The last one standing - I take pride in usually being just that. When life throws punches, just take it on the face. Whether it will get better or not, there's no point in moping about it. Let alone crying. And the older and wiser I get, the less bothered I am about fighting through whatever it throws at me. Today though I realised I'm only human, and though I realise some other people have much more to complain about, I'm allowing myself to mope. Just for a bit. What else is a blog for, eh.

Commuting towards an early grave

For two years now, I have lived in the North of Manchester, commuting 13 miles to work by bus each day, and 13 miles home. From the start, I've struggled to comprehend how such a short bus journey could take 90 to 120 minutes depending on traffic, drivers taking impromptu breaks and buses actually turning up or not. But I got on with it. The alternative of cycling to work, though faster (really, I checked!), would have killed me by now. I wish I was joking. Leaving home before 6am and coming home near 7pm, there'd be a moment where I'd feel tired going across the outside of a roundabout. A driver, eyes half open as well, might not see me in the dark or low sunshine and wipe me out. On a bicycle, I wouldn't have the acceleration to escape quickly enough. I've had too many brushes with death when I tried. If you'd like to get an idea of how dangerous cycling is, there are some funny cycle lanes on show here (click 'facility of the month' and enjoy.. Oh, and a fine example of UK roundabouts causing a near-death experience can be found here.

Another alternative, the taxi, would cost me thirty pounds a day, which just isn't worth it. The train stations are too far from my home, and the connections too stupendously bothersome.

And so, for two years, I have been getting up at stupid o'clock in the morning. I've become used to spending over 30 minutes waiting on a bus that's advertised 'every 10 minutes or better', and sometimes waiting 90 minutes waiting for a return at night. I've spent on average 3.5 hours a day commuting, on top of 8 hour working days. It's knackering, and what's worse it affects everything I do beside my job - even the weekend. I have little time for the simplest pleasures in life - eating out, visiting a cinema, enjoying a beer in the back garden, going to a pub with work mates.. While my lack of energy and lust for life even affect my sex life - and the cramped bus seats (as well as shocking driving skills) have nearly literally broken my back. And only when that happened, I realised all this making do would have to stop. I needed to make a few of my own choices instead.

Unfortunately, nevermind how determined those choices are, life isn't easy. I chose to get a bike license, despite not having any time to train for it - and getting travel sick reading guides and tests on the bus. I took a Wednesday off, did my CBT, passed it and thought I gained momentum. Then I started looking seriously at mopeds, finding the clutch on motorcycles a bit too difficult to (safely) master at first. Compared them over the internet, found the ideal scoot, went to a dealer, tried getting it, then was refused a 0% loan. Well, it can happen to the best of us. I talked to my bank, but they quoted me a 27 month loan at 28% APR so I thought to try elsewhere. I found Zopa, an online marketplace for people lending money to other people. A great promise, but terms and conditions apply: the term being 'false dawn' and the conditions quite mysterious..

Before going to the Blair Horse trials, I had attempted to ask for a loan on the ZOPA site. They're quite a modern money-lending and investing website, where people can invest in other people asking for loans. For ultimate transparency, my idea was to create a so-called 'listing'. In a similar way to posting an item for sale on Ebay, the idea is to write an article on what you need money for and at what rates you're looking to buy. Unfortunately, my listing wouldn't post. On the return from Blair, fortunately it did - last week Monday night I published the listing. It'd be up there for a week exactly, ending on a Monday evening so plenty of lenders on ZOPA would have time to decide.

Today, at 18:39 pm, I got the good news: the listing was ended successfully. I got the bike loan, and at a better rate than I had asked for at that! It's been a while since I've had anything to write home about.. But I'm so excited now I nearly fainted.

Oddly enough, coming back from the Blair Horse Trials last week seemed to have cleared up my back issues. I still felt massive clicks in my legs and knees, with a rigid spine and sore tail bone, during the few days away. Perhaps though the mountain air, the exercise (walking the cross country course two days in a row) and just having to get on with it, solved it for me. The physio did say the cause was likely to be the amount of time I spend sitting down. A major risk in any office job, but I also have cramped bus seats to contend with for at least three hours a day.

Whatever it was, the pain left as suddenly as it had come - I'm still not as flexible as I'd like to be, but I can get my socks on and off standing up, balancing on one leg - and that makes life worth living again, haha!