Just free-wheeling...

I have spent most of today cycling around Cardiff. Not in any competitive, get fit kind of way; it's hardly exertion at all. Just free-wheeling here and there, soaking up the sunshine and enjoying the breeze blowing through my hair (OK then, enjoying the breeze blowing through the thinning strands that don't quite cover my balding pate!).

I cycled to the supermarket to pick up some stuff this morning (a bottle or two of Shiraz), I cycled to the sports shop and exchanged one of my new running vests for one in a different colour (white swapped for black) and I cycled to the barbers to get my "thinning strands" trimmed and my "balding pate" slapped and pampered.

I wasn't able to go for my usual swim at Cardiff International Pool today because it's closed for the weekend. Lord knows why they'd close the place on the first weekend in July for three days? I have suggested that they might inform us members why they close the pool when they do; if it's for an event, you never know, we might be interested in attending as spectators...?

Anyway, that being so, I had to rely on my fall back option of Maindy Swimming Pool - smaller and not nearly as nice; the water temperature is always too high and so it feels like you're paddling in someones bath. Still, it's a pleasant cycle ride up through Bute Park to get there. After 20 lengths (in what felt like second hand tepid bath water) I was ready to get out and cycle back home through the park in the afternoon sunshine.

Past the picnickers dotted on the grass throughout Bute Park, past the crowds in a specially erected stand in the Hayes watching the Wimbledon Ladies Final on the big St David's Hall screen,  past the cafe society cliques sat outside the numerous Starbucks in the town centre, past the gay men, preening, posing and posturing outside the (doomed to turn straight) King's Cross and past the numerous families, friends and lovers enjoying a leisurely stroll up Boy George Avenue (Lloyd George Avenue) to the Bay.

On days like this there is no finer place on earth than Cardiff.