Control, this is Magpie; instrumentation restored!

Yay! I once again have a computer that works on my bike.

Sometime ago, I carefully removed the detachable instrument panel/computer from my bike (as I did every time I rode) and took it inside. I took a reading ff it and then "carefully stored it" Someplace safe. Safe even from me, it would seem. I haven't been able to find it since.

I finally broke down and got another one, but I hadn't gotten around to putting it on. This afternoon, fearful that if left to my own devices I might just spend the entire beautiful day sitting indoors watching back episodes of 'Mad Men' and 'Flashpoint' (both of which I started watching recently and find I enjoy), I went out and put the new computer on (reading the directions, which are all in what the manufacturer clearly thought was universal wordless instructions, which need an anthropologist to decode). I also put on the new bell I had bought (the second, actually--the first wouldn't stay in place). And I cleaned and lubed the chain with new tools and fluids I had gotten a while ago and not yet tried out. Then I went for a short ride, my usual morning run. It was very nice! Chatted with one of the new neighbors when I got back and am trying to decide if I want to go out for a longer ride somewhere, and if so, where.

now that's more like it!

I took Rupert down to the C&O Canal towpath, and we did about seven and a half miles. It's not the 10-20 mile afternoon rides of old, but I've got to build back up again.

I saw a juvenile great blue heron, several mallards, a crow or two, various smaller unidentifiable birds, and two rather starling types that I need to research.

One was a bird of average size, flying singly but in a company of 3-5 others, with a white body and black wings. They flew across the canal, from trees into the foliage of other trees, at medium height. Possibly juvenile red-headed woodpeckers.

Another was very large bird, possibly with a rounded sort of head, buff coloured below, with a wide wings that seemed to curve back almost in a D shape (with the curve of the D being the leading edge). It flew (mostly gliding) fairly high along the canal on the edge of the woods and landed in a tall dead, leafless tree. I'm guessing a great horned owl or a barred owl.

I'm back, moved things in from the car and had a shower.

OK, food now (for me and cats).

go, Canada!

OK, so it turns out that one of my two new shows I really like, Flashpoint is from *Canada*! As is one of it's stars, and one of my favourite actors of recent years, Enrico Colatoni. This just goes to further prove my impression that if the UK doesn't work out for me, Canada would be another great place to go. Any country that can produce shows like this, Wonderfalls, and Slings & Arrows, as well as actors like Colatoni, Sarah Polley, Molley Parker, and Paul Gross, is pretty cool. And I've seen enough of it (cities like Montreal and rural areas like Nova Scotia) to get the feeling I'd be right at home.