I was recently given a bike by my parents for my birthday. I know that this makes me sound like I'm about 12, but hey ho, they knew that I'd been wanting one for a while and I hadn't got around to buying one. I'm actually really pleased with it.

By most standards, I probably live in one of the best places in the country for cycling (unless you're really into mountain biking or BMX or something else). I live within about a 2 minute ride of a route on the national cycle network and about 5 minutes from the national canal network, which from Bournville, not only goes to university (where I work), but also beyond to the city centre and ultimately the rest of the country.

The ride into university takes about 15 to 20 minutes, which is basically how long it had been taking me by train, given that I usually end up waiting about 5 minutes or so for one.

Now the decision of whether to ride or go by train now seems to me to be an easy decision. As an example of mechanism design, this is how I see it: Each day I get paid £1.80 (the train fare) to exercise for half an hour. It takes up no more time out of my day, and there's none of the expense (and in my opinion boredom) associated with going to a gym.

So, the picture above shows my new route to work. And, as if the benefits already were not enough, instead of being advertised at by the omnipresent telescreens on the train, I instead get to enjoy the drifting smell of chocolate being made at the Cadbury factory, and to watch the ducks and geese flapping and hissing at me as I ride past.

Now I'm just waiting for my first rainy day...

Today, 21st September, is International Park(ing) Day. I just came across this, thanks to TreeHugger's post. The motivation behind the day, which originated two years ago in San Fransisco, California, is that so much of our cities' space is given over to vehicles, so why not, for a day, reclaim a bit as a public park. The idea is therefore pretty simple: find a parking spot, and turn it into a park for a day.

I didn't search for long, but the only example of the day being observed here in the UK was in Manchester last year. It'll be good to see if this grows this year. One in Birmingham would be great, and if I'd have found out about this earlier, I might have been quite up for helping to organise it.

This reminds me of a Reclaim the Streets style party which we held in Leicester a few years back, occupying part of Evington Road and moving in with barbeques and music. That day was a huge success; over a hundred people surprised themselves by joining in, bringing food, music and sofas out onto the street. It was actually kind of weird to see everyday people just stopping and chatting, having a free bite to eat, meeting new people and going away saying what a good idea it was. One local shoe shop owner even spontaneously suggested that we hooked up a sound system to his electricity supply to keep the thing going rather than use a generator.

Anyway, I'm all for the kind of thing that keeps public spaces for people. So, if anyone knows of a local effort or feels like doing this next year, let me know!

(Photo copyright Scott Beale / Laughing Squid. Thanks Scott!)

We went up to Darlington last weekend to visit friends - a brave thing considering all the ridiculous amount of snow that there was on that day. For some reason Birmingham doesn't cope well with snow and the whole city grinds to a halt. In the event, it took us three hours to get three miles! And then another three hours to get about 200 miles...

But, it was a great weekend, and I was introduced to a new game - Carcassonne - a German game modelled after the French town of the same name. I was hooked, and have bought my own copy already! Watch out people who know me... I'll be asking for a game if you come round. :-)

Yesterday was one of the windiest days I've seen for a while. What a fun blog post, eh? Well, not really, except for the fact that I stumbled upon (not literally) this fallen tree whilst walking home, so popped out to photograph it. I've quite enjoyed my night photography of late, and am quite pleased with this one too.

The weather was also headline news - four people died due to it, and my girlfriend Marla got stranded in Crewe on her way to Edinburgh on the train. Thankfully, she got taxied off to Nantwich, where she was given food and wine in an Italian restaurant and a night in a hotel, all on Richard Branson. This was the first day of her travels around Europe - so what a start!

I wonder if "the weather" could be an interesting subject for my photography to focus on...

Well, as this photo shows, after months of work I am finally almost finished in doing up my house in Leicester ready to sell. I had a couple of valuers round yesterday who seemed fairly impressed with the state the place is now in, which is some relief.

To be honest, I'll be quite glad to be shot of the day-trips from Birmingham to Leicester which have become quite a regular part of my life over the last few months. And thanks to road-works at both Spaghetti Junction on the M6 and at the Leicester south motorway junction, my average journey time has been around two hours, rather than the 55 minutes or so which I'd been used to.

The traffic jams on the Leicester ring road - something unavoidable in the current state of affairs - have been the worst. Yesterday it took me nearly an hour to get a couple of miles. There are consolations though: I quite enjoy people watching in traffic jams, and James Morrison's debut album is quite fantastic and also fairly soothing on my otherwise frustrated mood.

So now... the house goes on the market. And we watch and wait.