Freecycling Through West Sale

Winter commuter bike now with added luggage.

• Book: England: The official F.A. History
• Miles Travelled: 12 – a small diversion to my usual commute
• Source of Take: Freecycle

About 6 years ago I found myself working in an environmental charity in London. Career wise it was an unusual diversion but was a logical extension to something which started with attending Greenpeace meetings in a room above a pub in Leicester whilst studying at Leicester Polytechnic. Among the many things I learned whilst working for the charity was the burgeoning number of groups trying desperately to encourage and help people to reduce, reuse and recycle. I joined and have continued to use Freecycle, mainly in a giving capacity – I loathe the idea of throwing stuff away that still has life in it and that’s the very essence of Freecycle – you have no more need of something, it still does what it says on the tin, you advertise it and someone local takes it off you… Simples. I’ve given away all sorts from books to beds over those years and so it seemed apposite that I should use that source to get me going (I expect Social Media to take a while to kick in with generating books requests.)

I duly posted an OFFER, detailing my librarything account and letting people know they could choose their own book and then …. I had a post rejected email. Mr/Ms Moderator was claiming my post was a service… I have to admit I temporarily lost my shit but remained composed enough to send a vaguely sensible reply. Its here I have to give credit to the moderators who I expect spend a lot of their own time doing this for no measurable reward. We had a back and forth where the rules were explained and I elaborated on what I was doing and we reached a compromise where I decided to (regularly) list individual books.

An official history up to and including Euro 96

I listed the book above and a Star Wars book (no takers) and had a couple of responses for the England book in fairly short order. It just so happened that it was about a half mile diversion from my usual commute (I’ll come to that later) so was a good chance to strap on my newly delivered Rack and Panniers (thank you Santa Claus) and cycle into work to head some things off at the pass ahead of my ‘full’ return to work after a New Year break.

So, the long and short of it is, I have book 2 delivered and have notched up my first 12 miles cycling with a rack and panniers – blessed relief from a heavy rucksack to be honest. Now I’m away to put a couple more books on Freecycle.