Projects. You need them for your mental health, or at least I do. The only bad aspect of our life in France was the lack of a shed/workshop for me to do stuff. I managed to get around this after a while by volunteering with Velo Campus where I was able to learn more about fixing bikes and help other people learn about bike maintenance. Without that opportunity, I would have been climbing the walls and most likely become a criminal mastermind.
It’s the same here in Canberra. I don’t own the house we’re in at present and it’s a source of constant frustration due to there being so many projects screaming out to be started. So I’ve had to look elsewhere for my project fix. Recently, I was fortunate to be involved in CA’s school fete, where I inadvertently “volunteered” to run the second hand bike stall. A few weeks later, there was no room in my shed and the back yard looked like a junk heap we’d received so many donations. 98% of them needed fixing in one way or another and it was a lot of work, most of which I did myself, but it kept me busy.
So, once if was all over I still needed something to do.
I was lucky enough to score a couple of bikes from the pool of donations. We had some excellent donations but there were a couple that stood out, both for different reasons but both were vintage Apollos. Thus, I have managed to give myself something to keep me busy in my spare time.
You can read about the Leopard here, and the Eclipse here.