I went to university at Imperial College, in London. In 1989, I joined the caving club - Imperial College Caving Club, or IC³ (so 'IC-cubed' Ooh, that is irritaitng, the superscript hasn't carried over. Hey, it is a science and engineering university, so we had to make a maths joke!). 

Anyway, I joined IC-cubed, and met a lovely long-haired hippy, who I fell for. It never occurred to me that I'd still be with him, 25 years later. He is now a balding, greying skinhead, and a wonderful father to our two daughters. He is the reason I started running, back in the mid-nineties. He started running, and loved it. Because of that, I started running, too, and loved it, too. At that time, I was living in France (Brittany), and he was living in Liverpool. I thought "Ooh, when we live together again, we can go running together!". Then he moved to Johannesburg.  So I followed.  Then I found out how fast he runs, compared to me.  I mean, he runs sub-3 hour marathons, in his late-ish forties, and I run sub-7 hour marathons, but not by much. Ho, hum. So, we have never really run together, but he is the reason that I run (or rather, I did, when I was able to, and I really, really hope I will be able to, again, one day). See? This is supposed to be a running blog, and there, I mentioned running! Good Flump.

Anyway, today I was working at home (as the girls are still off school). I failed to get around to doing any exercise, but then, when Mr Flump went out for a run this evening, I decided to drag my exercise bike out, for a quick sesh. I just pedaled like mad for half an hour, and I also did lots of stuff with my little dumb-bells.

While I was doing this, I put my iPod on, and I listened to Jethro Tull.  This is why I was talking about the caving club: on a Friday evening, in London, we used to load a transit van, with all our rucksacks, and caving gear - wellie boots, wet-suits, over-suits, furry-suits, hard hats, lamps (electric, with huge electric batteries, or carbide lamps, which burned with a little flame), and lots and lots of rope, hangers, S.R.T. gear (that is Single Rope Technique, for getting up and down long stretches of rope, down a cave - abseiling down, then prussiking back up). On top of that huge pile of muddy gear, we would lay a few mattresses, and then one of us would drive that transit van up the motorway, to Yorkshire, with most of us lying on those mattresses, head-to-foot. We would put on some music (ooh, this was a long time ago, it was back in the days of cassettes!). And we would go up the motorway, listening to bands like the Pogues, and the Levellers.

Why am I telling you all this? Because tonight, for my session on the bike, I put The Levellers on my iPod. I really enjoyed it! I enjoyed the music, but I also enjoyed being reminded of thos happy hours, squashed against the roof of a transit van, driving up the motorway, listening to folk rock.