Tour de France withdrawal symptoms

When three weeks of Tour de France tv coverage finished on Sunday, there was suddenly a hole in my life and I found myself missing that daily fix of cycling.
It was great to see a British winner for the second year in a row with Chris Froome taking the yellow jersey. He is a fitting winner as he seems to be a polite and sincere person. Just what is needed after all the recent controversy in the sport. He certainly earned the win with the help of his team.
I will particularly miss some of the great names of the contenders that were being mentioned in the tv coverage. Some of my favourites were Lars Boom, Bram Tankink, Rein Taaramae, Blel Kadri and Mikel Astarloza.
I had watched the ITV4 coverage with Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen doing the commentary.

After that splendid finale in Paris, I was hoping that there would be the last day of the second Ashes test to watch on the Monday. But no, the Aussies were so bad that England went 2-0 up in the series on the fourth day.

I wonder how many of my favourite names will be taking part in the Tour Down Under.

Peewit

UK weather improves

Having been back in England for seven weeks we seem to be getting some proper summer weather now. Initially it was very wintery despite having delayed my return from Oz by six weeks to try to miss the English extended winter of dull, cold and wet.
Anyway we now have some decent sunshine and the opportunity to watch cricket, and some sporting events on tv such as the Tour de France.

I decided to sell my Samsung WB850F compact camera as I was no longer using it. Having paid over 300 GBP for it, I thought that I would put it up for auction on Ebay. The starting price was £5 and at the end of the seven day period it reached £115 having received a good number of bids.
There was no reaction from the winning bidder for a day, then I got an email saying that they had made a mistake and were pulling out of the deal. I was surprised that Ebay allowed this but they do. With 24 hours since the winning bid, I found that other bidders had already made other arrangements and so I was going have to keep my camera.
I needed to reclaim my Ebay selling commission but Ebay will not let you open a case for two days. Then they will not let you conclude the case for a further four days even though it was quite clear that the sale was gone.
You would have thought that I could leave negative feedback for the bidder that won the auction and then reneged on the deal, but no, Ebay apply no penalty to the bidder and I cannot leave any feedback.
So what do we all learn from this :-
1) Selling on Ebay is risky as the winning bidder can pull out of the sale with no penalty or negative feedback.
2) Opening a case within Ebay is a slow and unhelpful process.

It is hard to feel anything other than that of being taken for a sucker by Ebay.

I'll be using Gumtree in future. No fees or commission with them.

Last week I went to spend a couple of days in Weymouth with a friend from college and my early days as an EMI apprentice. The weather was mixed, but I enjoyed the trip. I noticed a town called Affpuddle while en-route. I am not sure that I would want that name as part of my address.

Now to enjoy the next few sunny days.

Peewit