Ben Aston | benaston.com

I’ve had bikes stolen a few times. I’m all to familiar with the sinking feeling you get when you realise that either your bike has grown wings and flown away or someone has taken it from you and forgotten to tell you.

But whilst I’m familiar with bikes going walkies, yesterday was the first time that I had my bike stolen by a policeman. And no ordinary policeman, a policewoman, an Inspector; Inspector Corbett, Helen Corbett.

It’s a bit of a sad story. Yesterday I went to Wimbledon to watch a spot of tennis. I thought I’d ride my bike down and lock it up on a roadsign. Little did I know that Inspector Helen Corbett would decide to apply her anti-terrorist training to the situation and after positively identifying my bike as a potential bomb threat, decide it would be best if she broke my lock, take my bike away and park ‘the potential bomb threat’ next to the police station, so that in the event that it blew up, as many policemen and policewomen could be killed as possible.

Luckily Inspector Helen Corbett left a helpful sign up next to the place where she’d stolen my bike which informed me that my ‘unattended’ (no mention of the fact that it wasn’t so much unattended as it was locked up) bicycle had been removed to Wimbledon Police Station. So after a long walk, and a chat with a Policeman who told me it wasn’t his fault, it was Inspector Helen Corbett’s fault because she was scared of the IRA bombs, I got my bike bomb back.

Boombtastic.

Except, there’s still the issue of the broken lock. And apparently, when the Police steal things (like your locked bike), they can’t give you a crime reference number for your stolen bike and broken lock, they can only give you a piece of paper with Inspector Corbett’s name on. And that meant I then wasted ages trying to find out who Inspector Corbett was on Google.

So please Inspector Helen Corbett, can you give me a new bicycle lock, like the one you broke, so it doesn’t get stolen by the other people who steal bicycles? I’d like this one please

Thanks.

Following ze recent Mexico wedding jaunt we thought we’d continue our international summer wedding tour with a trip to Austria via Munchen so I could drive really fast in a BMW on ze autobahn. Just across ze border and down ze road from Salzburg, nestling next to a lake, (named after Ursula’s teddy beer*) where the hills are alive with the sound of music, is Zell am Moos.

It was my first euro-wedding experience; a cornucopia of beer, sausage and cold meats. What made this one even more brilliant was the delightful fusion of euro tradition; The Swedes instigated everyone racing to kiss the bride (or groom) when the other spouse was otherwise engaged spending a penny. The Austrians drank lots, which may explain why they didn’t quite get around to in getting everyone on board with their tradition of stealing away the bride to a local pub, to sing and drink while the groom has to find her. And as for the British contingent, well, we just smiled politely.

She’s a lovely Persson. Ursula.

*may be a misunderstanding, but it’s definitely something like that

The thing about the Isle of Skye is that it’s a long way away. I’ll almost go so far as to say it’s too far away. On the upside, there are nice things like whisky, mountains, and cows.

Nice.

It had been 6 long months since ‘30 miles of hurt‘; a walk so painful it made me seriously consider hanging up my boots, binning my poles and bidding farewell to my glucose tablets.  Rather than chasing mountain goats (Mark & Alex) up and down mountains, it occured to me that due to my emerging rotundness, and ever incresasing semblance to a hippo, a sedentary life recounting the heroic walks of old, might be more appropriate for me.

But times have changed. Wounds have healed. And this hippo is getting fatter.

So it was decided by common consent that we should stretch our legs. The Lake District was too boring; Snowdonia too far;  the logical choice was Scotland. OK, so it might be an hour or two past Wales but we wanted to conduct an experiment to see how easy it would be to get lost in the mountains in the snow in November.

Fuelled on a mean (almost vindictive) diet of Ryvita and Nutella for breakfast and lashings and lashings of Bean Feast for dinner, we completed three short highland strolls from our base in Fort William: Ring of Steall, Ben Nevis and Aonach Eagach.

Two died. They will be missed. Thankfully they were just phones. By some small miracle, we didn’t even need to be airlifted (although I did get stuck on an icy ledge for half an hour). So in conclusion, we are pleased to announce our experiment a success; the Highlands of Scotland are a place not only to get cold, and get lost, but are also very hippo friendly.

Och Aye.

Tomato harvest, originally uploaded by benaston.

It’s harvest time at Aston Villa. After 4 months of watering love, the tomatoes are in full bloom. Chutney in Putney coming right up.

On a chutney fact-finding mission I embarked on today, I discovered chutney comes from the hindustan word chutni. Right now that’s about all I know about it. Come Saturday though, you’ll be able to call me chutnigella, as I’ll be totally sumptuous with the tomatoes and knock up something truly simple yet make it look really difficult.

Dahl-licious.