The lovely ladies at LGRAB are awarding the prizes for the summer games this week, and today I was one of the featured players! More internet fame awaits! I haven't actually won anything yet, but I'm crossing my fingers that the Po Campo bag will be mine.
I was really hoping to do all the tasks, but at the end of the games I was left with this:
That glaring, non-crossed out item has been bothering me. It's especially awful since I am a great reader* and this should have been the easiest task on my list.
I initially wasn't even going to touch it, since I've sort of vowed not to read or acquire any new books until I'd made a sizable dent on the pile of unread books I already own. However, as more and more items got crossed off, the lure of having them all crossed off was too great. I caved. With only a few days to go before the end of the games, surely I could find a book about cycling. I have a bike-repair manual, but I wanted to read something along the lines of Peter Mayle, Frances Mayes, or MFK Fisher. You know: travel and food, with cycling thrown in.** A quick Google search showed me lots of books about racing, maintenance, and advocacy, but then I ran across French Revolutions by Tim Moore. It's kind of a travelogue about a Brit who decides to ride the Tour de France course. Perfect on several counts!
Naturally, I ran into difficulties. The Toronto Library has only two copies, and there were three holds on it, so no luck there. As it's ten years old, its not in Toronto bookstores, except possibly for used bookstores which don't have their catalogue on the web. Amazon had it, but only through a third-party seller. I decided to order it and hope for the best. It would have been so lovely if the book had arrived in time for me to take it to the beach and blog about it by the end of the games, but that was not to be.
The book was waiting for me when I got home from Sudbury last Friday and I've already read the first few chapters. It's very funny. He embarqued on his journey with rather less training than I did when I had the crazy idea to cycle to Inverhuron two years ago. I wasn't sure how much I could like someone who has never heard of the goodness that is a Fig Newton, but his story-telling and humour have won me over.
So even though I haven't quite finished it, I feel that I can finally cross that last niggling task of the list.
*Although I do take pleasure in many things.
**There is a section in A Year in Provence where they do some cycling, but I didn't really think that would count.
I was really hoping to do all the tasks, but at the end of the games I was left with this:
I initially wasn't even going to touch it, since I've sort of vowed not to read or acquire any new books until I'd made a sizable dent on the pile of unread books I already own. However, as more and more items got crossed off, the lure of having them all crossed off was too great. I caved. With only a few days to go before the end of the games, surely I could find a book about cycling. I have a bike-repair manual, but I wanted to read something along the lines of Peter Mayle, Frances Mayes, or MFK Fisher. You know: travel and food, with cycling thrown in.** A quick Google search showed me lots of books about racing, maintenance, and advocacy, but then I ran across French Revolutions by Tim Moore. It's kind of a travelogue about a Brit who decides to ride the Tour de France course. Perfect on several counts!
Naturally, I ran into difficulties. The Toronto Library has only two copies, and there were three holds on it, so no luck there. As it's ten years old, its not in Toronto bookstores, except possibly for used bookstores which don't have their catalogue on the web. Amazon had it, but only through a third-party seller. I decided to order it and hope for the best. It would have been so lovely if the book had arrived in time for me to take it to the beach and blog about it by the end of the games, but that was not to be.
The book was waiting for me when I got home from Sudbury last Friday and I've already read the first few chapters. It's very funny. He embarqued on his journey with rather less training than I did when I had the crazy idea to cycle to Inverhuron two years ago. I wasn't sure how much I could like someone who has never heard of the goodness that is a Fig Newton, but his story-telling and humour have won me over.
So even though I haven't quite finished it, I feel that I can finally cross that last niggling task of the list.
*Although I do take pleasure in many things.
**There is a section in A Year in Provence where they do some cycling, but I didn't really think that would count.
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