A Lazy Sunday and the Cyclists

While taking out Brando for his morning walk I discovered that our social centre was holding a cyclist meet. They do it by turns. A group of cyclists, mostly men in their seventies, hosting these meetings, organise groups of volunteers who offer drinks, cakes and other refreshments to everyone.

 

Other groups of cyclists from near and far converge, enjoy refreshments and then all go out the explore the surrounding areas on their bicycles. Yesterday it was our local cyclists who were playing hosts and people came from as far as 150 km, around 1800 persons in all. Making cakes and refreshments for all of them must have been a huge affair, but I didn't hear anyone complaining.

 

 

Each group of cyclists was wearing their group-colours and logos, and they looked great. One fellow who came to rest near me, told me that he had a hip transplant last year and this was his first cycle trip after the surgery. They were mostly men and I think that it is wonderful way to keep friends and spend time together, because otherwise we men have big difficulties in keeping social relationships.

 

Even though sports allow men to have social relationships, I think that our relationships with our friends are different from those of women, in the sense we rarely if ever, talk about our fears, pains and emotions. I believe that we men need courses on how to share what matters most to us, instead of worrying about showing off that everything is fine and we are not vulnerable in any way.

 

 

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Back from the walk I cooked some afghani chhole (chick-peas) and then made "panch phoren aloo" (potatoes). I had discovered the recipe on a food blog. Panch phoren is a mix of five spices used commonly in Bengal. I love some of these food blogs, they are really good at explaining recipes. Both chhole and aloo turned out to be quite good.

 

Then it was time to relax and watch "U, Me aur Hum", the first film of Ajay Devgan as a director.

I think that Devgan can be great director of serious films. His handling of serious scenes is good and some of the scenes are like tear-gas, with a wonderful Kajol. I didn't like the first half of this film and though I liked the song "Maine to maanga tha.." and Kajol in it, I think that it was placed very badly in the film. Their young son has just risked dying and Devgan has probably come back from hospital, to see Kajol dancing in that scene was a kind of unreal and cruel.

This afternoon was our picnic time. We went to the park for a family walk. There the group of elderly persons had organised their food festival, so we couldn't stop ourselves from eating some nice greasy local piadina-bread with ham, salami, etc. The park is so lovely with all kind of flowers, so I took lot of pictures.

As we came back home, we are both tired and full. The idea of going out to eat Pizza was no longer appealing. May be another day, we consoled Marco. I am reading a book by Alexander McCall Smith about a Scottish philosopher. Going back to sofa and reading the book was a perfect way to end the beautiful Sunday.

 

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