Tuesday 30 December 2014
2014
So, nearly there, at the end of another year. I feel like I limped through the whole of the second half of the year. I'm avoiding truly reviewing in my mind what were the successes, what goals I achieved because I'm afraid the conclusion does not look good.
Tuesday 16 December 2014
Killer Hamsters
If the zombies don't get you, the hamsters will. Or at least, that's the message I'm taking from my recent dream. All dreams these days seem to involve me chasing or being chased. Mostly I seem to be fruitlessly trying to capture or chase away something which just ain't happening.
The hamster would not be caught. Or in fact, it occasionally let me catch it but then it wriggled and slipped away out of my clutches leaving me desperate and hopeless. Time and time again I nearly caught it or had hold of it briefly before it zoomed away into a new hidey hole. It was just me and the hamster shut up together in a room, and morning only came in the final moments when I tracked the wriggling scuffling beast down in my bed. Lunged for it, and then woke up.
I'm not entirely happy about the killer hamsters.
The hamster would not be caught. Or in fact, it occasionally let me catch it but then it wriggled and slipped away out of my clutches leaving me desperate and hopeless. Time and time again I nearly caught it or had hold of it briefly before it zoomed away into a new hidey hole. It was just me and the hamster shut up together in a room, and morning only came in the final moments when I tracked the wriggling scuffling beast down in my bed. Lunged for it, and then woke up.
I'm not entirely happy about the killer hamsters.
Monday 8 December 2014
Killer Zombies
I had a horrid dream. One of those where you wake up whimpering and anyone fortunate enough to be sharing the bed with you gets woken up before you eventually wake up shaking.
It was a zombie dream. I'm quite proud of that. Proper classy. The zombies were looking for territory, and I was having to defend my space from them. I'm not sure what would have happened, in honesty, if they'd won but somehow it was important in the dream, where of course you don't get choices in such matters, to defend it, with my life if necessary. I was somewhere underground, with dark, dank tunnels, convoluted spaces, sometimes claustrophobic and sometimes with wider spaces. There was a chasm too.
The zombies weren't communicative, and fortunately they weren't particularly strong, what with being dead bodies with a loss of muscle tone. They were, however, persistent and they kept on coming, in ones, twos and threes, but never ending procession of bodies to fight off. I had no weapons, there was no furniture, no convenient rocks, swords or the stuff you find in movies. All I could do was to get them off balance and push them into the chasm. There were so many of them. They kept on coming. Then the chasm started to fill up, and zombies I had previously pushed down it started to climb back up again. They wouldn't go away and they kept on mounting up.
They were all genders, dressed in grey and brown ragged clothing, with dreadlocked hair greasy and dishevelled. And relentless in their arrival.
It was pointed out to me that this is how I seem to be seeing life right now, many minor issues, all resolvable, all defeatable but in such a volume that they seem unmanageable. As soon as I slay one zombie others pop up or the slain one seems to return and I start to drown.
I'm now seeing every new thing that pops up and needs dealing with as a new zombie. Equally, every thing I do manage to do is a zombie slain. Maybe one day I'll redress the balance of new zombies and dead zombies.
It was a zombie dream. I'm quite proud of that. Proper classy. The zombies were looking for territory, and I was having to defend my space from them. I'm not sure what would have happened, in honesty, if they'd won but somehow it was important in the dream, where of course you don't get choices in such matters, to defend it, with my life if necessary. I was somewhere underground, with dark, dank tunnels, convoluted spaces, sometimes claustrophobic and sometimes with wider spaces. There was a chasm too.
The zombies weren't communicative, and fortunately they weren't particularly strong, what with being dead bodies with a loss of muscle tone. They were, however, persistent and they kept on coming, in ones, twos and threes, but never ending procession of bodies to fight off. I had no weapons, there was no furniture, no convenient rocks, swords or the stuff you find in movies. All I could do was to get them off balance and push them into the chasm. There were so many of them. They kept on coming. Then the chasm started to fill up, and zombies I had previously pushed down it started to climb back up again. They wouldn't go away and they kept on mounting up.
They were all genders, dressed in grey and brown ragged clothing, with dreadlocked hair greasy and dishevelled. And relentless in their arrival.
It was pointed out to me that this is how I seem to be seeing life right now, many minor issues, all resolvable, all defeatable but in such a volume that they seem unmanageable. As soon as I slay one zombie others pop up or the slain one seems to return and I start to drown.
I'm now seeing every new thing that pops up and needs dealing with as a new zombie. Equally, every thing I do manage to do is a zombie slain. Maybe one day I'll redress the balance of new zombies and dead zombies.
Thursday 30 October 2014
Going home
It's not easy, this going home business. For 14 years I had a regular journey, Clayton Manchester to Eccles and I knew it. I knew many variants, I had favourites, I had routes suitable for different weather conditions, for different times of day, for different whims and fancies. Now I don't.
I have many many options, and I'm trying to avoid driving to work so I don't learn the cycling routes by repeating a driving commute to work. The train just doesn't offer the same ability to explore where roads go. So I'm trying really hard to become happy with my cycle routes, despite the fact I seem to have started trying to learn them and explore while it's a bit wintery and the nights and mornings are dark.
I've ridden in behind a friend twice. I didn't enjoy the A6, although admittedly I couldn't get lost on that route either. I've meandered home following the bike computer's "Surprise Me" route, and it was rather wonderful and glorious, but it did take two hours.
Today though, I have boldly dared to use cyclestreets, a website thingy specialising in cycling journeys. You put in your start and end post code and it gives you three routes, the quickest, a balanced and the quietest. I have to say it works. It actually works. It doesn't take you to stupid places unless you chose the quietest route in which case you only have yourself to blame. The quickest route this morning was free from trauma. Completely free.
The quietest route, though, this evening involved quite a bit of unlit off road, and even with lights, good lights, if you don't know quite where you are, or where you're going it's a bit unnerving. I did, however, attract a Welsh guy also commuting who escorted me effectively along rutted muddy winding woodland single track, and all was indeed rather good.
I have many many options, and I'm trying to avoid driving to work so I don't learn the cycling routes by repeating a driving commute to work. The train just doesn't offer the same ability to explore where roads go. So I'm trying really hard to become happy with my cycle routes, despite the fact I seem to have started trying to learn them and explore while it's a bit wintery and the nights and mornings are dark.
I've ridden in behind a friend twice. I didn't enjoy the A6, although admittedly I couldn't get lost on that route either. I've meandered home following the bike computer's "Surprise Me" route, and it was rather wonderful and glorious, but it did take two hours.
Today though, I have boldly dared to use cyclestreets, a website thingy specialising in cycling journeys. You put in your start and end post code and it gives you three routes, the quickest, a balanced and the quietest. I have to say it works. It actually works. It doesn't take you to stupid places unless you chose the quietest route in which case you only have yourself to blame. The quickest route this morning was free from trauma. Completely free.
The quietest route, though, this evening involved quite a bit of unlit off road, and even with lights, good lights, if you don't know quite where you are, or where you're going it's a bit unnerving. I did, however, attract a Welsh guy also commuting who escorted me effectively along rutted muddy winding woodland single track, and all was indeed rather good.
Friday 3 October 2014
Moving Times
I moved house. Left the old house, which somehow wasn't overladen with memories by the time I left it. The hoovering put paid to that, it was that thorough.
The new house is, well, not just mine but most definitely not Dave & mine. It feels kind of big and has an old and solid feel to it, at the same time as feeling bright and spacey. It's suitably kind of shabby too, with occasional glimpses of quality. Permanence. The whole thing feels permanent, it's a thing of its own in space and time, and probably will be long after I've gone. Reassuringly solid.
I realise it has four storeys. A normal two bedroom house but with a loft conversion and a cellar. It seems to me that everything which the removal men put in the cellar is destined for the loft which means there are a lot of trips up three sets of stairs. It properly feels four storey during these early settling in days.
It's helping me to realise an ambition too. Trying to find a way to not have to drive to work. I have a train and I have a bike. Even train journey days count as exercise twice a day, with nearly 4 miles in walking to be done either end of the journey, outwards and return. I suspect fitness may find me.
There's a firm ground to put my feet on, hopefully I'll get them to stay put sometime for long enough for that to happen.
The new house is, well, not just mine but most definitely not Dave & mine. It feels kind of big and has an old and solid feel to it, at the same time as feeling bright and spacey. It's suitably kind of shabby too, with occasional glimpses of quality. Permanence. The whole thing feels permanent, it's a thing of its own in space and time, and probably will be long after I've gone. Reassuringly solid.
I realise it has four storeys. A normal two bedroom house but with a loft conversion and a cellar. It seems to me that everything which the removal men put in the cellar is destined for the loft which means there are a lot of trips up three sets of stairs. It properly feels four storey during these early settling in days.
It's helping me to realise an ambition too. Trying to find a way to not have to drive to work. I have a train and I have a bike. Even train journey days count as exercise twice a day, with nearly 4 miles in walking to be done either end of the journey, outwards and return. I suspect fitness may find me.
There's a firm ground to put my feet on, hopefully I'll get them to stay put sometime for long enough for that to happen.
Monday 1 September 2014
Another goodbye
I don't know if this is a first goodbye or a last goodbye or simply another goodbye.
I buried my pet this evening. Poppy, the last guinea pig. She's buried next to the first, Phyllis. Phyllis was a big ginger pig. She moved in with me in 2000 along with her blind cage mate, Rosie. Two beautiful girls passed to me by a work colleague who didn't want to part with them but had to. Phyllis was 8 years old when she died in 2005. She was, for me, the guinea pig who kind of represents the others. I still dream about her. There's not one guinea pig related dream which Phyllis doesn't appear in. The guardian angel of all those who came after her.
Poppy too lived a long life, possibly seven years old in the end. For nearly two years she lived alone because, for me, she was the last pig. She lived much longer than I expected, her cage mates were the same age. She was the opposite of Phyllis. I hardly heard her squeak and she was timid not bold, black and white, not ginger, smooth haired, not Abyssinian. I did my best for her, other than find her a friend for those lonely years. Spent more on vet treatment than it would cost to acquire three more guinea pigs this year alone.
So, the last pig is buried in the garden. It's the last goodbye.
The garden which I will be leaving in the next month as I move house. It's a spot I don't think she'll be disturbed in, regardless of whatever work is done, whether it's paved over or reshaped. I think she'll rest in peace. And somehow it's the first of the goodbyes to this house. It signifies change in a way nothing else has, not the re-painting in neutral colours, not the sold sign, not the half packed boxes in the spare bedroom, not the relentless clearing out of stuff. This truly is change because the guinea pigs have gone. It's the first goodbye.
But this house has seen a lot of goodbyes, and there are more to come, and I just hope I can do those properly, do them meaningfully and finally with dignity and respect. There have been too many goodbyes said here, and this is another in the one too many stakes. I shall miss the feeling of having life in the house, the constant tiny movements and noises and the company. Goodbye Poppy, you're already missed.
I buried my pet this evening. Poppy, the last guinea pig. She's buried next to the first, Phyllis. Phyllis was a big ginger pig. She moved in with me in 2000 along with her blind cage mate, Rosie. Two beautiful girls passed to me by a work colleague who didn't want to part with them but had to. Phyllis was 8 years old when she died in 2005. She was, for me, the guinea pig who kind of represents the others. I still dream about her. There's not one guinea pig related dream which Phyllis doesn't appear in. The guardian angel of all those who came after her.
Poppy too lived a long life, possibly seven years old in the end. For nearly two years she lived alone because, for me, she was the last pig. She lived much longer than I expected, her cage mates were the same age. She was the opposite of Phyllis. I hardly heard her squeak and she was timid not bold, black and white, not ginger, smooth haired, not Abyssinian. I did my best for her, other than find her a friend for those lonely years. Spent more on vet treatment than it would cost to acquire three more guinea pigs this year alone.
So, the last pig is buried in the garden. It's the last goodbye.
The garden which I will be leaving in the next month as I move house. It's a spot I don't think she'll be disturbed in, regardless of whatever work is done, whether it's paved over or reshaped. I think she'll rest in peace. And somehow it's the first of the goodbyes to this house. It signifies change in a way nothing else has, not the re-painting in neutral colours, not the sold sign, not the half packed boxes in the spare bedroom, not the relentless clearing out of stuff. This truly is change because the guinea pigs have gone. It's the first goodbye.
But this house has seen a lot of goodbyes, and there are more to come, and I just hope I can do those properly, do them meaningfully and finally with dignity and respect. There have been too many goodbyes said here, and this is another in the one too many stakes. I shall miss the feeling of having life in the house, the constant tiny movements and noises and the company. Goodbye Poppy, you're already missed.
Tuesday 22 July 2014
Being her
House buying and selling is turning me into a stress bound monster I don't like very much. I cannot believe what I've given it permission to do to me. That has to stop. I want to become the person I want to be, and trust me, this mental case is not she.
So trying to chuck it all to one side, and let be what it'll be, realising that there's some things I just can't do anything about. Other people for the most part.
What I'd like to be is a fit, healthy, laughing person who giggles with her friends, is kind and warm and good company. I'm always a work in progress ...
So trying to chuck it all to one side, and let be what it'll be, realising that there's some things I just can't do anything about. Other people for the most part.
What I'd like to be is a fit, healthy, laughing person who giggles with her friends, is kind and warm and good company. I'm always a work in progress ...
Friday 20 June 2014
Something stupid
Oddly as I get older I find it easier to confess I like Robbie Williams. I never had a problem admitting my liking for Gary Barlow, but Robbie? Come on, Robbie? But the lilting sound of Something Stupid melts my heart.
You know, I'm a fortunate woman. Opportunities offer themselves to me. I got to marry the love of my life, and I got to do the most important thing in the world for him, be next to him for 9 months while he approached death. I got to love him until death did us part. That's pretty amazing, he was pretty amazing, and for a while, I was pretty amazing too.
I got to work in a job people would have given their eye teeth for. I know this. Some told me. And now I'm in another job which again is the quiet envy of a few particularly weird obsessive people. And I'll take that.
I get to live in a place which people want to be in, and I can't fault it. Except it isn't somewhere good to ride my bike, so I'm moving to somewhere that is. I'm doing the thing where if I feel scared, I'm substituting the word with "excited". I've already tried that one on my mum. She bit.
You know, I'm a fortunate woman. Opportunities offer themselves to me. I got to marry the love of my life, and I got to do the most important thing in the world for him, be next to him for 9 months while he approached death. I got to love him until death did us part. That's pretty amazing, he was pretty amazing, and for a while, I was pretty amazing too.
I got to work in a job people would have given their eye teeth for. I know this. Some told me. And now I'm in another job which again is the quiet envy of a few particularly weird obsessive people. And I'll take that.
I get to live in a place which people want to be in, and I can't fault it. Except it isn't somewhere good to ride my bike, so I'm moving to somewhere that is. I'm doing the thing where if I feel scared, I'm substituting the word with "excited". I've already tried that one on my mum. She bit.
Tuesday 17 June 2014
Under pressure
Today is brought to you by Queen and Freddie Mercury, potentially in a white suit caring for the people on the edge of the night.
I like to sustain the pretence that I am in control of the important things in life, my choices, making my chances, driving things along. So it figures that I am hating the process of house selling. I am hating that having done everything I can to help myself (there has been a lot of emulsion in my life this last week) all I can do now is wait, and the dream I have for myself depends on whether someone wants to buy my house and whether someone else wants to buy the house I have an eye on. I'm not loving this very much. It's starting to ooze out in my dreams and manifest itself in some typical anxiety symptoms.
In fact, I'm so aware of the anxiety and stress in my life that I've stopped using Strava for all my rides. How on the earth riding my bike managed to change from something which relieves stress into something where I put pressure on myself to get faster I just don't know. But Strava is now reserved for occasions when my sanity is intact enough that I get on with riding without caring.
Under pressure ...
I like to sustain the pretence that I am in control of the important things in life, my choices, making my chances, driving things along. So it figures that I am hating the process of house selling. I am hating that having done everything I can to help myself (there has been a lot of emulsion in my life this last week) all I can do now is wait, and the dream I have for myself depends on whether someone wants to buy my house and whether someone else wants to buy the house I have an eye on. I'm not loving this very much. It's starting to ooze out in my dreams and manifest itself in some typical anxiety symptoms.
In fact, I'm so aware of the anxiety and stress in my life that I've stopped using Strava for all my rides. How on the earth riding my bike managed to change from something which relieves stress into something where I put pressure on myself to get faster I just don't know. But Strava is now reserved for occasions when my sanity is intact enough that I get on with riding without caring.
Under pressure ...
Wednesday 11 June 2014
My story
I had some plastering done this week, and the plasterer, aged 45, family man (as they say in the best tabloids) was curious about the miscellany of bicycles scattered around the house. He was also kind enough to say there wasn't an ounce of fat on me. Oddly, though, that did not endear him to me but I digress.
He asked me about my riding, lots of questions. How far do I go, do I ride, like, once a week, isn't it weird how you don't see many women on bikes. So somehow I ended up explaining and at the same time as explaining I was remembering.
It sounds like a sob story but it isn't. My family didn't have a car. There were multiple reasons for this, and the last one on the list, although relevant, wasn't the most important, that one was money. The other reasons were the curious thing where my dad didn't have a driving licence. It was years before my mum found out that something she thought had been a choice of his, not to learn to drive, wasn't. In fact, he had learned, he took his test, and on failing it, just stopped, gave up. My mum had a licence but zero confidence in her abilities. She came from a world where the expectation was that the man would drive, and the little woman might do the odd shopping jaunt now and then, but wasn't expected to be the main driver. The other reason was, in fact, ethics, and the environment. Even back then, in the 1960s, 1970s, my parents were passionate about their beliefs. They believed we should be walking, or cycling or taking public transport because it felt like the right thing to do, in terms of fitness, in terms of environment, innately, they felt it was the right way to do things. We were the kind of family where if there was an organic, wholesome way to do things, that's right where we'd be. My mum made her bread by hand all through my childhood, our clothes were recycled pass me downs. We didn't waste stuff, and we didn't load ourselves with unnecessary possessions. A car would have been unnecessary. As would more than one bike apiece. Hmm.
Anyway, as I explained to him, to me a bike was transport from the age of 10. That just stayed the case, a combination of bikes and public transport saw me through a lot of years, particularly when I was a student in London then worked in London where public transport actually functions, lots of it, runs regularly, frequently, and goes to places which you want to go. Amazing, huh? I told him it felt like flying, that at times you do want to take your feet off the pedals, stick your legs out to the side and yell wheeeee as you go downhill.
I never stopped riding a bike. I think there's some adults out there who can't picture getting back in the saddle because they stopped riding, and there is a perception that traffic is more of a problem now then it was in the 1970s. I guess it's true to say that traffic has increased, but for city riding, it means for cycling in that it's slower moving, often queueing and it feels fairly safe to ride past stationary cars.
My answers to his other questions were that on Sunday I rode 130km, and that on a road bike 60km doesn't seem too big a deal, and that I rode nearly every day, not just once a week as he seemed to think was appropriate.
I tried to explain to him the need for more than one bike but he didn't get it.
He asked me about my riding, lots of questions. How far do I go, do I ride, like, once a week, isn't it weird how you don't see many women on bikes. So somehow I ended up explaining and at the same time as explaining I was remembering.
It sounds like a sob story but it isn't. My family didn't have a car. There were multiple reasons for this, and the last one on the list, although relevant, wasn't the most important, that one was money. The other reasons were the curious thing where my dad didn't have a driving licence. It was years before my mum found out that something she thought had been a choice of his, not to learn to drive, wasn't. In fact, he had learned, he took his test, and on failing it, just stopped, gave up. My mum had a licence but zero confidence in her abilities. She came from a world where the expectation was that the man would drive, and the little woman might do the odd shopping jaunt now and then, but wasn't expected to be the main driver. The other reason was, in fact, ethics, and the environment. Even back then, in the 1960s, 1970s, my parents were passionate about their beliefs. They believed we should be walking, or cycling or taking public transport because it felt like the right thing to do, in terms of fitness, in terms of environment, innately, they felt it was the right way to do things. We were the kind of family where if there was an organic, wholesome way to do things, that's right where we'd be. My mum made her bread by hand all through my childhood, our clothes were recycled pass me downs. We didn't waste stuff, and we didn't load ourselves with unnecessary possessions. A car would have been unnecessary. As would more than one bike apiece. Hmm.
Anyway, as I explained to him, to me a bike was transport from the age of 10. That just stayed the case, a combination of bikes and public transport saw me through a lot of years, particularly when I was a student in London then worked in London where public transport actually functions, lots of it, runs regularly, frequently, and goes to places which you want to go. Amazing, huh? I told him it felt like flying, that at times you do want to take your feet off the pedals, stick your legs out to the side and yell wheeeee as you go downhill.
I never stopped riding a bike. I think there's some adults out there who can't picture getting back in the saddle because they stopped riding, and there is a perception that traffic is more of a problem now then it was in the 1970s. I guess it's true to say that traffic has increased, but for city riding, it means for cycling in that it's slower moving, often queueing and it feels fairly safe to ride past stationary cars.
My answers to his other questions were that on Sunday I rode 130km, and that on a road bike 60km doesn't seem too big a deal, and that I rode nearly every day, not just once a week as he seemed to think was appropriate.
I tried to explain to him the need for more than one bike but he didn't get it.
Thursday 22 May 2014
More, more, more
Give me more, I say.
In our attempts to make the women's after work ride a regular Wednesday spot, two of us committed to the ride yesterday. This time, I meant business. This time I took the road bike. Not the cross bike of the high volume knobbly tyres with the flat pedals and the disc brakes but the mincing minnie road bike with its precious skinny wheels and tyres and colour co-ordinated detailing. I like my road bike.
Speculatively, I thought, Caroline asked me at the start of the ride whether I had any time constraints. Oh, I thought, she's working up to telling me she can only play out for a couple of hours. Not at all, it turns out, for on confessing that I have nothing to go home for any time soon, it turned out she was gently putting out feelers for my potential for a pub stop. It was agreed.
Oddly, we did the same ride as last week, and not oddly, we did it faster, it being easier to organise two riders than it is four. There's less waiting for folk who haven't made it through a green light, there's less waiting for folk who can't filter through traffic or can't descend or can't climb or can't ride a bike (ok that's a bit harsh). This left plenty of time for the pub stop. And if it hadn't, that's what lights are for.
It's a lovely part of the world, the Delph and Uppermill.
Arriving here always feels somehow a bit special in a low key way ...
Hartshead Pike
Quite special with a gentle climb in the summer evening sunshine.
In our attempts to make the women's after work ride a regular Wednesday spot, two of us committed to the ride yesterday. This time, I meant business. This time I took the road bike. Not the cross bike of the high volume knobbly tyres with the flat pedals and the disc brakes but the mincing minnie road bike with its precious skinny wheels and tyres and colour co-ordinated detailing. I like my road bike.
Speculatively, I thought, Caroline asked me at the start of the ride whether I had any time constraints. Oh, I thought, she's working up to telling me she can only play out for a couple of hours. Not at all, it turns out, for on confessing that I have nothing to go home for any time soon, it turned out she was gently putting out feelers for my potential for a pub stop. It was agreed.
Oddly, we did the same ride as last week, and not oddly, we did it faster, it being easier to organise two riders than it is four. There's less waiting for folk who haven't made it through a green light, there's less waiting for folk who can't filter through traffic or can't descend or can't climb or can't ride a bike (ok that's a bit harsh). This left plenty of time for the pub stop. And if it hadn't, that's what lights are for.
It's a lovely part of the world, the Delph and Uppermill.
Arriving here always feels somehow a bit special in a low key way ...
Hartshead Pike
Quite special with a gentle climb in the summer evening sunshine.
Friday 16 May 2014
We ride
A couple of the women at work have started adding a bit of a loop to their commutes home on a Wednesday evening. This Wednesday past I realised half way through the morning - ooh, it's Wednesday, I wonder if they're going out, I wonder if I'd be welcome, and the e-mail query was sent. I confess, I was a bit euphoric to discover it was game on for that evening. Imagine, a lovely sunny day, all the time in the world (lights were packed) and four women with bikes ready to ride together in the evening sunshine. Lovely.
Genuinely, I was excited about it. I don't often get to ride with women, or if I do it's mixed groups on mountain bikes. There was a certain amount of special about the idea of this on the road. Women, not girls. Women doing their thing, uninfluenced by blokes, no supportive spouses offering to carry stuff, no men being asked for advice on routes, in fact, no fuss whatsoever, just women and their bikes.
It was lovely. Hannah in charge of the route and each of us in charge of ourselves. There was a mechanical, we sorted it in a nonchalant self sufficient manner. No fuss. There were undulating ups and downs and whooshy bits, there were riders on the other side of the road, some of whom nodded, smiled, waved and others who were far too serious to acknowledge us.
It makes me smile, how road riding folk view others. We were just women on bikes. Happy.
Genuinely, I was excited about it. I don't often get to ride with women, or if I do it's mixed groups on mountain bikes. There was a certain amount of special about the idea of this on the road. Women, not girls. Women doing their thing, uninfluenced by blokes, no supportive spouses offering to carry stuff, no men being asked for advice on routes, in fact, no fuss whatsoever, just women and their bikes.
It was lovely. Hannah in charge of the route and each of us in charge of ourselves. There was a mechanical, we sorted it in a nonchalant self sufficient manner. No fuss. There were undulating ups and downs and whooshy bits, there were riders on the other side of the road, some of whom nodded, smiled, waved and others who were far too serious to acknowledge us.
It makes me smile, how road riding folk view others. We were just women on bikes. Happy.
Monday 12 May 2014
Material Girl
My nesting instinct is having to find some balance. I acquire new stuff, but this means old stuff must go, and consistently for me over the years, I can't bear to throw stuff out. Useful stuff. But not to me. I'm embracing the challenge of working towards moving house, and it's made me really think about how I want to live, and it's made me feel guilty and capitalist. What right have I to be so acquisitive? I feel guilty about my one person space requirement turning into yearnings for other things, kitchen diners for example. It seems my nesting urge is leading me into some interesting places.
When did I ever actually look for a home for me? Never. I've never sat down and considered me, and me alone and what I want. I've had rented rooms, rented flats, and I've bought in conjunction with another person, but never looked at what I'd like, just me.
Turns out I want a kitchen diner. Is that incredibly avaricious of me? Also turns out I want a garden, doesn't have to be a big one, but I want green stuff in it, not paving stones and not decking. I want to grow herbs and to sit on the grass and read.
To make this dream happen I'm freecycling once again. If I can keep getting a couple of items a day out of the loft then maybe by the time I come to sell I won't be carting accumulated crap of years around with me. Goodbye router, goodbye third sheet sander, goodbye mitre saw, goodbye old vax, goodbye double air bed, goodbye dual action pump, goodbye fisherman's shelter, goodbye campinggaz coolbox that plugs into a cigarette lighter. Goodbye to these things which haven't seen the light of day in nearly a decade. And hello. Hello to my future where I only take me with me.
Tuesday 6 May 2014
Pivotal moment
We never see them at the time and we never see them coming, those pivotal moments. Sometimes it takes years for us to realise what just happened, the significance, that moment.
When was your last pivotal moment? When was mine? When will the next be. It's one of the odd vagaries of life, the pivotal moment, one of the things you can't predict but yet one which memory cannot bring back either, not without some serious mulling over of Stuff.
Is your life what you want it to be? Stepping back, is it, is it really, is this existence the result of conscious choices. If you stepped back, just a mini step and saw yourself through the eyes of, well you, but younger, or older, is this it, is this the life you want to lead? You have choices you know, you don't have to await that pivotal moment where chance takes you one way or the other, and because pivotal moments are all bound up in memory, you can change them anyway, make them into something else, lessen their impact.
I suspect as I get older and things dull, things aren't as bright or as shiny or as important as they once were, perhaps pivotal moments lessen in frequency, perhaps because I now have more conscious control, I accept chance but don't always believe in its influence over the smaller things in life. There are many things I can't change, those exert that pivotal influence. But most things I can affect, I'm not a victim accepting her unwitting fate. If this isn't the life I want to lead then I know, with an absoluteness of knowledge, I know that I can change it. I might not be able to immediately create the life I want to lead, but I can move away from a life I don't want to lead. All it takes is recognition of that fact. Maybe that recognition is in itself a pivotal moment, but I don't think so.
Pivotal moments include a walk in the pouring rain with raindrops disguising the tears coursing down my face, and the action of walking side by side hiding the face to face recognition of the tears. It was a long time ago, crossing the bridge over the M11 but it was a bargain I made with life. And I lost.
When was your last pivotal moment? When was mine? When will the next be. It's one of the odd vagaries of life, the pivotal moment, one of the things you can't predict but yet one which memory cannot bring back either, not without some serious mulling over of Stuff.
Is your life what you want it to be? Stepping back, is it, is it really, is this existence the result of conscious choices. If you stepped back, just a mini step and saw yourself through the eyes of, well you, but younger, or older, is this it, is this the life you want to lead? You have choices you know, you don't have to await that pivotal moment where chance takes you one way or the other, and because pivotal moments are all bound up in memory, you can change them anyway, make them into something else, lessen their impact.
I suspect as I get older and things dull, things aren't as bright or as shiny or as important as they once were, perhaps pivotal moments lessen in frequency, perhaps because I now have more conscious control, I accept chance but don't always believe in its influence over the smaller things in life. There are many things I can't change, those exert that pivotal influence. But most things I can affect, I'm not a victim accepting her unwitting fate. If this isn't the life I want to lead then I know, with an absoluteness of knowledge, I know that I can change it. I might not be able to immediately create the life I want to lead, but I can move away from a life I don't want to lead. All it takes is recognition of that fact. Maybe that recognition is in itself a pivotal moment, but I don't think so.
Pivotal moments include a walk in the pouring rain with raindrops disguising the tears coursing down my face, and the action of walking side by side hiding the face to face recognition of the tears. It was a long time ago, crossing the bridge over the M11 but it was a bargain I made with life. And I lost.
Thursday 1 May 2014
Genesis 8
And after forty days, Noah opened the doors to the ark and lo he saw freedom, for no longer did he need to get out on his bike and mount up the requisite kilometres in order to complete the Strava Specialised Spring Challenge. 40 days of cycling. 40 days of challenge. 30 of it feeling fine, 10 of it feeling exhausted.
I note that a year or so ago I was riding the flatlands of Belgium, happily trotting out 30kph. Now in the flatlands of Cheshire I am trotting out around 20kph. I am tired. I am looking forward to rest and recovery, beer, sleep, books, sunshine, legs not in lycra, bum not sat on a saddle, neck and shoulders in normal alignment. I am looking forward to equating the bike once again with fun. It'll all be over soon. 111km to go and 3 days to do it in. Amen to that.
I note that a year or so ago I was riding the flatlands of Belgium, happily trotting out 30kph. Now in the flatlands of Cheshire I am trotting out around 20kph. I am tired. I am looking forward to rest and recovery, beer, sleep, books, sunshine, legs not in lycra, bum not sat on a saddle, neck and shoulders in normal alignment. I am looking forward to equating the bike once again with fun. It'll all be over soon. 111km to go and 3 days to do it in. Amen to that.
Thursday 24 April 2014
My obsession
Strava has become an obsession. Let's just add it to the list of obsessive black and white but completely harmless to anyone but me behaviours.
I don't understand. Let me explain. The Strava Spring Classics challenge popped up onto the dashboard at the end of March. It suggested that during the forthcoming 40 days folk take on the challenge of riding the arbitrary distance of 1266 km. This apparently in a world of clever statistics adds up to the distance ridden by a theoretical rider who takes part in all the so called Spring Classics; the one day epic events in Europe at this time of year. They are a glorious, spectacular and beautiful dance, these one day races which specialise in routes of particular "interest". This can mean cobbles.
So in the spirit of something, of exploration, of solidarity, of curiosity, of rising to the challenge, I signed up. After a very short time, I did the maths. It would mean averaging 32km per day on the bike. Hmm. Not a problem, I reckoned. If I added bits into my daily commute and did that four days a week and used the weekends for longer rides, it seemed do-able. But there wasn't much room for slippage. And slippage there has been.
I am now staring at a 400kilometre target to make up in ten days. That would mean 40k a day, and no rest days. Yet today I did just 10k and tomorrow I can't see a way of getting a ride in. Oh. I'm in a bit of trouble now. I think it means every commute next week is going to need to mount up to 50k.
I have, however, a new bike which is making it easier. It's a cyclocross bike so it's quicker on the tarmac than a mountain bike but also allows me to take routes the road bike doesn't love. Hard packed grit, gravel, mud, tree roots, rocks, tow paths, linear routes, and it's been quite a joy to explore. There's a way home from work which is 30k of off road fun as I ride alongside canals and through bluebell woods. It's not all bad, really it's not.
Brought to you by you're my obsession, who do you want me to be?
I don't understand. Let me explain. The Strava Spring Classics challenge popped up onto the dashboard at the end of March. It suggested that during the forthcoming 40 days folk take on the challenge of riding the arbitrary distance of 1266 km. This apparently in a world of clever statistics adds up to the distance ridden by a theoretical rider who takes part in all the so called Spring Classics; the one day epic events in Europe at this time of year. They are a glorious, spectacular and beautiful dance, these one day races which specialise in routes of particular "interest". This can mean cobbles.
So in the spirit of something, of exploration, of solidarity, of curiosity, of rising to the challenge, I signed up. After a very short time, I did the maths. It would mean averaging 32km per day on the bike. Hmm. Not a problem, I reckoned. If I added bits into my daily commute and did that four days a week and used the weekends for longer rides, it seemed do-able. But there wasn't much room for slippage. And slippage there has been.
I am now staring at a 400kilometre target to make up in ten days. That would mean 40k a day, and no rest days. Yet today I did just 10k and tomorrow I can't see a way of getting a ride in. Oh. I'm in a bit of trouble now. I think it means every commute next week is going to need to mount up to 50k.
I have, however, a new bike which is making it easier. It's a cyclocross bike so it's quicker on the tarmac than a mountain bike but also allows me to take routes the road bike doesn't love. Hard packed grit, gravel, mud, tree roots, rocks, tow paths, linear routes, and it's been quite a joy to explore. There's a way home from work which is 30k of off road fun as I ride alongside canals and through bluebell woods. It's not all bad, really it's not.
Brought to you by you're my obsession, who do you want me to be?
Saturday 5 April 2014
Rough Stuff
My club do an annual or possibly so it seems a three times a summer road ride where people bring out their play bikes and their weird toys and we hit the trails, the bridleways and the cobbles. I went on this today and took the hybrid, an odd choice, it would seem, judging by the 80% turnout of cyclocross bikes along with a smattering of road bikes, hard tails and as incongruous as my own, a full suss.
It was just so much fun. Abolishing the required lycra, giddily sporting rucksacks, baggy clothing, all the things you wouldn't normally see on our oh so serious image conscious rides. The hybrid is a fairly heavy beast compared to some, and it was oddly interesting to see how it handled life in grupetto of road and cyclocross bikes. It wasn't bad. Once it got up to speed it wasn't bad. It made me work hard to regain the group should I lose it (ever corner, must look at that ...), but once I was back on then everything was fine, warp speed maintained. I worked hard, and the bike worked hard. By the end of the ride (well, in honesty at the cafe stop) a bit of experimentation led me to the assessment that my back brake had given up making any effort at all. It maybe slowed me a little but I suspect that unless on an uphill it would never in a million years stop me. A few years ago that sort of behaviour would have me worried and panicing. Nowadays I just take it in my stride, figure out how to manage a combination of slight slowing from the back along with judicious use of the front brake, and mostly it worked out.
I have, now, however, ordered a new bike. A cyclocross bike. It's steel and it has disc brakes. That'll show 'em I think.
And to close with a phrase used by one of the old wizened skinny dudes in my group. I know where I am, but not where I'm going. I kind of like that.
It was just so much fun. Abolishing the required lycra, giddily sporting rucksacks, baggy clothing, all the things you wouldn't normally see on our oh so serious image conscious rides. The hybrid is a fairly heavy beast compared to some, and it was oddly interesting to see how it handled life in grupetto of road and cyclocross bikes. It wasn't bad. Once it got up to speed it wasn't bad. It made me work hard to regain the group should I lose it (ever corner, must look at that ...), but once I was back on then everything was fine, warp speed maintained. I worked hard, and the bike worked hard. By the end of the ride (well, in honesty at the cafe stop) a bit of experimentation led me to the assessment that my back brake had given up making any effort at all. It maybe slowed me a little but I suspect that unless on an uphill it would never in a million years stop me. A few years ago that sort of behaviour would have me worried and panicing. Nowadays I just take it in my stride, figure out how to manage a combination of slight slowing from the back along with judicious use of the front brake, and mostly it worked out.
I have, now, however, ordered a new bike. A cyclocross bike. It's steel and it has disc brakes. That'll show 'em I think.
And to close with a phrase used by one of the old wizened skinny dudes in my group. I know where I am, but not where I'm going. I kind of like that.
Tuesday 1 April 2014
City's Backsides
I ride and I ride in the words of the master that is Iggy Pop.
I took part in a charitable endeavour. Actually, I felt a bit of a fraud. The Sport Relief Manchester Cycle was a 50 mile trundle through the flatlands of the city and out into Cheshire wastes (sorry, should that be plains do you think?). It was not overly onerous and it felt wrong to ask my nearest and dearest to give me money to do the thing I enjoy doing. Riding my bike.
I tried to make it seem like a torturous ordeal. For example, I added mileage by riding 5 miles to the start and 5 miles back again when I'd finished. I did it wearing a half hearted attempt at a fancy dress costume, but it did involve a shortie cape. And I did it despite the hideous weather conditions with stinging hail whipping into my face, and visibility so horrid that I did ride with lights on in the middle of the day. But it still felt like a fraudulent endeavour because I was still simply riding my bike, pretty much like I do every weekend.
Anyway, for charity, as it were, I paid a £35 entry fee and I sponsored myself half the target amount to hide my embarrassment in asking mates to give me money.
In a selfish world, it too added mileage. I like a bit of mileage. I've always been a bit of a numbers obsessive since the first ever bike computer I owned which was about £2.99 from a local supermarket. Magnet on the wheel, wire to the handlebars and seemingly a battery which lasted for ever. I used to get home from every commute and update a spreadsheet; how many miles had I done, what was my average speed, what was my fastest speed, how long had the journey taken. I like tangible proof of what I'm doing and some kind of motivation to try to get a little bit fitter, to go a little bit faster, all in all, to be better. Nothing wrong with striving to be better after all.
The numbers obsession gets worse and worse as technology provides more options. When I first started bike commuting I didn't even own a mobile phone. Now the phone tells me just what I've done, and shows me the same stretches of road and the speeds achieved day by day by day. It's an obsessive's dream come true. Or nightmare come true.
In true form, I have a mileage target and am obsessively planning and monitoring. 40 days, 1200 kilometres to achieve. It's a Strava thing. I know that there are 33 days to go of the challenge. I know we are 17% of the way through the days, and I know that my mileage (kilometreage sounds wrong) is at 17% of the total, and I know it's that way because I planned that it should be so. It's like providing a squirrel with a pile of acorns and expecting it to just take what it needs, but instead, of course, one by one it removes each acorn from the pile and one by one places these in its own carefully selected storage place. It can't just leave the pile be. They are there to be taken. So are the miles. The piles of miles.
Still, hopefully it's making me fitter and hopefully it'll make me thinner too. I live in hope.
I took part in a charitable endeavour. Actually, I felt a bit of a fraud. The Sport Relief Manchester Cycle was a 50 mile trundle through the flatlands of the city and out into Cheshire wastes (sorry, should that be plains do you think?). It was not overly onerous and it felt wrong to ask my nearest and dearest to give me money to do the thing I enjoy doing. Riding my bike.
I tried to make it seem like a torturous ordeal. For example, I added mileage by riding 5 miles to the start and 5 miles back again when I'd finished. I did it wearing a half hearted attempt at a fancy dress costume, but it did involve a shortie cape. And I did it despite the hideous weather conditions with stinging hail whipping into my face, and visibility so horrid that I did ride with lights on in the middle of the day. But it still felt like a fraudulent endeavour because I was still simply riding my bike, pretty much like I do every weekend.
Anyway, for charity, as it were, I paid a £35 entry fee and I sponsored myself half the target amount to hide my embarrassment in asking mates to give me money.
In a selfish world, it too added mileage. I like a bit of mileage. I've always been a bit of a numbers obsessive since the first ever bike computer I owned which was about £2.99 from a local supermarket. Magnet on the wheel, wire to the handlebars and seemingly a battery which lasted for ever. I used to get home from every commute and update a spreadsheet; how many miles had I done, what was my average speed, what was my fastest speed, how long had the journey taken. I like tangible proof of what I'm doing and some kind of motivation to try to get a little bit fitter, to go a little bit faster, all in all, to be better. Nothing wrong with striving to be better after all.
The numbers obsession gets worse and worse as technology provides more options. When I first started bike commuting I didn't even own a mobile phone. Now the phone tells me just what I've done, and shows me the same stretches of road and the speeds achieved day by day by day. It's an obsessive's dream come true. Or nightmare come true.
In true form, I have a mileage target and am obsessively planning and monitoring. 40 days, 1200 kilometres to achieve. It's a Strava thing. I know that there are 33 days to go of the challenge. I know we are 17% of the way through the days, and I know that my mileage (kilometreage sounds wrong) is at 17% of the total, and I know it's that way because I planned that it should be so. It's like providing a squirrel with a pile of acorns and expecting it to just take what it needs, but instead, of course, one by one it removes each acorn from the pile and one by one places these in its own carefully selected storage place. It can't just leave the pile be. They are there to be taken. So are the miles. The piles of miles.
Still, hopefully it's making me fitter and hopefully it'll make me thinner too. I live in hope.
Saturday 22 March 2014
Great Expectations
I have the optimism born of being injury free (almost). I'm genuinely excited about me. About the things I have ahead of me, about my life, but mostly about me. It's a nice kind of a feeling; one I seem to remember from times gone by.
I'm excited about all the possibilities life is offering me. Excited about the multi day mountain bike ride which takes folk down through Wales, excited about the possibilities offered by the Lands End to John O'Groats ride, excited about the Brecon Beacons, ridge walking the black mountains, getting to the top of the Sugar Loaf, something which I simply stared at from a distance as a child. I'm oddly only mildly excited about the Dolomites this summer, other things seem somehow more immediate and have the added bonus of being things I have discovered I want to do.
I'm excited about moving house at some time this year. Excited about me in new surroundings, with the possibility of playing house. It reminds me ridiculously of childhood games in the garden with my brother and sister, oddly, a new home will make me feel like I'm playing house again. The old house, well, it doesn't offer many play possibilities any more. It's furnished, it's painted and there's every kitchen utensil under the sun in a big fat ceramic pot. My work here is done. But a new place, a new place. Mmmmm.
I'm even excited about the essay I'm writing which has encouraged me to get to grips with twentieth century writing about cities. Dublin, Harlem, they sound like places of dreams, even more so on reading the stories and the poetry, almost mythological in nature. If I ever go to either place I shall feel that sense of respectful worship on being given the privilege of being there.
It's exciting, yes?
I'm excited about all the possibilities life is offering me. Excited about the multi day mountain bike ride which takes folk down through Wales, excited about the possibilities offered by the Lands End to John O'Groats ride, excited about the Brecon Beacons, ridge walking the black mountains, getting to the top of the Sugar Loaf, something which I simply stared at from a distance as a child. I'm oddly only mildly excited about the Dolomites this summer, other things seem somehow more immediate and have the added bonus of being things I have discovered I want to do.
I'm excited about moving house at some time this year. Excited about me in new surroundings, with the possibility of playing house. It reminds me ridiculously of childhood games in the garden with my brother and sister, oddly, a new home will make me feel like I'm playing house again. The old house, well, it doesn't offer many play possibilities any more. It's furnished, it's painted and there's every kitchen utensil under the sun in a big fat ceramic pot. My work here is done. But a new place, a new place. Mmmmm.
I'm even excited about the essay I'm writing which has encouraged me to get to grips with twentieth century writing about cities. Dublin, Harlem, they sound like places of dreams, even more so on reading the stories and the poetry, almost mythological in nature. If I ever go to either place I shall feel that sense of respectful worship on being given the privilege of being there.
It's exciting, yes?
Monday 3 March 2014
Show and Tell
I've been doing a bike maintenance course at my local sixth form college. I'm loving it. I'm properly impressed too at the college for daring to be different and put this course on. Ten weeks, two hours a week, every Tuesday night a room full of middle aged folk come together with a shonky basic bike (provided by the college), a bike stand and a small bike tool kit (again both supplied by the college).
The course has given me huge amounts of confidence. I missed the first week, but fearlessly arrived at the second week hopeful that my late start wouldn't have me standing in the corner with the dunces hat on. It didn't. Each week has slightly separate subjects, not all of which rely on prior knowledge from an earlier week. You can, in fact, almost pick and mix.
We have done:
Gear indexing
Bottom Bracket servicing
Head set servicing
Wheel trueing (kind of)
Crank removal
Cassette removal
Spoke replacement
Brake adjustments
Brake cable replacement
There's probably other stuff too which I have simply absorbed.
The fun bit starts now we start to bring our own bikes in for servicing. We are an eclectic mix of people. There's the woman trying to learn so she can service her family's fleet of bicycles, we have a triathlete ironman chap, we have a Dawes touring bike man who does thousands of kilometres, we have a woman who routinely travels around Manchester on her fixie, we have two mates whose mountain bikes are mouldering in their respective garages. We're a nice bunch of folk.
Last week I rode in (all of a mile) on the hardtail MTB to show and tell. The wheels and pedals were approved of. Which makes me chuckle, because when you're riding with Annie Last's second hand wheels they really ought to muster a little respect. Although I never mentioned that. This week I plan on riding in on the Trek Hybrid. It's a bit of a contrast from the MTB, but it does have a new back brake and brake cable and a new chain, all carefully fitted by yours truly. It is an ugly beast, mostly made that way by the aluminium welding of slightly over the top proportions. I may hit the high point for the last lesson by borrowing the lodger's 1980s vintage steel road bike, complete with downtube frame shifters and internal cabling. For extra kudos, it is pink.
Let's see if I can win at show and tell.
The course has given me huge amounts of confidence. I missed the first week, but fearlessly arrived at the second week hopeful that my late start wouldn't have me standing in the corner with the dunces hat on. It didn't. Each week has slightly separate subjects, not all of which rely on prior knowledge from an earlier week. You can, in fact, almost pick and mix.
We have done:
Gear indexing
Bottom Bracket servicing
Head set servicing
Wheel trueing (kind of)
Crank removal
Cassette removal
Spoke replacement
Brake adjustments
Brake cable replacement
There's probably other stuff too which I have simply absorbed.
The fun bit starts now we start to bring our own bikes in for servicing. We are an eclectic mix of people. There's the woman trying to learn so she can service her family's fleet of bicycles, we have a triathlete ironman chap, we have a Dawes touring bike man who does thousands of kilometres, we have a woman who routinely travels around Manchester on her fixie, we have two mates whose mountain bikes are mouldering in their respective garages. We're a nice bunch of folk.
Last week I rode in (all of a mile) on the hardtail MTB to show and tell. The wheels and pedals were approved of. Which makes me chuckle, because when you're riding with Annie Last's second hand wheels they really ought to muster a little respect. Although I never mentioned that. This week I plan on riding in on the Trek Hybrid. It's a bit of a contrast from the MTB, but it does have a new back brake and brake cable and a new chain, all carefully fitted by yours truly. It is an ugly beast, mostly made that way by the aluminium welding of slightly over the top proportions. I may hit the high point for the last lesson by borrowing the lodger's 1980s vintage steel road bike, complete with downtube frame shifters and internal cabling. For extra kudos, it is pink.
Let's see if I can win at show and tell.
Saturday 22 February 2014
In memory
Today I rode in memory of someone I have no memories of because I didn't know him. Terry Brown was a member of the North Cheshire Clarion cycling club, the club I have belonged to for two years. I seldom ride with them, life and other activities taking priority, but for me they are more of a convenience. A Saturday ride of guaranteed distance and duration, with folk who keep a reasonably decent pace, and where someone else, crucially knows the route. It takes away the need to think about route planning or map following, and I simply get to ride my bike along only gently undulating roads with friendly folk.
It's a club now 300 members strong, after just four years of being. It has a nice feel to it. Nearly half that number showed up this morning to hold a minute's silence for one of our own. Oddly his death kind of hit me. It hit me because I of that "one of our own" sense. How could somebody do this to someone like me. And that's also the crux of it. This is a first for me, well, maybe two firsts. Firstly, the first first is that on hearing of his death I identified with him. Up until now it seems that every other death or life threatening injury I've heard about catapults my mind into thinking about their wife, partner, family. I identify with the bereaved person or the carer because that's mostly where I've been, that's the feelings I understand, and it's also a bit of a support for the underdog. Being a carer in those situations is brutal, simply brutal, and before I'd gone through it, my understanding of the sheer exhausting pain and devastation on an ongoing basis was just so limited. First hand experience has changed me. But this time, I identified with the man down. There but for the grace of god go I every time I commute to work. The second first was my suspended belief in the "how could this happen to someone like me". Nearly a decade ago now I stopped thinking "things like this don't happen to people like me". My brutal world told me to expect things like that to happen, or at least not to be surprised or phased in anyway when things unpleasant and unnecessary happen. Bad things happen to anyone. It's part of life. Yet here I was, thinking how could this happen to someone like me. I guess change is blowing through leafy canopy of my brain.
The National Clarion have a motto of "No rider left behind" and they have an almost frighteningly organised system to make sure that they are true to that. We have various shouts of Tail and Pace to make sure those having a bad day don't get left behind. You kind of roll with the punches a little bit as to what's going to happen in the grupetto you have elected to join. Sometimes you all in military precision step on the pedals, and sometimes you dawdle along waiting for the person with the hangover / chest infection / six months off the bike / first time group riding / just not that fast. And nobody minds if the pace is slightly slower than advertised.
Today I selected my ride leader (we split into groups of 8) based on his physique. Short, carrying a bit of timber. He didn't look too fast. A group of mixed age range and body types, with mine the only female. I like riding with all male groups, I'll be honest, women tend to slow the damn thing down. I avoid girls. Over the course of the ride, we lost, by agreement, two riders. The first turned off for home realising it just wasn't happening for him. And the pace increased. We break formation at hills, and I think me panting past one of the other riders finished him off. We regrouped at the top of the hill, and he managed to get some words, one of which included "bonked" out, and he headed for home. Then it got interesting. The war of attrition had reduced 8 to 6. Who was going to be next, I wondered. My answer was the bearded dude next to me. Neither of us were capable of carrying out conversation as the pace started to punish us, but somehow when I saw him slipping behind I managed the yell of "pace" to get our leader to slow down. It was good, I wasn't the worst, I didn't represent womanhood badly I feel, staying in the group.
Interestingly, and I know I'm harping on, I find it increasingly weird that there's discussion and argument circling around on various cycling websites about how our cycling clubs don't cater for women. I don't know what other women are looking for from a club. I really like that my club caters for cyclists. I don't need anything special; I don't need help with punctures, I don't need a coffee stop, I don't need a wheel to sit on and I don't need to be given a pink option in the club kit.
What is it, I wonder, that women want?
It's a club now 300 members strong, after just four years of being. It has a nice feel to it. Nearly half that number showed up this morning to hold a minute's silence for one of our own. Oddly his death kind of hit me. It hit me because I of that "one of our own" sense. How could somebody do this to someone like me. And that's also the crux of it. This is a first for me, well, maybe two firsts. Firstly, the first first is that on hearing of his death I identified with him. Up until now it seems that every other death or life threatening injury I've heard about catapults my mind into thinking about their wife, partner, family. I identify with the bereaved person or the carer because that's mostly where I've been, that's the feelings I understand, and it's also a bit of a support for the underdog. Being a carer in those situations is brutal, simply brutal, and before I'd gone through it, my understanding of the sheer exhausting pain and devastation on an ongoing basis was just so limited. First hand experience has changed me. But this time, I identified with the man down. There but for the grace of god go I every time I commute to work. The second first was my suspended belief in the "how could this happen to someone like me". Nearly a decade ago now I stopped thinking "things like this don't happen to people like me". My brutal world told me to expect things like that to happen, or at least not to be surprised or phased in anyway when things unpleasant and unnecessary happen. Bad things happen to anyone. It's part of life. Yet here I was, thinking how could this happen to someone like me. I guess change is blowing through leafy canopy of my brain.
The National Clarion have a motto of "No rider left behind" and they have an almost frighteningly organised system to make sure that they are true to that. We have various shouts of Tail and Pace to make sure those having a bad day don't get left behind. You kind of roll with the punches a little bit as to what's going to happen in the grupetto you have elected to join. Sometimes you all in military precision step on the pedals, and sometimes you dawdle along waiting for the person with the hangover / chest infection / six months off the bike / first time group riding / just not that fast. And nobody minds if the pace is slightly slower than advertised.
Today I selected my ride leader (we split into groups of 8) based on his physique. Short, carrying a bit of timber. He didn't look too fast. A group of mixed age range and body types, with mine the only female. I like riding with all male groups, I'll be honest, women tend to slow the damn thing down. I avoid girls. Over the course of the ride, we lost, by agreement, two riders. The first turned off for home realising it just wasn't happening for him. And the pace increased. We break formation at hills, and I think me panting past one of the other riders finished him off. We regrouped at the top of the hill, and he managed to get some words, one of which included "bonked" out, and he headed for home. Then it got interesting. The war of attrition had reduced 8 to 6. Who was going to be next, I wondered. My answer was the bearded dude next to me. Neither of us were capable of carrying out conversation as the pace started to punish us, but somehow when I saw him slipping behind I managed the yell of "pace" to get our leader to slow down. It was good, I wasn't the worst, I didn't represent womanhood badly I feel, staying in the group.
Interestingly, and I know I'm harping on, I find it increasingly weird that there's discussion and argument circling around on various cycling websites about how our cycling clubs don't cater for women. I don't know what other women are looking for from a club. I really like that my club caters for cyclists. I don't need anything special; I don't need help with punctures, I don't need a coffee stop, I don't need a wheel to sit on and I don't need to be given a pink option in the club kit.
What is it, I wonder, that women want?
Tuesday 18 February 2014
New Job
Well, OK, the job's not so new any more, and in some ways of course many people haven't noticed that I do actually have a new job. A 10m move down the corridor doesn't count for much. I have, however traded up from the wrong sized men's fit adidas clothing into the sleek black of women's rapha kit. Nice.
One of the odder things about the new job is the occasional ability to work from home but paired up with the occasional need to work from home at 7pm on a Monday night or 7pm on a Sunday from someone else's sofa. I find it kind of mellow that I have now participated in two evening conference calls with the guinea pig. There I am, in my dining room, still clad in my Rapha clothing because it's warm and my house is not. In the corner sits the guinea pig, and throughout the call I can hear her gentle hay munching noises. Rhythmic, content, the world is a remarkably calm place where guinea pigs can sit in on conference calls. She hasn't signed a confidentiality agreement but that's fine.
One of the other curious things about the call is that folk are dialling in from all over the world. Occasionally you find it's wine o'clock for one or other member of staff, and you can picture a mellow sunshiny evening with a solitary glass of red wine to relax after a hard day of whatever it is they actually do in the field. I get the impression the wine is generally either a rarity or simply a scene setter and not actually real. But it's a nice thing to believe in. My colleagues. Relaxed, happy. Pets, wine, family, rugby teams, cycling teams. A jumble of life peacefully humming along behind us.
Working hours are a confusion. When do I start; when do I finish? It feels like every hour the macbook is switched on is potentially work, it's a 24 hour operation. Right now, it's twenty to ten in the evening here but it's four hours ahead in Oman and who knows where the rest of my working word are right now. And tomorrow starts at 8am. Sunday involved an odd hour. Monday seemed to finish at 8pm. I think Friday may be an early finish ...
One of the odder things about the new job is the occasional ability to work from home but paired up with the occasional need to work from home at 7pm on a Monday night or 7pm on a Sunday from someone else's sofa. I find it kind of mellow that I have now participated in two evening conference calls with the guinea pig. There I am, in my dining room, still clad in my Rapha clothing because it's warm and my house is not. In the corner sits the guinea pig, and throughout the call I can hear her gentle hay munching noises. Rhythmic, content, the world is a remarkably calm place where guinea pigs can sit in on conference calls. She hasn't signed a confidentiality agreement but that's fine.
One of the other curious things about the call is that folk are dialling in from all over the world. Occasionally you find it's wine o'clock for one or other member of staff, and you can picture a mellow sunshiny evening with a solitary glass of red wine to relax after a hard day of whatever it is they actually do in the field. I get the impression the wine is generally either a rarity or simply a scene setter and not actually real. But it's a nice thing to believe in. My colleagues. Relaxed, happy. Pets, wine, family, rugby teams, cycling teams. A jumble of life peacefully humming along behind us.
Working hours are a confusion. When do I start; when do I finish? It feels like every hour the macbook is switched on is potentially work, it's a 24 hour operation. Right now, it's twenty to ten in the evening here but it's four hours ahead in Oman and who knows where the rest of my working word are right now. And tomorrow starts at 8am. Sunday involved an odd hour. Monday seemed to finish at 8pm. I think Friday may be an early finish ...
Friday 14 February 2014
Gotta Fly
I got stuck in Geneva last night. Kind of. Except that Easy Jet found it easier to send me to France for the night.
One of those times where the only possible behaviour of a non wealthy adult is to stand in line, relax and hand over all responsibility for your own existence to the staff of an economy airline. From the moment I joined my first queue of the night my destiny wasn't in my hands. Without money, once you have finally discovered where you're meant to go and how to get there on discovering the flight is cancelled, you queue.
First you queue for the desk where they are supposed to find you another way to get home. With a van in Liverpool airport, the place designed to be inaccessible by any form of public transport, and me in Geneva, Easy Jet kindly found me a flight into Birmingham. Apparently neither Manchester nor Liverpool nor Leeds Bradford being available for me. Although people behind me in the line I later discovered had those options. Still, for me, Birmingham it was.
Secondly you queue at the desk where everyone else is queuing for hotels. After 25 minutes the queue hasn't moved, not one person has managed to leave the front of the line. So they send a woman round with a list, and she takes down your room requirements. At this point you realise that as a single room requirer you are screwed. But you wait some more. After an hour you get to the front of the queue. A hotel room has been found for you. It is in France. You are sent to wait for a shuttle bus.
Thirdly you queue for a shuttle bus. You wait there with the dude you have been chatting with in the last queue. You have become good friends. The Easy Jet woman comes out and looks at you. How many of you are there asks the woman who has booked you all into the French hotel. We may have to get you a taxi she says. And disappears. And returns. The shuttle will be 15 minutes she says. We queue.
The shuttle arrives, the driver concerned about numbers. We get in. We discover it's going to be a 30 minute drive. I chat to my good friend Michael. Turns out we have a friend in common. We are both happy about her new born son. He offers me use of his phone charger. I decline. On arrival at the hotel I have a second sense about queueing and make sure I am first. I still can't get a shuttle bus at 8am to get me to my flight at the airport. I missed the queue for that completely. I'm on a 9am one. It's going to be interesting.
The following day I arrive once more at Geneva airport. I look at the queue for check in. I consider crying. I am hand baggage only, surely it must be easier than this. I haven't even, for pity's sake had access to pyjamas, toothpaste, clean knickers or deodorant. I look for any cunning electronic machine to check in. There are none. In desperation I queue. I chose the information desk and put to him my "I'm going to miss my flight" dilemma. He bobs over to the oversize luggage belt and miraculously produces a boarding pass for me. I take it and head to security.
At security I queue. 20 minutes to get a tray to put my assorted phones in. I queue once I have the trays. Eventually I get through. My gate is already announced, so to make a change from queueing, I walk. Possibly to France. I walk, then I sit then the flight opens and I stay sat. I'm done with queueing now.
One of those times where the only possible behaviour of a non wealthy adult is to stand in line, relax and hand over all responsibility for your own existence to the staff of an economy airline. From the moment I joined my first queue of the night my destiny wasn't in my hands. Without money, once you have finally discovered where you're meant to go and how to get there on discovering the flight is cancelled, you queue.
First you queue for the desk where they are supposed to find you another way to get home. With a van in Liverpool airport, the place designed to be inaccessible by any form of public transport, and me in Geneva, Easy Jet kindly found me a flight into Birmingham. Apparently neither Manchester nor Liverpool nor Leeds Bradford being available for me. Although people behind me in the line I later discovered had those options. Still, for me, Birmingham it was.
Secondly you queue at the desk where everyone else is queuing for hotels. After 25 minutes the queue hasn't moved, not one person has managed to leave the front of the line. So they send a woman round with a list, and she takes down your room requirements. At this point you realise that as a single room requirer you are screwed. But you wait some more. After an hour you get to the front of the queue. A hotel room has been found for you. It is in France. You are sent to wait for a shuttle bus.
Thirdly you queue for a shuttle bus. You wait there with the dude you have been chatting with in the last queue. You have become good friends. The Easy Jet woman comes out and looks at you. How many of you are there asks the woman who has booked you all into the French hotel. We may have to get you a taxi she says. And disappears. And returns. The shuttle will be 15 minutes she says. We queue.
The shuttle arrives, the driver concerned about numbers. We get in. We discover it's going to be a 30 minute drive. I chat to my good friend Michael. Turns out we have a friend in common. We are both happy about her new born son. He offers me use of his phone charger. I decline. On arrival at the hotel I have a second sense about queueing and make sure I am first. I still can't get a shuttle bus at 8am to get me to my flight at the airport. I missed the queue for that completely. I'm on a 9am one. It's going to be interesting.
The following day I arrive once more at Geneva airport. I look at the queue for check in. I consider crying. I am hand baggage only, surely it must be easier than this. I haven't even, for pity's sake had access to pyjamas, toothpaste, clean knickers or deodorant. I look for any cunning electronic machine to check in. There are none. In desperation I queue. I chose the information desk and put to him my "I'm going to miss my flight" dilemma. He bobs over to the oversize luggage belt and miraculously produces a boarding pass for me. I take it and head to security.
At security I queue. 20 minutes to get a tray to put my assorted phones in. I queue once I have the trays. Eventually I get through. My gate is already announced, so to make a change from queueing, I walk. Possibly to France. I walk, then I sit then the flight opens and I stay sat. I'm done with queueing now.
Friday 7 February 2014
The thrum
Sometimes on the bike it's just the thrum of the pedals. Just like at work, I have this ability to zone out all the other stuff around me if I don't want to hear it. But equally I can be completely present in my surroundings and choose to hear the sound of car tyres, engines, brakes, people walking and talking on the phone, and in central Manchester the occasional screech of a seagull. I can choose to hear the flapping of my rucksack straps and the wind roar past my ears, but equally I can choose not to.
Last night I did a Watt Bike class. In a moment of insane enthusiasm I booked up for the intermediate level despite having not been on a Watt Bike for at least 18 months. OK, perhaps over two years. Or maybe longer. Still, optimism could be my middle name, eh?
The class was made up of fit looking blokes, mostly over 40 wearing club jerseys over their plain black shorts. I had no idea the velominati rules applied to a Watt Bike Class. It's slightly crazy isn't it, I mean on a static bike with a bottle cage for just one hour and somewhere to hang your towel what do you need three handy back pockets for? I was neatly turned out in a plain black light technical fabric t-shirt which fitted kind of gently and demurely over a pair of black 3/4 length bib shorts. Very tidy and not at all showy. It's a funny thing, because you are kind of on your own on a bike with a computer screen and numbers. You ride the numbers. Nobody else around you has anything to do with you. It is still, however, disquieting to recognise around you a past Olympic Team Pursuit Medallist and a friend you follow as he knocks off Strava KOM after KOM. You worry about the company you keep.
It's easy to focus on those who are "better" than you isn't it. But there was also a mum and her daughter, there was the guy behind me puffing like the fabled dragon who lived by the sea, and a suffering dude in baggies positioned just in front of me, for my reassurance I fancy. But all these folk faded into the background as the instructor started his instruction. And that's the thing, I didn't zone out because I've paid for this music & words thing. I zoned in.
Oh my, the numbers. Different instructors do it different ways. There's music to help with your cadence, there are gears you get advised on which to use and when for various efforts, but above all there's a hypnotising small screen in front of your face with numbers. I note that my left leg puts in a bit more work than my right. I notice that when I'm out of saddle my legs don't even pretend that they are doing any work on the downstroke. I notice that I have a natural tendency to amble at 60rpm, but when the instructor says to up it to something sustainable I discover 75rpm is within my capabilities. I note when he says fast flat between 90rpm and 120rpm just to hover above 90 feels like a flat out sprint to me, so that when he says to sprint it's horrendous trying to just lift to above 100. I notice that towards the end of the class when we do ten second sprint, ten second recovery the sprint seems to last twice as long as the recovery which there isn't enough of, but also that when I realise the end is approaching I suddenly do have the ability to lift my cadence over the magic 120. Hmm.
I have never sweated so much on a bike.
I thought I was going to puke. But I didn't.
I am surprised I can walk without pain today.
Last night I did a Watt Bike class. In a moment of insane enthusiasm I booked up for the intermediate level despite having not been on a Watt Bike for at least 18 months. OK, perhaps over two years. Or maybe longer. Still, optimism could be my middle name, eh?
The class was made up of fit looking blokes, mostly over 40 wearing club jerseys over their plain black shorts. I had no idea the velominati rules applied to a Watt Bike Class. It's slightly crazy isn't it, I mean on a static bike with a bottle cage for just one hour and somewhere to hang your towel what do you need three handy back pockets for? I was neatly turned out in a plain black light technical fabric t-shirt which fitted kind of gently and demurely over a pair of black 3/4 length bib shorts. Very tidy and not at all showy. It's a funny thing, because you are kind of on your own on a bike with a computer screen and numbers. You ride the numbers. Nobody else around you has anything to do with you. It is still, however, disquieting to recognise around you a past Olympic Team Pursuit Medallist and a friend you follow as he knocks off Strava KOM after KOM. You worry about the company you keep.
It's easy to focus on those who are "better" than you isn't it. But there was also a mum and her daughter, there was the guy behind me puffing like the fabled dragon who lived by the sea, and a suffering dude in baggies positioned just in front of me, for my reassurance I fancy. But all these folk faded into the background as the instructor started his instruction. And that's the thing, I didn't zone out because I've paid for this music & words thing. I zoned in.
Oh my, the numbers. Different instructors do it different ways. There's music to help with your cadence, there are gears you get advised on which to use and when for various efforts, but above all there's a hypnotising small screen in front of your face with numbers. I note that my left leg puts in a bit more work than my right. I notice that when I'm out of saddle my legs don't even pretend that they are doing any work on the downstroke. I notice that I have a natural tendency to amble at 60rpm, but when the instructor says to up it to something sustainable I discover 75rpm is within my capabilities. I note when he says fast flat between 90rpm and 120rpm just to hover above 90 feels like a flat out sprint to me, so that when he says to sprint it's horrendous trying to just lift to above 100. I notice that towards the end of the class when we do ten second sprint, ten second recovery the sprint seems to last twice as long as the recovery which there isn't enough of, but also that when I realise the end is approaching I suddenly do have the ability to lift my cadence over the magic 120. Hmm.
I have never sweated so much on a bike.
I thought I was going to puke. But I didn't.
I am surprised I can walk without pain today.
Friday 31 January 2014
Seeing Greatness
Of all the people I want to be, the one I aspire most to be is me.
I went to a very odd thing last night, in my capacity as a plus one to my house mate. It was a musical tribute to Michael Jackson and it was quite strange. A mix of singers doing cover version along with youff doing youff dancing, somewhat out of time with each other if the truth be told, and a bit of a band in the background. The band were oddly geeky whenever the bass and lead guitarist got to come out for a short skiff. Skiff isn't a musical term, is it? Oh well. The funny thing is that the format of the event had someone taking on a voiceover role in the style of a documentary. I can get why at such an event they'd be all about the fandom and wasn't Michael an amazing showman. What I find a little too feelgood is the way they tried to paint a picture of him as someone who tried to make a change for the better in the world. I really didn't get that. In my head is a picture of an unhappy man who despite his sometimes thoughtful lyrics on the subject of colour, didn't entirely accept his own birthright and tried to do for colour what androgeny does for gender. I also have that sceptic's suspicion about his activities behind closed doors and his association with some of the young people in his life. It's not all glory and glowing. There's nothing of that man that I aspire to be.
What I want to be is simple. It's me. I want to be able to think of myself as a rather wonderful creation of things I chose to become. I want to live up to the good qualities my friends believe I have and to remember what those are while at the same time, accepting my own limitations and embracing those individualities. Above all, I want to remember from time to time who that person is. I want it to be enough that I think I'm someone to be proud of. But then, I'm starting with the man in the mirror ...
I went to a very odd thing last night, in my capacity as a plus one to my house mate. It was a musical tribute to Michael Jackson and it was quite strange. A mix of singers doing cover version along with youff doing youff dancing, somewhat out of time with each other if the truth be told, and a bit of a band in the background. The band were oddly geeky whenever the bass and lead guitarist got to come out for a short skiff. Skiff isn't a musical term, is it? Oh well. The funny thing is that the format of the event had someone taking on a voiceover role in the style of a documentary. I can get why at such an event they'd be all about the fandom and wasn't Michael an amazing showman. What I find a little too feelgood is the way they tried to paint a picture of him as someone who tried to make a change for the better in the world. I really didn't get that. In my head is a picture of an unhappy man who despite his sometimes thoughtful lyrics on the subject of colour, didn't entirely accept his own birthright and tried to do for colour what androgeny does for gender. I also have that sceptic's suspicion about his activities behind closed doors and his association with some of the young people in his life. It's not all glory and glowing. There's nothing of that man that I aspire to be.
What I want to be is simple. It's me. I want to be able to think of myself as a rather wonderful creation of things I chose to become. I want to live up to the good qualities my friends believe I have and to remember what those are while at the same time, accepting my own limitations and embracing those individualities. Above all, I want to remember from time to time who that person is. I want it to be enough that I think I'm someone to be proud of. But then, I'm starting with the man in the mirror ...
Monday 27 January 2014
Bluebirds fly
If tomorrow, as seems increasingly likely given the state of the bicycle I was contemplating riding to work, I slide across the road and under a bus, my life might be over.
The thing to focus on, though, is that my life is not over, not now it isn't. My life wasn't over when my husband died, and it hasn't been over with any injury, illness, set back or mishap. Nothing within human experience seems to be unendurable.
Do we ever really long for an even, steady state existence? Do we ever wish that changes would stop taking place? From the outside, sometimes I think I have friends and relations who somehow do live the steady state life, work where the tasks and people are the same, the same home and home life. Do they get bored, do you suppose?
If things do get steady state, I suspect I sub consciously scupper things to create variation, find faults where there are none, find reasons to make things different. Now I have a job, you know, one of those things where you get up, put on the regulation clothing, step out the door at the regulation time, arrive in time for the regulation coffee and go home at the regulation time. Repeat ad infinitum. So, now change is confined to my leisure time. What I do after work, what I do at weekends, but there's limited room for manoeuvre.
Open University crowds out a couple of evenings a week, sometimes more as assignments loom, bike riding takes up the weekends, as of course it should, and joyfully until Easter, I have a Tuesday night local council run bike maintenance course to attend.
But I crave change, and something has to relinquish itself to my storm. I think it's going to be the house this time, the house, my house, our house, my home. It's lovely but it's in the wrong place. And as changes go, it would be a positive one. Endurable indeed.
But sometimes folk don't return from the mountain.
The thing to focus on, though, is that my life is not over, not now it isn't. My life wasn't over when my husband died, and it hasn't been over with any injury, illness, set back or mishap. Nothing within human experience seems to be unendurable.
Do we ever really long for an even, steady state existence? Do we ever wish that changes would stop taking place? From the outside, sometimes I think I have friends and relations who somehow do live the steady state life, work where the tasks and people are the same, the same home and home life. Do they get bored, do you suppose?
If things do get steady state, I suspect I sub consciously scupper things to create variation, find faults where there are none, find reasons to make things different. Now I have a job, you know, one of those things where you get up, put on the regulation clothing, step out the door at the regulation time, arrive in time for the regulation coffee and go home at the regulation time. Repeat ad infinitum. So, now change is confined to my leisure time. What I do after work, what I do at weekends, but there's limited room for manoeuvre.
Open University crowds out a couple of evenings a week, sometimes more as assignments loom, bike riding takes up the weekends, as of course it should, and joyfully until Easter, I have a Tuesday night local council run bike maintenance course to attend.
But I crave change, and something has to relinquish itself to my storm. I think it's going to be the house this time, the house, my house, our house, my home. It's lovely but it's in the wrong place. And as changes go, it would be a positive one. Endurable indeed.
But sometimes folk don't return from the mountain.
Monday 6 January 2014
New Dawn
It's not a New Dawn. That's not how it works. New Year doesn't bring a new start, a wiping clean of the slate, or even particularly refreshed hope.
It brings something though. A clean slate of months lies ahead, blank pages in the diary. Too many blank pages. Not enough excitement, anticipation or hope. I'm on hold now as much as I was on hold in November / December, waiting for an illness I cannot control to ebb away. I've done as much as I can, and like a cold which lasts a week if you treat it, seven days if you don't, I've neither been able to make things better or worse for myself. Recovery is simply taking as long as it takes. But that doesn't mean I have to like it.
I'd like my hope back now please.
It brings something though. A clean slate of months lies ahead, blank pages in the diary. Too many blank pages. Not enough excitement, anticipation or hope. I'm on hold now as much as I was on hold in November / December, waiting for an illness I cannot control to ebb away. I've done as much as I can, and like a cold which lasts a week if you treat it, seven days if you don't, I've neither been able to make things better or worse for myself. Recovery is simply taking as long as it takes. But that doesn't mean I have to like it.
I'd like my hope back now please.
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