leap years

i completely forgot! yesterday  (march 1st) was st david's day. i suppose it's not much of a celebration unless you're welsh, and it's not as ceremonial as eating haggis, but hey, we used to celebrate andrzejki, in fact, my family still does. it's not much of a thing anymore though.

and if the point of a blog is to celebrate the everyday (okay, the point of this blog anyway), why not point out all the mundane and seemingly inconsequential trivialities to bring them out of the mundane and inconsequential? and what is a birthday if not the everyday? so here goes, with the inconsequentiality:

my arms hurt today. this is neither a revelation nor a surprise. but i'm not complaining - i sort of like this feeling.

BUT NONE OF THIS COMPARES to the extraordinariness of the everyday that occurred on the everyday of february 29th (which is not really everyday since it comes once every four years. (all those proto-feminists up there, shut up for a second, this has nothing to do with that).

lookie what came in the post!

a friend of mine very jokingly called it 'a giant wheel of gouda', which wouldn't be a bad name for a bike. though i was contemplating 'bronislaw', though perhaps something less stately and dated (it is my grandfather's name, after all). i will let you know when i think of it.

here was the grand surprise!

and that's me sitting on my newly-unpacked Trek 1.2. it's my first real road bike, so i'm tremendously excited! i was a bit alarmed when it arrived all wrapped up (WITH NO BOX) in bubble wrap and parcel tape, but boy did the chap do a good job! the thing is in mint condition, shiny as silverware. i don't know what it is about animals liking shiny things, but i definitely don't mind being a magpie for a day (apparently they're not very well liked here - you can even destroy their nests!); heck, i'm a magpie every day, picking up shiny things off the road.

SHINY SHINY SHINY!

what a great leap year it was indeed! i also found out that my supervisor's aunt, dorothy robinson, turned 100 (or 25, depending how you look at it) on the 29th as well! she sounds like an absolutely endearing woman! BBC interviewed her on her birthday: you can listen to the little clip here. she is absolutely adorable!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DOROTHY!

precisely what summer is for

the uk countryside in the summer months lends itself every so beautifully to cycling. rolling hills, dozens of back lanes and b-routes, long hours of daylight. every time i set out on my bike i find it all too overwhelming & come home much later than anticipated, having given in to curiosity, adrenaline, or both. cycling does another thing - it clears my head, better than tea or running or swimming or rowing. whereas some things require too much attention to technique (rowing), and others allow you to zone out completely (swimming) cycling provides an ideal combination of head space & body awareness.

now, i'd say i classify as an amateur amateur cyclist at best, riding the £150 bike i pieced together from ebay & my old frame (the deathtrap). i envy and admire those who do it seriously. about two weeks ago i met some people who cycle for a living--from a clock made of spokes, to an entire wardrobe full of lycra, not to mention a shed full of spare bike parts, i was pretty impressed. but at times i really am torn as to what the bike really is for. it has become, as many things do, a sport for the elite.

this chap articulates my point exactly. for him, it's not about the carbon frames and shimano parts, but rather, the 'lazy, languid, long distance cycle rides'. stopping at a pub along the way, some locals commented:

"Respect to you," they said. "You've got your socks tucked into your corduroy, you're riding a bike like that. You're not like those Lycra lunatics." Adding a silent punctuation mark, a racer with all the gear sped past. Knowing glances were exchanged.

i have to admit, i am partial to those lycra lunatics. (this could be just my profound love of lycra; more on that later) & god knows if i had the money i'd deck myself like a little lycra leprechaun on a sweet carbon frame bike. or bamboo! but a recent purchase from my darling boyfriend has me whizzing through the back roads of oxfordshire looking like a giant soreen malt-loaf on a bike. :D

this chap is great though. he rides with the same mentality i meant to set out with on my unaccomplished LEJOG last year--"man, not machine". however, having been scraped & bruised a few times too many, i can't quite say i share the same affinity with his naivete.

I'll admit to a degree of naivety on my trip. As probably the last person working for the Guardian to not own a smart phone, I had to rely on the old-fashioned and frankly outdated concept of talking to people. I didn't bring a puncture repair kit or a spare inner tube. I had no plan for what to do if disaster struck, but I imagine it would have involved an expensive taxi ride. If it rained? Well, trousers get wet. It happens.

i supposed i enjoy the speed at which i move through the landscape. sometimes walking seems atrociously too slow--whereas two wheels is exactly what makes you feel invincible. huzzah!