Good Feeling

The sounds of summer are here!

No really, summer is on its way and I've such a good feeling.  This week I've been back on my bike and I've managed to do enough rock climbing that my arms, my back, my hips and interesting my abdominals are all zinging with muscle stiffness and aching.  It's such a good feeling.

And now, this delicious long weekend I have such lovely plans.  Tomorrow I ride one of my favourite trails with a friend who I haven't caught up with in ages.  Then there's a meeting up with a woman I haven't seen for years and years.  Then on Sunday there's a ride over Ruthin with me, just me, time on my side and the glory of the bicycle.  Fab.

Work is going tremendously well.  It's really interesting, being treated as some kind of harddrive.  We're basically extracting information from my head, and at the same time I'm reorganising folders on the PC and it's all logical and sensible.  Flatteringly, my opinions are being asked and I'm being asked to be thoughful, analytical and give on the spot conclusions which I hadn't even thought about. It's odd because I'm not just feeling valued for the past, but I'm realising that it's recognised that I have a brain.  I've been asked to use it.  That's properly fascinating.

And hey, I'm chosing happiness.  Nothing can stop me ...

Distant Thunder

I went out to eat with friends this week, a 41^st birthday celebration out in the Peak District.  I was about to refer to them as old friends because that’s how they feel, established.  In reality though I realise none of them were in my life while I was married.

On a tangent here, when did I get unmarried?  It certainly wasn’t something which ended on 15^th November 2005 somehow, more a gradual process.

Anyway, established friends.  One of them was with his wife, who I have met before, but oddly not with him, I met her while I was giving a lift to his son.  It’s a funny time of life (tangent again ...) when you find you can have separate friendships with father and son.  I’m no longer quite sure who I met first.  So I’ve met Mrs J once before, and she seems really nice.  But Mr J started a conversation about what I was up to, and odd words came up to describe me.  He referred to me as free spirit and hippy.  I was perplexed.

I have odd standards against which I measure various things in life.  I measure cycling passions against the standards of training and preparation of Olympians.  I measure transient lifestyles against equally high and extreme standards.

My formative years saw me being brought up in the Quaker religion.  My mum was an Aldermaston Marcher in the 1950s, my dad successfully negotiated his National Service to work instead with the Friends Ambulance  Service.  They stood by their beliefs.  As I grew older in the Quaker religion, I mixed constantly with people who believed in living witness, those who lived in sustainable communities, those who lived in treehouses and squats and all kinds of things to protest against and to hinder efforts of road builders.  People who believed strongly in standing up for what they felt was right.  Hell, my friends had dreadlocks, piercings, tie dyed clothing, and indeed memorably one of them had changed his name by deed poll to Tree. No firstname, no surname, just Tree.  Some earned their livings busking, doing fire eating acts, playing the fiddle, some lived in ancient home converted wagon style vans.  Others fostered for a living.   And it was always obvious to me who were the hanger oners with the “in crowd”.  Those who had pretensions and became weekend hippies with their DMs and tassle fringed skirts.  But for me, acceptance didn’t need me to dress up in any affected manner, and it was fine that I was the square one because like them, I believed in being true to me and not painting a picture of something I wasn’t.  

I knew then and I know now I am not a free spirit, and I am not a hippy.  I have my feet too firmly on the ground, and I have direction too, not an ephemeral blow with the wind drifting.  These are not labels I aspire to.

And we have a finishing word from the Levellers ...

 

The Kill

Three day weekend, three very different bike rides.  And a climb.  And many many lovely people.

My tiny and lovely feisty female friend has been on a bike, what, maybe twice in the last two decades and she's never ridden on the road.  She's feeling a bit left out, but also feeling like maybe there's something she might get a lot from that she hasn't tried.  It feels to her like her friends are all moving away from hill walking, climbing, scrambling and getting on two wheels instead.  And she can't keep up.  So it was a privilege to be trusted to take her out on a mountain bike on Friday.  We had a whole entire day together which made the ride bit simply social and about experience and riding together and smiling, laughing, and for her there was also an awful lot of breathing.  For me, it meant a ride in keeping with the physio's instructions but with added sparkle of having my friend with me experiencing things for the first time.  Nothing like a first time for making your eyes shine.  It's funny too, the memories of the days when two hours was definitely enough on the bike, the memories of the kind of inclines which then put me into little ring and now don't.  And the big discussion over not wearing underwear under padded shorts.  At least she got to have that chat before the shorts went on.  I believe it was a few times before I embraced the odd feeling of going commando.

The next day I explored.  I meant to ride to Wigan but ran out of signs and somehow found myself in Leigh, where there's a lot of trail creation going on as part of the Sustrans National network.  It is, though, work in progress, and riding over the recently chipped brash gave a certain element of interest to the ride as well as fear of thorny punctures. Perhaps all that touching wood is what saved me.  Who knows?  The evening was socialising with my older climbing friends, kind of nice evening of the over 40s.  Weirdly far more me than the 20s were.  Or maybe that's just what I think now.

Today, though, I breathed.  I took the road bike out for the first time since the minor topple and with a map in my pocket and no clue of what I was doing, set out from the front door.  It was a lovely day for the Cheshire Lanes.  Grey clouds and a threat of rain, but cyclists everywhere.  My head bobbling like a nodding dog as I attempted to acknowledge other riders and the general joy of the day.  Breathing seemed to be my only focus, just breathing.  Hearing each breath and feeling the love of life that came with it, just breathing, sometimes panting, but mostly breathing and feeling alive, blessed and thankful for the privileges I have been given in health and friendship.  Thank  you.

Today has been brought to you by La Roux ...

Silver Flame

Today this song has drifted through my head throughout the steady flat bike ride from Eccles to Wigan along the Sustrans route 55, returning via Leigh and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal onto the Bridgewater canal back home.

From this you can reasonably assume I'm in a good mood and all is well with the world.  Today I was burning like a silver flame right from the off. 

Both on and off the bike I feel centred down, happy with just being.  On the bike I'm there, present, vibrant and alive.  Somehow I'm feeling in control, without having realised I felt precariously off balance for a while, maybe or maybe not related to the unsteadying injury.  It hurt to let go of words like Need, Want, Expect, Assume; without these there sometimes feels like there's no room for Hope.  Now it feels liberating not to have these chains around me.

Littlest things

I've started getting used to not being on the bike, and indeed to being the fastest rider on the sofa.  It's not a bad sofa.  I idled around the roads of Coniston Water on the mountain bike on Sunday accepting a mid ride change of plan otherwise known as a warning twinge from my knee which suggested off road might not be for me that day.  It was very vaguely satisfying, particularly when I was joined for riding chat by a local lady on her road bike.  It very nearly felt social.

Such has been my self imposed plight on the bike that I've felt too slow, too meandering and too tied to the flat to possibly have company out there.  It's been nice, doing my own thing, but Sunday was also nice, and I was actually grateful for the company.  I haven't been in the saddle since Sunday and haven't felt the normal no exercise trapped feeling either which is really odd for me. Have I somehow adjusted to a more sedentary state. Is this how it all starts?  Will I own slippers next, and perhaps gain a familiarity with my DVD player or subscribe to an enhanced Sky entertainments package?  Who knows?

To counteract this feeling, I read something today which sparked my thinking.  Just one of those brief platitudes which appear on facebook from time to time.  Something along the lines of when you ask  yourself what's the point, why are you doing this, just remember gently what made you want to do it in the first place.  I still remember the mountain bike ride at Llandegla on the hire bike with a group of friends who then seemed disproportionately fast.  I don't think I'd ever ridden anywhere other than the road and the odd gravelled surface before then.  I'd never swooped downhill over humps and round berms.  I'd never climbed up fireroads or rocky stones.  I'd never ridden on anything narrower than a pavement.  I was permanently at the back.  I went back again, and hired a bike again.  Then I bought one for a couple of hundred quid from Decathlon and spent a year with it.  I upgraded.  I was hooked.  The fast friends slowed down with time too.  Cannot really believe how much ...

Physical interaction

Back in the saddle again.  This would infer I’m back in the old saddle again. I’m not, I have a new one which has already clocked up 50 miles use.  It’s an odd thing a new saddle. My first impression was on my bum.  Well, it was a crikey this is proper hard, but the first 30 minutes came and went and I forgot I was on a new saddle at all, which is clearly a good thing.

I got out on the bike twice over the bank holiday weekend. I threw the physio’s words of caution to the wind, well, in a measured and calculated fashion anyway.  I have an awareness of the injury, what exacerbates it, how far I can go just before I feel it twinge.  Twinging, I have been told, is not good for a knee cartilage damage complaint but anything else goes.

Physios must have an interesting job, aside from hearing tales of utter stupidity and hilarity, and aside from coming up with imaginative forms of rehab to cope with multiple issues all at once.  There’s a whole branch of psychology to it too.  I come from a world where pretty much everyone I know is the kind of person who will try to do too much rather than the kind of person who won’t do the exercises.  Both kinds of people will inevitably lie about what they have and haven’t done.  So the physio has to figure out which kind of person you are and set limits or put in place higher challenges. Nobody, clearly, will do what they are advised to the letter. Well, caveat, nobody I know.  The physio here has to deal with some fairly big extremes.  People who believe if they are a short time off the bike they will lose strength, condition and talent of multiple years.  It takes a lot of clear information and exact details to deliver understanding and reassurance that talent will not simply disappear.  There’s also the peculiar return to the bike after illness or injury where the first couple of rides have your heart sink if all you do is ride, because you believe with an absolute certainty that you are miles behind where you were. Apparently scientific measurement will demonstrate that here is where feel is not to be trusted.  Hard facts and figures will demonstrate usually relatively little loss, sometimes a steady state because by the time you return to the pedals you may well be, for once in your life, well and truly rested.

Sunday I went up to Baslow Edge to join up with and watch some of my friends climbing there.  My remit was to bring cake and camera, and I think I fulfilled both satisfactorily, even managing two different kinds of cake.  The physio’s twenty minutes twice a day on the flat, preferably traffic free was on my mind, and I did plan a circular relatively gradient free route on a relatively well surfaced bridleway.  That was the plan.  Reality saw me scrambling over big rocks at the foot of the climbs, sometimes carrying the bike, sometimes leaving it casually hidden under very large rocks.  Reality saw me abandon bridleway for footpath, lovely rugged bumpy single track footpath at the top of a cliff.  The descent back to the van also made me aware that the journey from the van to the edge was probably uphill. So much for flat and even then.  It was a lovely day, and I returned home with just enough flapjack left ...

Monday I thought perhaps I had better do as I was told, and I set off down the canal towpath from Eccles to Manchester.  My aim was to hit the Sale / Chorlton Water Park and amble around there, stopping for cake. I’d even packed a bike lock for this occasion.  I was indeed ready.  But having got to Sale and not being entirely ready for cake, what was to stop me getting on the Trans Pennine Way and striking out towards Lymm.  30 miles later I completed the circular journey and due to a splendidly early spring morning start was back in time for lunch.  When, I wonder, did rehab become a 30 mile mountain bike ride?

Today I’m back commuting on the bike.  As yet, I’m not feeling ready for the road bike. It’s not because I fell off it particularly, it’s more about some apprehension over the twisting motion for the clip in pedals.  I’m not ready.  Today I rejoiced in the headwind as I did the final minor climb up to work.  It’s good to be on the bike.  It’s good to be alive.

When to run

"Know when to walk away
know when to run
You never count your money
When you're sittin' at the table
There'll be time enough for countin'
When the dealin's done"

You've got to know when to run.  Or when to ride.  Or when to climb.  Somedays you can hardly walk let alone walk away. 

I'll not deny this weekend is hard.  My shed was broken into on Friday afternoon.  Nothing was taken, but they mangled the bolt.  I spent a not very happy at all hour or two just moving all the contents of the shed which were either worth something or could be used to break into a house indoors.  Chaos reigned, and knee pain properly engaged.  But I felt I had no choices here.

The shed was full of things belonging to a previous life, a life that wasn't mine really, mostly belonging to my husband, he who originally secured the shed door and was paranoid about security.  He would have been mortified by the break in.  He might even have been angry, an unfamiliar emotion saved for occasions when it was properly merited.  He was never angry with me though.  He wouldn't have blamed me for this.  But I still feel I let him down by other people having access to his precious tools.  It was big demolition style tools that were in there.  I'm now trying to rehome them with friends.  I feel bad about that too but the shed isn't a shrine or museum.  Why couldn't they just have sat there quietly festering for another decade.  I hate being forced to face them.  It feels overwhelming and just too difficult. 

Leaving the house feels uncomfortable, and staying in it alone feels uncomfortable for the self same reason. I'm afraid whoever broke into the shed and took nothing will come back for what they really wanted and break into my house, my home, my sanctuary.  I'm grounded here, it needs to feel safe, secure.

But it's OK, I am leaving the house.  I went for a flat flat flat walk yesterday for an hour.  I have physio orders on activity and it's somewhat limiting but all in aid of full and fast recovery.  Today I did cake delivery.  Parked the van down the road from a crag some friends were climbing at and rode gently to see them, a gentle although knobbly surface, and a bit of carrying the bike down some of the escape routes to get to the bottom of the crag and then to the top of it.  Oh.  So, instead of resting up, I have actually been scrambling while carrying the bike and riding it along some particularly interesting singletrack otherwise known as footpath to access the crag.  Maybe I don't know when not to run ...