Just About Surviving
I walked to work today, and probably will tomorrow too unless . My trusty bicycle is locked up outside the office – it will get pushed home this evening, and an attempt made to repair the punctures in it's tyres tomorrow morning before setting off for work once more.
It's getting to the point where I'm considering buying a new bike. I need new tyres, new inner tubes, a new rear hub, new crank, new chain, new brake blocks, and possibly a new saddle (the existing one is falling to pieces). I can't complain though – I've had the bike since early 2016 – in that time the only thing I've had to spend money on has been new tyres. That's somewhere in the region of 1800 miles of commuting to and from the office in all weathers for about 300 – so 0.16 per commute.
I could get it fixed, but I imagine it will cost as much as a new bike once you add all the parts and labour together (a new rear hub generally means a new wheel).
We're spending so much money on things at the moment though – we just signed up to have the windows replaced around the house – something we have been planning for years. We also need to replace the cooker, which as been slowly failing for years (we can't complain – it's 20 years old), and we also have somebody replacing the kitchen lights in the coming weeks. It's all money, and it all adds up. Oh – did I mention part of the fence in the back garden disintegrated in the storms of the last few weeks? We had a workman in today starting on the job – he finishes hopefully on Wednesday. More money.
At the start of the year we thought we were actually in a good place for the first time in years, and then slowly but surely things have happened to remind us that no, we will never be in a good position – we will always just about survive.