Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack

Rather than doing any memory training today, I decided what would be really cool would be to go for a very long bike ride, all the way to Derby and back. I'm motivated by the fact that I'm heavier than I've ever been, probably (I was really very fat back in 2002-ish, but I think I'm possibly even fatter now) and another of my friends has now lost well over ten stone after some dedicated dieting and exercising. I'm surrounded by strikingly slender ex-fatties!

I'm realistic about my prospects of losing ten stone plus, but the fact that I could do that and still be the average weight of an undersized greyhound is a bit worrying, and frankly, being two stone lighter would probably be good for me.

So off I pedalled. There is a network of cycle paths between here and Derby, but it's not very well signposted, so you really need to look at a map before you set off. I didn't, and predictably got completely lost very early on in the expedition. But by a pleasant coincidence, I found myself on Cleve Avenue, where Grandma and Granddad used to live when I was little, even though I had absolutely no idea that I was anywhere within five miles of the road! So I went up and down it a couple of times trying to work out which house they lived in (I couldn't remember the number, and although the house does feature on one of my memory journeys, none of the houses there now look even remotely like the one in my mind. They're all too small, for one thing. So that counts as memory training, albeit the completely unsuccessful kind, and I'll just phone Grandma and ask her to remind me.

Anyway, knowing where I was, I set out on my travels again, and before long ended up in a place that I at first thought was Long Eaton but turned out on closer inspection to be Stapleford. At that point I gave up on the idea of getting to Derby before midnight and decided just to try to find my way home, but luckily I immediately stumbled across those cycle paths I'd lost, and followed them through some delightfully scenic countryside back to Long Eaton (where they come to an abrupt end at the back of the big Asda, which I still call "the new Asda", although it's been there for decades and there's now a genuinely new and bigger Tesco looming over it), then went back home the normal way, along the un-scenic main roads.

So, lots of cycling, and then I had an unnecessarily huge dinner to completely counteract any weight benefits it might have had. I'll start dieting tomorrow. Actually, I feel like making this a new thing of mine - forget memory training, I'll get into competitive weight loss!