouldn’t revel in being able to glam-up and parade as ostentatiously as anyone else, I was impressed at how sympathetic and admiring the article was.

The Observer (and/or Guardian on weekdays), as a left of centre liberal publication (which is why I choose to read them), isn’t renound for giving religious types an easy ride. Often quite rightly. But what this article is at pains to convey is that these girls (is it patronising to use that word for unmarried females over 25? Maybe.) aren’t weird, judgemental or pushy. There’s no talk of doctrine or damnation throughout. The Silver Ring Thing is given pretty short shrift. They’re just worth comment because they seem different, for having found satisfaction in doing things with some restraint required… not for being needlessly un-cool or for annoying people.