Ain't life strange?

June and the first 10 days of July saw me spend just under 100 hours on my bike pedalling round France. That's proper pedalling too - panniers or hills. I got home on 13th July full of metaphorical beans - energised, energetic, tanned, rested, fit for anything.

On the 18th July I started work again, at a client site in Reading. As it happens, it's a nice office, directly above the railway station, and most of the people I've encountered so far have been good as gold. There are plenty of hotels and shops handy, so the logistics are as easy as they ever are when you're working away from home. And yet I'm knackered - exhausted, heavy-eyed, de-energised.

Admittedly I've been working hard - early mornings at the desk in my hotel room, deployment of quite a lot of brain power (or at least as much as I can muster) needed to solve a specific problem - but my knackeredness goes beyond those as explanations. It could be down to a few things. Lack of sleep is one, but I slept quite badly in the Pyrenees and didn't feel like this. Poor diet could be another, but it's not true - I've been eating really healthily. The debilitating effects of spending 11 hours a day in an air-conditioned office may come into it, but other folk seem to cope with that ok.

Nope, I reckon it's this - long periods without exercise. I have been running on Fridays at the weekends, but that's left 9 days in the second half of July when I've done nothing more strenuous that walk to and from my hotel. It's only a theory, but I reckon bodies adapt to what you do with them - and I've done a lot with mine so far this year. It's now rebelling at the lack of activity.

So, what to do? Well, it looks like I'm going to be here in Reading for at least the next five weeks, so it's time to desert the Premier Inn and find a hotel with a gym. Even working till 7 every night gives you the chance to run for half an hour or so afterwards. I was thinking along those lines anyway, but there was a stabbing and "police line, do not cross" tape very close to my Premier Inn this morning, so that's given me the push I needed.

On that note, Reading is a strange place. There's been a lot of development in its centre and around the river that runs through it - it's quite attractive. Yet a faint air of menace hangs over the place in the evenings, even as early as 6 to 7pm. There seem to be a lot of eating, drinking and carousing establishments among the new developments, and the excess alcohol, plentiful homeless and numerous smackheads wandering round combine to make it seem slightly threatening. I suspect if I was more familiar with similar size places in this country I'd find the same.

Anyway, time to go and spend my last night in the Premier Inn, sitting in my pants and eating M&S salad delights. It's not quite Alan Partridge-like, but it's not far off. I can feel your envy from here...