Chez Spud

I finally got back on my bike today. Therein lies a tale. I’ve known for month what bike I wanted to buy and have searched high and low for it. Yesterday I gave up the search and nipped in to a local bike shop, ready to buy any bike that fitted the bill. And there it was! MY BIKE! The exact bike I wanted, in my size, ready to go and in the sale. Be still my beating heart…

Here she is. Not the best shot, her pale olive glamour doesn’t stand out much against the background I chose. She’s awaiting a basket, hence the weird contraption on the front. Her name is TBA, but is possibly Annie. Annie the Allant (the model name). But I’m not convinced. Anyone got any suggestions?

Sigh. I love her. I love her totally upright position, I feel like a Victorian lady pottering about on her. I love the colour and I particularly love the big fat seat. It’s like a mattress it’s so cushy. My bottom is so grateful.

So, nursing a little hangover due to 6th wedding anniversary celebrations last night, off I wobbled around the lanes early this morning. It was a misty kind of morning, with a very weak sunshine attempting to break though. It felt good to be back on the bike again and, thanks to the mattress seat, padded pants and proper cycling trousers…it was a whole lot more comfortable than previously.

Things I saw that I couldn’t get a snap off…a pheasant on the churchyard wall….church bells tolling across the fields, a sound that can’t have changed in hundreds of years…the smell of wild mint…a bike hating labrador (WOOF WOOF WOOF!!) which I came across twice in a short ride and so much rubbish dumped in the hedges it brought on ‘the rage’…black bin liners, unwanted books, building work rubbish, car batteries, gloves, cans..why do people do that? It’s so unnecessary and selfish.

I finally managed to get a snap of this doorway which intrigues me. Not a great shot but I was trying to balance the bike between my knees to stop it rolling down the hill, while taking a sneaky shot without being noticed.

Later we took the bikes to the forest for a family ride. Before:

After:

Spot the difference? Some of our number climbed trees…

But kept their helmets on. Because you never know…

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… a secret fairy dell…deep in the forest…ssshhhhh….

Actually this is a bit of a cheat as it wasn’t ME on the bike, it was the boys. Slight downside of Diggy cleverly riding a pedal bike is that he can’t stop it. He ‘can’ brake, but the bike is a bit big for him and he isn’t able to brake/stop/tilt the bike to get off properly…he just falls off. So, until he grows a little, we have to sprint along side him and help him come to a stop when he needs to. It’s weary making…googling ‘growing potion’ as I write…

I took a breather to snap this beauty with my phone. My love affair with the iPhone camera continues. The Nikon is gathering dust.

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…but, then, aren’t we all? Ravaged by time I mean. Happens to the best of us….

I also saw a willy waver of the worst kind…an Audi Q7 driver speeeeeeding past me on a newly laid road. Speed limit is 20mph while the chippings are still on the surface, but apparently there is some kind of international law which allows Q7s to ignore both the law and common sense and overtake cyclists at great speed and on a blind corner, chucking up chippings in to my face. Two words: Grudge Book. If I’d been a bit more confident on the bike I’d have shaken my fist at him in manner of Old Man Rage. Instead I enjoyed watching him nearly smash in to an oncoming car. Ha. ‘Blind corner’…the clue is in the title?

Later I saw a pedestrian (rare round here) who didn’t return my cheery ‘good evening!’ so I grudged him too. And two ladies out jogging with matching black labradors. Very Chelsea I thought.

And then I saw a cat. In a field. Having a lie down and purring.

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…Paddington Bear, looking a bit faded and disheveled it has to be said, giving me one of his fabled ‘hard stares’ from a window up above. Probably he was wondering who the woman with the big red face was, out of breath and clutching a phone trying to snap a picture and stopping her bike wheeling off down the VERY steep hill at the same time. Note to self: next time, get off and ditch bike for shots like this rather than wobble around in the road.

Also, put new batteries in bike lights and don’t stay out after dark. Ooops.

The other thing I saw on my bike ride today…

…a beautiful cottage garden filled with flowers and tomatoes galore. Anyone for chutney?

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… leading to a village church looking very fine in some much needed evening sunshine. I also saw my shadow, comedy long and thin against the tombstones, a herd of catting lowing in the next field and a glorious sunflare:

I saw the sea rescue helicopter go over and hoped it was just an exercise, a billion bunnies scuttling around, fields and fields of potatoes with their tops cut off (to stop blight?) and marveled at how they smelt like, um, potatoes. I  saw hedgerows dripping with blackberries all a-ripening, and red berries a plenty. I smelt Autumn in the air.

And I saw a hare, zip out on to the track and zoom away over the hill. I tried to keep up but who was I kidding.

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…reflections of the sky and the clouds in the still water of a pond in the forest. Lovely, lovely…I also spied a couple of small beasties hanging out by the side of the pond…

…and, up ahead of me on the path, my two little chaps trundling along like pros. It was a first for us today, our first family bike ride…normally I just jog along behind them and carry the bags. Today we all cycled and the bike carried the bags. I’m loving the holidays, one week left until Bertie starts school. I’m clinging on to every minute.

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