Cycling wing mirrors

When I'm cycling, I find it difficult to look directly behind me. I'm not sure how much this is (a) glasses covering only middle field of vision (b) not being confident enough in my balance and (c) an inherent defect in non-owls.

I generally feel safe looking over my shoulder to see if there's a car about to overtake. But I can't see far enough to see that the road's completely clear behind me, and I don't feel confident seeing whether there's another cyclist there (so I can stop or do a u-turn).

Are wing-mirrors an actually sensible solution to this? Or should I practice turning safely more? Or something else?

Religious belief quiz

If you were trying to categorize, not how people label themselves (because people often use very different labels for different reasons), but what their beliefs were that might fall loosely into theist/atheist/agnostic/ignostic/christian/etc, what questions would you ask?

Lots of obvious questions are sort of bad -- eg. "do you believe in God" varies a lot, because people disagree about what counts as "god", and even disagree whether people do disagree or not.

Ashes Scattering

A month ago, mum and dad and my aunt and uncle went to scatter my grandparents ashes.

We went to a bit of coast they loved, in the woods, down by the sea.

We camped there overnight (the easiest way down to the shore is through the campsite, which is private), something we'd not together since I was about 10. It was really nice.

There was some lovely sunshine on saturday, and a lovely view, across the fields and woods and sea, and we thought what a lovely place it was. And almost wished we'd done the scattering then, but we'd arranged to meet aunt and uncle on the Sunday.

Then it rained all night and most of the next day, and we feared we'd end up with a muddy mess, which would be memorable, but a bit silly.

But just when we were debated which of the places would be best, the rain dies down for a bit and a strong wind picked up, and we all said, there won't be a better moment than this! Mum and Uncle took a jar each and scattered handfuls on the beach, until the began shaking the jars out. The wind was enough the ashes flew sideways and vanished in the air, just how you imagine, cleanly dissipating.

We made sure to check the wind direction, and mum and uncle carefully threw downwind, and the rest of us carefully stood to the side.

It was a really, really memorable weekend. I wouldn't have changed anything about it.

Grandma died about ten years ago and grandfather died this summer. I didn't feel my life changed a lot day-to-day, but it's sometimes a strange feeling that they're not there, and occasionally I count up all the things in my life I owe to them.

Filing cabinet

Recently, I got RAC to replace the battery in my car. It was still under warranty, so it was really easy. Until the last moment, here dramatised for your entertainment.

RAC: You don't even have to pay anything.
RAC: Just one minor administrative thing.
Jack's pessimism: Uh-oh.
RAC: Have you got the receipt and guarantee from the battery?
Jack's pessimism: AAAAAAAGH!
Jack: Let me just go and check.
Jack's pessimism: Aaaah! Where on Earth would I have put that to be safe?
Jack's optimism: Have you checked the filing cabinet under "RAC"?
Jack: Oh yeah. Here it is.

I've been filing stuff long enough that important documents are usually in the right place in the filing cabinet, rather than put in a drawer somewhere with five other less-permanently "important" documents from about the same time.

But it's taking years before my instinctive response to needing something is becoming "of course" not "aaaaah!"

Wedding Ring

I wasn't sure if I wanted to wear a wedding ring. On the downside, I tend to fiddle with stuff, and normally hate extra "things" cluttering up my body. On the plus side, I thought it was rather sexist for R to have a ring and me not to.

I decided to try wearing it and see how it went.

It went really well for about a day, and then I sprained my hand, and it dramatically swelled up. And I didn't get the ring off immediately, after which it was just about stuck, and I was a bit scared, especially when I was travelling home by myself. Fortunately, I was just about able to wrench it off at home with plenty of soap.

But then I was paranoid about putting it on again until my hand was healed. And then it had been quite a while. And it was a little too tight to start with (we bought it second hand and it was pure luck we found one of the right size I really liked immediately), and given that it had got stuck, I kept putting off wearing it until I got it resized, and kept putting that off too.

Until one day, I just suddenly felt like it, and put it on, and it felt fine, and I've been wearing it ever since.

It's also the case that I lost some weight since the wedding, and now the ring fits just about perfectly; it slides on and off easily, but doesn't slip over the knuckle. So in a way I'm really glad I didn't get it resized before, it's another triumph of laziness (insofar as going to the gym three times a week counts as "lazy" :)).

I sometimes wonder if the white gold looks odd against skin, as a close-ish colour, but quite different. But I think I'd think that about any ring. And I really love the ring as itself; it has a white gold body which is really pretty, with gold braiding round the edge.

I still have my engagement ring (silver with garnet). It served the function of bridging the time between the legal wedding and the main wedding, which it then completed and handed off to the imperishable ring. I wear it I want to feel like I've especially dressed up, but not day-to-day.