Another good month. Decent dry weather coincided with weekends, bank holidays ,and Friday afternoons often enough for me to get out on the bike quite a bit. I got to go out ten times. A couple of those were for local events, but the rest of the time I was out visiting various places in Surrey and Sussex.

Bank Holiday Monday was a particular highlight because I wasn’t riding alone. Jayne has not ridden her bike for months after breaking her wrist but decided it was now healed enough to handle the throttle on her Harley. The plan was to go out to a little country pub just outside Billingshurst for lunch. We had been there on a previous August Bank Holiday when we were taking part in a charity poker run. That day was a complete wash-out, except for the lunch we had so we were looking forward to it. We arrived at the pub just before noon and the car park was suspiciously empty, and a quick check on Google confirmed that the place was closed. On a public holiday!

Because we had been there on the same public holiday before it had never occurred to us that it would not be open. We decided to press on to Petworth and had a lunch there instead. It was a bit further than we really wanted to go – in case Jayne’s wrist caused trouble – but everything was fine and we had a perfectly decent lunch.

My other bike trips were mostly an excuse to visit some record shops that I had not been to before and see if they were worth going to. First on the list was A Ray of Delight in Arundel. It is a bit of a way to go but well worth it. A brilliant little shop in the old printworks where I picked up a few LPs. On the way home I stopped off in Steyning, where I didn’t get tempted at all by the shop there. Its a nice enough shop but the prices were all a bit steep compared to what I normally pay.

After that I went to what is now my local record shop – Spin Sounds which had just opened up in Dorking. This is more my sort of place and as it is only ten miles away I can easily pop over there on Friday afternoons after work. The selection is good, the prices reasonable and always a tempting bargain section, including lots of £2 LPs. You take a bit of a chance on cheap LPs but the friendly owner has a very liberal returns policy and is quite happy to give refunds if you are not happy with the quality of the record – or even if you are just not happy with the music! I have now been in there a few times and picked up quite a few of the £2 LPs, most of which play very well.

Sticking to Surrey, I ventured into Godalming and Guildford. Guildford has two record shops: I found one to be a bit expensive but the other one (Ben’s Collectors Records) more in my price range, and very friendly. In Godalming there is a charity shop that only does records and books and therefore has a lot more records than most charity shops. Unfortunately I think they go to Discogs to price everything and probably end up over-pricing – but I did get a copy of Sheep Farming in Barnet for £2 that was in good nick. The other shop is a mixture of new and used vinyl. While not bad, its not worth the journey just to go there.

During the month I visited 7 new record shops, and 3 of them I will be going back to. One of them is a bit far away but its a lovely ride out to Arundel. What with all that shop-sampling, and the East Grinstead record fair I will admit that I got a bit carried away in August, but I was just making the most of the weather. Honest.

But it wasn’t all motorbiking and record shopping. There were also a few family events. There was a baby shower up in Essex, a garden party/barbecue in Essex and then another down in Storrington. And of course there was the main event; our 23rd wedding anniversary. We returned to where we renewed our vows on our 15th (I think) anniversary for a meal. The food was brilliant and I even had a glass of wine to wash it down.

Total miles ridden in August = 438

Amongst all that I still managed to read 11 novels, all on the Kindle, mostly while listening to all the new records I bought during the month.

I only watched one film on TV, but it was a good one – Pride. Somehow I missed this when it came out (pardon the pun) in 2014 but it had the most amazing cast and is one of those quirky, feelgood British films like The Full Monty, or Calendar Girls, or Brassed Off. It brought back lots of memories of that time in the 80s.

On TV I watched Citadel on Amazon, and then took advantage of the Apple TV subscription that I get as a benefit from my bank account and watched The Completely Made-up Adventures of Dick Turpin, which I thoroughly enjoyed as a bit of tongue-in-cheek, historical comedy with a slightly surreal edge to it, and some great guest appearances from Joe Wilkinson, Greg Davies and Tamsin Greig.

My only major purchase of the month was when I treated myself to a new jacket and gloves at J&S in Uckfield at the start of the month and then got a lot of use out of. It is great for the summer because you can remove the two linings and open up loads of vents to let air flow through, but with the waterproof lining and the thermal lining back in it should do me for the winter as well.

Finally, there is my Premium Bonds update: I managed to keep up my winning streak, but only just. I ‘won’ £75 but that was enough to extend the streak to 14 months and helped to subsidise my vinyl habit somewhat.