Dalek

I've been taking the bike out in the car recently. Not for the bike's sake, you understand: it's not that it's feeling neglected staying at home all day, with no other bikes to talk to, or anything of that sort. But more so I can find interesting places to go cycling in, rather than set off from my front door and see where I end up. There's nothing much wrong with that, other than there are only so many roads that lead away from my front door, and unfortunately most of them tend to be up-hill. There and back. So, for the effort of some minor rearrangement of car furniture, I can fling the bike in the boot and find myself a few more diverse locations to explore. Preferably ones that are reasonably flat, so that I can gradually get back into shape without too much strain. (When I say back into shape, you will appreciate that I was last in shape more years ago than I care to remember. There is a risk I may never return.) So I headed off for the hidden valley of the Mersey, where you can pootle along the riverbank in various directions and visit a myriad of secluded townships across south Manchester faster than you could manage by car. I've not been cycling along there since my early twenties; it can be poignant to re-visit the scenes of one's youth, provided you can remember much about them.

Talking of the scenes of one's youth, and the re-visiting thereof, Doctor Who returned to our screens this evening. I quite like Doctor Who. It's not, nowadays, what it was when I were a lad; but that's probably a good thing: the monsters look far less home-made. He's one of those rare fictional characters that have a life far beyond the original books or films or television series that created them. I used to have a couple of toy Daleks when I was tiny; how wonderful to see them still scuttling around.