As Frood is a ‘new man’ in the sense that he is more than passing familiar with such concepts as sharing of chores, and can talk about girl problems without blushing, I was perfectly comfortable adding tampons to the shopping list last time it was his turn to shop. I showed him the near-empty box I possessed so he would know which ones I wanted and off he went.

What he came back with was a box of these.

Now it wasn’t his fault. Because, I mean, who would think that anyone would come up with an idea quite as ridiculous as perfumed tampons? I don’t understand for the life of me what good they would do. Who’s going to smell them? And how? Is this some niche fetish that is beyond even my extensive experience? Surely you’d need to stick a tube up there and sniff that, unless you had yourself a lady so accomodating that the tampon would have a job staying up there in the first place.

The sheer practical ludicrousness is only part of it. As eny gurl kno, one’s intimate areas should not be subjected to scents and perfumes for an imbalance of the delicate flora will result, and the only possible outcome of that is raging thrush and the need for copious amounts of yoghurt.

And that’s before we get to the sheer insult of thinking that such a thing would be a good idea in the first place.

FFS. Perfumed tampons. The mind boggles.

And that’s me with my entry in for the East Fife Tri already. And, of course, I’m supposed to be doing the New Year’s Day again. Truth be told I am not feeling super-arsed about the New Year’s, mostly because the weather is so utterly foul.

We’ll see how it is closer to the time.

I may well be hitting the Wintermarket with the editor of City Cycling, so if anyone wants to say hello, you know what to do. I’m riding Shackleton at the moment, and besides replacing the silver Opticubes with black ones (not by choice) he hasn’t changed. So if you see a girlie (might be hard to tell through all the layers) with a Surly Tuggnutz blinged Pompino and a set of Oakley Mag M-Frames (very rare!): it’s me. Come say hi. I haven’t got the black eye in today, I’m afraid.

Why is it that I always forget that when the weather turns cold enough to put frost on the cars, it means my eye is going to freeze in my face?

It happens every year and yet it always takes me by surprise.

Why is that guy looking at me funny? Oh, yeah. It’s cold. Now I remember. My eye has frozen in my face again.

I’m contemplating heading into town after work tomorrow because… bike lights… blah… new inner tubes… blah… lava lamps… blah… I want to.

I finish around half three and it takes me about 30 minutes to get into town. Shopping will take no more than 2 hours because That Is The Law, so is there going to be anyone around after five to sixish who fancies a coffee somewhere while I wait for Frood to finish work?

Someone had locked his bike next to Shackleton in such a manner that the big Abus lock I use had become jammed against the tyre valve. In getting the bike out the valve went, because it was so cold the rubber in the tube had become slightly brittle. Or possibly it was just another valve failure.

It was the rear wheel. Damn and buggery. Trying to get the 25mm GP4000 tyre back on with frozen fingers reduced me to copious swearing, as cold tyres are really not very flexible. Then there was the cold arse from sitting on the ground to re-tension the chain. And I missed my train so I had to wait for twenty minutes at the Gyle, where there is no shelter.

I was quite cross.

A rogue jar of mincemeat behind the honey and the soy sauce in the cupboard, where I’d never normally see it because it’s too high but where today I am hunting because I know there’s some special honey in there and I want it.

There shall be more mince pies after all! Score!! We are so pleased!

I swear on my way in this morning the sign on the Vauxhall dealership just off Calder Road was the Thundercats icon. Glowing and red with teeth, and, well, all thundercats-y.

That’ll be the freezing fog getting in through my ears, I expect.

Can someone please tell me the best place to go in search of psychedelic hippy lighting of the lava lamp and Mathmos variety? I’ve left it a teensy bit too late to order online because of a cash flow crisis.

Gosh, Assassin’s Creed is pretty on our HD TV with the new HDMI cable.