Tag Archives: Centre of Laundry Excellence

I get on my electric bike – hey it’s fun

IT WAS a misty Sunday morning, misted particularly so by the fact that I was in North Parade’s Rose & Crown hostelry and I somehow lost my way, last night

Woke up and it wasn’t a Chelsea morning but realised I really needed to get my electric bike into gear and get going, as the Americans say.

I got a Smarta LX bike. It’s cute. But no manual. Don’t these guys realise that we need to read something to learn? Next photo, you’ll see me on my bike.  Don’t mention the solar panels. Or the centre of laundry excellence!

And does an electric bike really need nine gears? Anyway it wasn’t nearly as scary as I thought it would be – and it went up hills magnificently, and down dales. I reached my destination, maybe three or four miles away in twenty minutes or so, including fag break.  I’m  getting to like my electric bike.

The kinks have really got me

I’VE BEEN WATCHING the building site across the road from the Centre of Laundry Excellence closely, ever since Jack the Woodchopper downed a very old tree by the old fashioned method, using a very very small axe.

A week or so ago, a large number of bent iron rods was delivered and they sat there for a few days until a couple of lads tipped up. Their job is to unbend the iron rods so that they could be used to build the shuttering for the concrete architectural wonder that will undoubtedly rise from the huge pit given time and an infinite workforce.

This is how they unbend the rods. One holds one end while the other runs into the road and swiftly unkinks the main bend in the rods and then unbends the other lesser bends to make a straight rod. This also means, no doubt, that somebody at the steel factory or at the distributor is bending the rods to make them easier to transport.

But running out into the road to the first unbend the rod makes the lads’ jobs very very tough because the traffic on this road never entirely stops.


You will notice a little mini-construction in the picture above. This, last week, is where the security man lived, to prevent the bent and unbent rods being made off with. Things have changed, I am pleased to report.

Yes! The security guard has got his own very little hut in which he can sit all day being absolutely bored to distraction guarding the bent and unbent rods. You will notice there is still a little unbending to do. We have watched the security guard (not pictured) throughout the day – what is going through his mind as he sits inside his little box?


He could be reading books or writing books, he could be learning languages or creating ideas which will change the world. All we know is he has got a very smart security guard’s suit, and doesn’t have to squat under the previous mini-construction. This, we think, is a very good thing.