lethargic_man | Shacharis rota at shul

I was on my shul's shacharis rota today. This meant getting up at six o'clock, as I wasn't going to cycle fifteen minutes uphill on an empty stomach unnecessarily. (The shul is half an hour's walk away, and a little further by bus, so cycling was the only sensible way to get there.)

The first thing I passed on my way there was the Machzikei Hadass shul; the second was a shtiebl in an office block. The third was a bridge over the Decoy Brook, but the fourth was another shtiebl. Up the hill, past the park and the Coptic church, and through the cut onto Bridge Lane, where there are more shtieblach than you can shake a stick at, I pedalled furiously, as I was running late.

This is, evidently, the origin of the term "shtieblchase"...

(I just wish I could regain the confidence to cycle fast downhill without the gut-clenching fear that something is going to seize in the bike and catapult me once again over the handlebars. Time will see to that, I suppose, once the cold that's meant I haven't have the energy to cycle to work since recovering from my second accident has passed.)