The Freecycle network is a great way to give away unwanted items or get things that others don’t need which one may have a use for. We’ve given away books, magazines and tickets which I didn’t think were worth putting up on eBay.

But others are more generous. We’ve got recycled floorboards that are going to be turned in raised beds for the garden, bags of topsoil, and assorted pots and tubs for the garden.

Yesterday, I managed to get these books from Freecycle. I’d asked if I could have a couple of them (of course, the Knuths) but by the time we went round to collect them, nobody else had asked for them, so I brought them all home. I also got a copy of In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.

I can’t understand why no one in Lewisham, Greenwich or Bromley had a use for these books. The Knuth set and the GoF book on Design Patterns are classics in the field. Never mind, I’ll give them a good home. There are some that I don’t need and I’ll find other good homes for them in a while; once I’ve read them.

The actual work content has been thin. Will do better next week.

My bicycle helmet was broken by whatever it hit, as it was designed to do, but I was still knocked out for as long as it took an ambulance to get to me.

It turns out that although I still can’t remember what happened, I only cracked a rib and have some very minor scrapes and bruises. I did get to spend the night at King’s College Hospital because of the whack to my head, but apparently my CT scan was clear.

I dread to think what would have happened if I wasn’t wearing a lid. I only wore one because I witnessed a bike accident on Saturday in which a helmet would have prevented some head gashes.

I looked over my bike yesterday; and there is no damage to the front apart from scuffed handlebar tape. My back wheel, however, has a big wobble in it. This leads me to believe that I was struck from behind and thrown off.

Off my bike for at least three weeks now. Which means I’m missing the Dunwich Dynamo on July 4th. Still, the advice I’m getting is to heal properly before riding again, and I’m sure there are still many rides left to do.

My first bike related hospitalisation, and I can’t help feeling that I got off lightly.