Today was a rubbish day on the cycling front. Part of me feels I’m hideously under-prepared; the other part that I’m over-thinking the whole thing and it will be fine. The realist in me knows that the problem is lack of fitness but the lack of cycling savvy just makes it seem even worse. It’s too late now but I really wish I’d taken some sort of cycling lessons. After a terrible hour on the bike where I felt almost hopeless, I returned to the car in search of the water I’d accidentally left behind and, to add insult to injury, it started raining. I sank back into the car seat and made a sad video where perhaps I could be labelled as a cross between a catastrophist and a drama queen.
After running some chores, I returned home and by now the sun was back out and it was a glorious late afternoon. I remembered how much I love living where I do. The sun was coming through the trees, the cicadas were singing and I could the neighbours’ children playing and laughing in the distance. I am so lucky. I have just the best neighbours. In my previous few houses I didn’t really know the neighbours. In fact, I haven’t really had much to do with neighbours since I lived with my parents in our childhood home. Now I have neighbours who bail me out when I lose my handbag and resort to sleeping in the garden; neighbours who help push my car when I get it stuck on the driveway in a cyclone; neighbours who repair my car when I have my latest crash; neighbours who invite me in for wine and my fabulous next door neighbours who take out my bins, help me with my bike, feed my cats when I’m away and generally take care of me. In return, I give nothing – except I am generous with the trick or treaters at Hallowe’en. I don’t know what I have done to deserve to live down the same driveway as these amazing folk but I’m very grateful that I do. My next door neighbours have had their own sadness recently and yet this week, they have made me feel like a princess. So I sat in my garden and made another video. Here they both are, chalk and cheese and yet both are me just a few short hours apart!
Enjoy!
Anecdotally, 