Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

For a while now I have been wanting to replace my phone, whose screen was cracked from, among other things, falling out of my pocket when I have been riding, and whose battery was getting weaker. I had been waiting for the Apple replacement for the SE model; it turned out to be a version of the 16, more expensive than I was hoping, but I decided to use my flight delay compensation (which we still haven’t received, despite submitting all our details three weeks ago – we were just told the payment did not go through; nor have we received much from the insurance company, different members of whom have been asking for conflicting things).

I would have picked the new phone up last Friday, the first day it was available from the Apple Store – which is in easy enough walking distance from us – but I was minded to observe the call to buy nothing that day, or at the very least to shop local (I bought only bread from the baker that day).

The craving for the new was a little distracting though; it helped that it was a lovely warm day last Friday, and we didn’t have anything on our calendars, so we took Georgie the dog and some sandwiches over to Fort Funston to enjoy the sun for a couple of hours. It was close to seventy degrees, and very relaxing.

If I had been keenly anticipating the spring-like weather to continue, though, I was in for a rude shock for the rest of the weekend, as Saturday was much cooler with a strong chill wind, which brought evening rain that continued into Sunday – I put off riding on Saturday, and then bailed on Sunday as well. Thoughts of getting in a quick ride on Monday were scuppered by a deadline I needed to make, and my regular commitments. The cold wind continued all week, before the temperatures climbed again on Friday. Redbuds and poppies were out on the bike path in Alameda, ceanothus in the city.

I do always appreciate how many more hours there seem to be at the weekend when I am not spending handfuls of them on my bike; there was no roam scheduled either, and it was a weekend without much football. I put those hours to good use: we went to the Apple Store after the farmers’ market on Saturday, and I spent a fair amount of time ensuring that my new phone was set up as I wanted it to be (though I lost all my WhatsApp conversations along the way). I was also able to catch up with a lot of admin and other tasks – if not quite into spring cleaning mode, I feel ambitious about getting stuff done at the moment.