(what is it about stories that start like that that just make you think they’re not going to have a boring ending?) and it’s JayneZA.
She want’s to know if she can borrow me, my raffie and my stilts early one Saturday morning.
Intrigued, I just had to ask what this was all about.
As it turns out, she wants to enter a pic into a knitting website’s calendar competition and specifically one of her, on stilts, knitting in front of the statue of Nelson Mandela on Mandela Square in Sandton.
With me, on the raffie, holding her ball of wool.
She’ll buy me breakfast afterwards.
Sounds like my kind of thing.
And the photo thing should be fun also.
So, striking while the iron is hot, we decide on this past Saturday. We’ll meet there at 08h00 to allow us some time to get the pics before there are too many passers-by.
I wake up early, after a late night, always a joy, and shove the raffie and the stilts in the car. I head off for Mandela Square which, in addition to being a Square, is also a shopping center and given my habit of parking at the furtherest possible entrance from wherever I need to be, doesn’t bode well.
Exceptions maketh the rule. Or shouldth anyway.
I park. I enter, heavily laden with raffie and stilts. I elevate. I exit aforementioned, turn to my right and find myself looking at Madiba’s arse.
I don’t know what they were thinking by placing that size statue right at the entrance to the shopping center, but at least I didn’t have to walk the length of anything to get to the statue.
I get there to see Jayne already pacing around.
Maybe it’s the cold and she’s just trying to stay warm.
I sneak a quick look at my cellphone.
I’m early. This is good. The photographer in our Conspiracy of Sillyness is late.
Gives me time to have a look at the raffie I have not ridden in probably more than a year. I’ve been using the Coker (on indefinite loan or untill she wants it back from Jayne) at most of the gigs I do and since I’ve had a bit of a seatpost issue with the raffie, it’s just been lying around as a sad reminder of the freemount I could once do.
The chain is rather rusty. The plans of buying a double-chain 6footer never came to anything.
Not yet anyway.
I’ve messed around with the seat-height the night before and got it more or less right.
My assisted mount feels like pulling teeth.
From the tooth’s perspective.
Eventually I’m on. Chatting to Jayne. Itching to see if I can still ride this thing.
Is it rude to ride off on a raffie while in the middle of a conversation?
Probably.
Natural break.
I’m off.
I mean I’m riding. Not UPD’d.
But it’s touch and go. Something is seriously wrong here.
Oh, I remember, I haven’t ridden a 20" uni with 125mm cranks in the best part of a year either.
My UniHoki machine now sports 102s and my UniHoki 24 is running 114s. This feels really weird. Any chance of an idle? Apparantly yes, but it’s a dodgy, paved surface.
Oh well, I’ve done more on worse.
The Photographer arrive. Another knitter with photographering boyfriend in tow.
It’s showtime.
It went pretty quick.
Which was good, cause I forgot how tiring idling the raffie can be.
A couple of different shots, and then brekkie.
Yum.
I had scrambled eggs served on crumpets and covered in smoked salmon.
And a most frothily delicious cappucino.
I was quite impressed that my order of ‘cappucino please’ wasn’t met with the usual ‘cream or froth?’ reply. (Is this abomination an exclusively South African thing?) I’ve recently embarked on a one man campaign to reclaim the word Cappucino from the cholestrol-swilling masses and refuse to answer that question. I just repeat ‘cappucino please’. They normally ‘get it’ after about three turns.
Here are the pics.
I’ll let you know if we make the calendar.
