Categories: uncategorized
Date: 22 October 2009 10:42:52
I am the proud owner of a new bike.
No, I haven't gone mad. It was a free gift when I took out membership at the gym. Amazingly generous, seeing as it was worth a full quarter of the cost of joining the gym (and that's at its reduced price in Halfords, knocked down from a price that was around £400, which makes you start to wonder what's wrong with it!)
It's a lovely bike. Strange, under normal circumstances I'd have brought it home thinking "Oh blast it, now I'll have no excuse for not going cycling with the Smudgelet". I might have been inspired for a day or two, though I don't really believe that would have lasted. But my old bike in the garden with rusted chain, flat tyres and cobwebby frame is a much better sign of a potential desire to cycle foiled by circumstance - along the lines of "if only my bike were in better condition we could go for a ride" while all the time secretly knowing that it would not take much to do it up and that I'd no intention of going for a ride at all. So a new bike would scupper that approach and I'd be feeling the need to hide it away from the Smudgelet and to wrestle with my conscience.
Slightly different today. It was a 45 minute walk home from Halfords, pushing the bike, and my feelings are not dread at having to ride it, but dread at the thought I may not be able to. I had to push it home because the doctor had made me promise I wouldn't ride a bike (other than an exercise bike which, annoyingly, I got the go-ahead for!) and in my heart of hearts I know that I wouldn't be safe on one anyway until my eyesight's sorted. Will it be sorted? At this very moment I'd give anything to be able to hop on that bike and take it to Richmond Park for a couple of hours, regardless of how my thighs would ache.
As it is, I'm now trying to work out how to explain to the Smudgelet that yes, I have a new bike, but no, he's not to get excited because I won't be riding it yet awhile.
Still, at least it will come in handy when he has a friend round and they want to go cycling. The Smudgelet's tall enough to ride my bike.