As I looked out of the kitchen window while getting breakfast for the dogs I saw it was raining. I went outside to have a look (rain has been scarce for about 5 months) then came back inside to get my camera. This is what was going on out there:
The whole rainbow was too close for me to get into one image so I chose a portion of it. I like this because there are a few things going on in the picture. First there is the rainbow of course, most vivid colours that I’ve seen in a rainbow for a long time. Then there is the secondary rainbow but also you can see that where the rainbow ends on the ground it gets darker the further down you look, this was shortly after dawn and the sun coming up in the east was gradually lighting up the mountain on the western slope opposite my house, it hadn’t lit the bottom of the valley yet. Then you can see a brown part in the tree on the left where the tree is slowly dying. Another tree died a while ago and has been chopped down. The highest part of the mountain that you can see is where the ancient Lycian city of Phellos is located, how bad must civilisation have been in those days for everyone to have wanted to build towns on the top of mountains to try to avoid attack from enemies? Not the “good old days” anyway.
The work on my new bike is continuing and increasing it’s scope. I’m afraid to say that there is a lot more wrong with it than I first thought when I bought it. I have gone from “fixing a couple of things” to pretty much a full restoration because something quite drastic happened to it before I got it. The previous owner was very pleased to tell me it had had a “full cosmetic renovation”. Well the trouble with that phrase is the scope of the work didn’t just include cosmetics. It seems everything had been stripped off the frame and left lying on the floor somewhere while it was all painted. Then someone, not necessarily the person who took it apart, put it back together again, badly, including trying to stop a front brake hydraulic leak using PTFE tape, I kid you not! Then I, with stars in my my eyes, came along and bought it. Well alright I shall own up to not checking it over as much as I would have liked but you can’t really start stripping a bike in the showroom before you’ve parted with at least some of the price. Anyway having got it home and fixed a couple of things enough to be able to ride it I started fixing more things and one badly put together thing let to another badly put together thing. The job, as happened to someone in a book I seem to recall, “growed and growed”. And it’s still growing but more slowly now. By the time I have finished it will be an excellent bike capable of thousands and thousands more miles in comfort and safety, I’m hoping to have a trip back to U.K. on it sometime next year, covid permitting. In the meantime I will keep restoring and documenting. I will publish a complete story along with a list of everything I buy. It’s going to give me an interesting occupation over the winter, I’m not going to rush it, I have time and can afford to do it properly so if this interests you check back around Easter next year for (hopefully) the end of the story.
I hope you enjoy the photograph of the rainbow.
Cukurbagli's Blog 
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