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I'm standing at the traffic light, forlornly waiting for it to turn red, so I can walk across the road and stand at the bus stop. I can see the electronic sign from here (just). 20 minutes till the next bus that goes all the way to Hove. The sheeting, hissing, freezing rain is bouncing an inch or so off the pavement as it hits, soaking rapidly into my clothes and laptop bag.
Flash back a bit. Why am I here?
National Novel Writing Month starts soon. There's a group in Brighton, being run by a couple of good friends of mine, and their inaugural meeting was tonight at 1930, in Hove. One of my old English teachers is a member of the group, as are a few other random people I know, and the group as a whole is very cool. It would have been nice to reconnect with them, and to remind myself I'm not totally crazed to be embarking on this quest to write so much, in and around my work. Me, I consider it a welcome break from all the academia: to be able to just write what comes into my head for a change, without worrying about whether it's right, or provable, or supported by results, is a rare pleasure. Still. Other people are at least as crazy as me in this, and most of them would have been at that meeting.
I stayed a little late at uni to get some work tied off, so I was already running late by the time I got to my bicycle. It being, in technical terminology, Bloody Freezing, it took some work to get all my kit tied on or otherwise mounted to the luggage rack, so I lost another five minutes or so before setting off.
The ride back was uneventful until the Coombe Road junction, almost home but barely halfway on the route to the meeting place, a cafe called the Sanctuary. As I approached the traffic lights, the entire frame tugged abruptly backwards under me, once. Since I'm not totally stupid, I pulled up almost straight away and took a look. The rear brake was locked on, solid, because an axle nut had come loose and the wheel was canted about ten degrees in its pivots. Try as I might by hand, I couldn't get the axle nut back on solidly, or the wheel back to its correct angle, so I'll have to look at that tomorrow. I half expect the axle may be damaged, given some of the other symptoms.
Anyway. Bicycle very nearly immobilised, me very nearly road-decoration. Exciting, but not an evening in itself, so I walked the bike home (ten minutes away, rear wheel clunking and hissing against the brake, but I didn't have much choice) and got changed to go to the Sanctuary by bus.
Since the Sanctuary has WiFi, I packed my laptop along with the index cards containing my plot sketches, so I could use the net while at the meeting if needed. I stepped out of the porch and started down the hill in a light mist of rain. Great. My hoodie and jeans are marginally waterproof, so I figured, what the hell? What's the worst that could happen?
The rain ramped up to full-fledged freezing-rain / sleet by the time I reached the bottom of the hill, and was in the condition I mention at the start of this entry by the time I got to the traffic lights. No cover, overflowing drains and gutters made for a very tricky journey. The lights and the buses were the last straw. I like those people, a lot. I don't like them enough to persevere to a meeting in a cafe, in sodden clothes, with a laptop that sounds like a holey water-bucket when shaken. So I turned around and went home. My boots are still damp, six hours later.
Sorry, NaNofolk. I'll be at the next meet, I promise. Unless it's on a Thursday, in which case I'll try... (fencing does have to happen at some point, you know).
Roll on November 1st, and the true start of the madness.