On several occasions lately I have been browsing a range of dress emporiums – from designer to budget in search of suitable wear for the coming season. I also have an eye out for the fact that I need an evening dress for a couple of black tie events in the offing. There is a plethora of new stock available  with no shortage of what one of my friends husbands refers to as  ‘bonny frocks’ , however, in most cases there is a complete shortage of fabric from the arm hole to wrist area.

If you have the patience and  hunt hard,   you can unearth ranges offering coverage of this area, however. they appear to be fashioned from polyester sofa covers or curtains a la Sound of Music.

I have had this conversation with friends,  we agree, it’s not that our arms are totally abhorrent, and yes we probably could  bring them to a more toned state if we were prepared to spend hours in the gym or putting baked bean tins to good use as weights on  daily basis. It’s just that with age, the arm area does tend to become less attractive, and while we can get away with it in the sunshine on holiday, in the depths of winter or the office somehow it doesn’t quite cut it.

We can, and do wear jackets, cardigans etc – but when things heat up a bit – you  then need to choose whether to swelter or reveal.

Evening wear is an even bigger sleeveless zone,  unless you are the divine Helen Mirren who has got this pretty much under control, though even she resorts to shawls and shrugs at times- but we don’t all have her budget. Why should we purchase a fabulous frock only to then hunt high and low for a shrug – usually made from a lace curtain or a bit of  nylon not designed to complement the main garment.  I for one, however am not prepared to  either purchase or wear Mary Portas Armery – though if I get  really desperate I suppose I could stick a pair of stocking on my upper limbs.

We can go the pashmina route – that’s Ok till you are  sitting  a table having your meal trying to keep the fringes out of  your cheese souffle or lamb jus, whilst on the dance floor it transforms seamlessly into a weapon of mass destruction capable of leaving scars worthy of a medieval torture chamber on any one  unfortunate enough to come within 2  feet of you.

So a plea to anyone with influence out there – just try to get teh designers to put a bit of something up there – there’s a whole market of women who love clothes with a limited choice at the moment. Surely it’s not too much to ask for a bit of choice – otherwise there could be a lot of us this spring looking like cushion covers and singing Doh a Deer…in my case very badly…

Having wrapped ourselves in a variety of mismatched clothing to fight off the biting cold we set off to be confronted immediately with guilt.  We stood aside to allow  a cyclist kitted out for a polar expedition to pass,  having peered  through the  eye slit of his balaclava he identified us as being known to him. There are plans afoot for extensive treks around the Ribble Valley come the spring time and clearly some of our potential  peloton are already in training! Watching him disappear in a cloud of ice chips we shrugged the guilt aside, trekked on and had an excellent 5 mile walk.  Mud avoidance, sadly didn’t happen and as could have been predicted, what started out as a sandy coloured Cockerpoo swiftly became a deep shade of  black but with a  happy doggy smile.

For most of our walk we too had happy smiles especially on spotting the first signs of spring in the form of these snowdrops.The sight of these was one of the many good experiences on our walk, along with the smiles and chat from fellow walkers, cyclists and joggers – though Dave (who ever you are) those shorts are so not a good look at any time of the year!

However, we were  saddened by the sight along the way of  the detritus of anti social behaviour, piles of cans, cider bottles and bonfires.  Defintly a swerve to the bad side of life.

More smiles though, as we returned along the canal path, past the ducks and swans walking across the frozen ice – a first for canine companion who had never met a duck let alone a swan, with predictable comic consequences as the feathered friends came out on top.

Here we found that whilst some parts of the canal path retain their beauty and are picturesque as always,  there is an ugly side, with stretches marred by huge amounts of rubbish and filth and one  section with half demolished buildings sliding into the water is not only offensive but dangerous.

So if any one from Hyndburn Council reads this can I suggest you get someone from Environment down to the canal, there are plans to  extend the tow path to make it more accessible – which is brilliant news but perhaps we should be getting whats already there in order.

We want to walk or ride through the good, the beautiful and the interesting.

This area of Lancashire is steeped in history, heritage and beauty and it deserves to be protected.

We had a great walk, shame I couldn’t  give this blog the title of  Good, Better, Best…

My engagement with lands of fantasy and myth began at an early age when some of my most favoured reading was around Norse legends – heavily supplemented by  Sunday Tea Time viewing of Noggin the Nog.  From this I graduated to exploring my father’s library, and here started  a life long relationship with space ships, aliens and the quest to understand and discover the universe.

My Dad had a fascination with the unknown,  as we traveled overnight to holiday destinations in Devon and Cornwall he would plan  our route to include a detour via Warminster on the off-chance we  spot a UFO. Our bookshelves were filled with works by Asimov,  John Wyndham, Arthur C Clarke – whose epic TV programme Mysterious World – complete with iconic beach and umbrella was required viewing for the whole family .   As we scoured the local library for my personal favourite Ray Bradbury, Dad graduated to  examining the works of catastrophists such as Velikovsky,  and we were taken along for the ride.

I can ( and this will show my age) remember the very first episode of  Doctor Who with William Hartnell,   DW was  a non negotiable spot in the viewing schedule for many years. These were  the days before video recording when negotiation techniques worthy of  international conflict resolution took place to make sure the whole family managed to get a glimpse of their favourites from the extensive programming across two (non 24 hour)  black and white tv channels. The same was true as  soon as Star Trek  hit the air waves and I well remember watching  every episode as a family, as I do travelling to Manchester to see 2001 Space Odyssey rather than waiting for it to hit the suburbs.

Over the years my tastes in literature.  film  and tv have changed, but I am still a sucker for a good intelligent bit of Sci Fi – I ‘ve been through Star Wars  still 4, 5, and 6 for me.  I’ve ditched Star Trek for Stargate, flirted with Babylon 5, rushed home from work to make sure I didn’t miss Blake’s Seven, loved the underrated and misunderstood Sapphire and Steel, stayed up all night for the moon landings and followed  Apollo missions, lived through an X Files obsession, done Battlestar Galactica in both incarnations and for me Robert Powell will always be Toby Wren of Doomwatch.

Literature wise I’ve moved through spin-off fiction, read good and bad  fantasy – got part way through Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth, flitted in and out of good and bad trilogies and sagas and found my way to Anne McCaffrey and her singing ships, overcrowded planets and of course her fabulous dragons and their riders.

Visually, Blade Runner is up there in my top ten films of all time alongside Close Encounters with a nod to Midwich Cuckoos/Village of the Damned. For me good stuff doesn’t need overblown CGI, I still remember being spooked by The Quatermass Experiment, its about the story and how it grabs the imagination and I’m off to Amazon now to check out whats looking good…

The weather has not proven to be a friend to the fair weather cyclist this weekend, wind chill has led to substitution of pedal turning to a bit of dog walking. However as I relaxed with a glass of wine and  indulged in my new Saturday night obsession, the splendid Danish TV series, Borgen,  I reflected that one of the  most attractive things about our heroine Birgitte Nyborg is that she, along with Katrine is a cyclist – though there is now for Birgitte  a worrying use of official cars.  Thinking back there are many other bicycling memories littering my film and tv back catalogue.  One of my earliest film memories is of watching The  Bicycle Thief with my father – even now the mere mention of the film brings back the heartbreaking emotion and despair of the father and son and I can  hardly bear to watch it again. Then there is the odious Miss Gulch in one of my all time favourites, the Wizard of Oz,  whilst I still cheer every time I see Toto escaping her clutches I find that I am now coveting the basket!

When I was deciding on the type of bike I wanted to purchase  last year I  kept telling people I wanted something resembling those ridden by the heroines of the  French Resistance in every war film I ever watched, not to mention television series from Moonstrike (give yourself a pat on the back if you remember that one!) to  Secret Army and anything else in between. Though I did, in the end get the  bike I wanted, it is not quite  the correct vintage but compromises had to be made to make sure it had the gears to get me up our East Lancashire hills – though I am still working on my physical abilities to do that.

There is that unforgettable scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid which  defines that movie and tags it as more fluffy romance rather the  hard-edged violence tinged chase genre it really is, and we will ever be allowed to forget  the iconic ET cycling across the moon. More recently  I watched the excellent Made in Dagenham  with its  memorable  scenes  of  the women cycling to work en masse representing their independence, strength and solidarity.

There are countless other examples and I am sure everyone will have their own memories, however I am struck by how many of mine  link  the portrayal of  strong  brave women with the bicycle, yes there may be  Miss Gulch and a myriad of forgettable characters,  but for every one of them there is a Charlotte Gray  or Birgitte Nyborg.  Fictional characters they may be but they represent a long tradition of  amazing women bicycle riders stretching from the Suffragettes to the Olympians of today, and we should never forget that fiction reflects reality.

Oh yes the pedals have turned, albeit slowly and not for long, but I am back on the road again focusing on next October’s Cycletta North. It was a trepidacious return with all the anxieties, fears and worries of the first outing last year flooding forward from the deep recesses of the mind, but this time, it was different as I  know that I can do it.  So inspired by  bright blue sky and strong winter sunshine I extracted the nappy lined leggings from under the bed, polished my helmet – well gave it a cursory flick with a tea towel, and roused the Burgundy Bombshell from hibernation in the wheelie bin cave.

We were both a little slow to get into the moment but amazingly quickly all the pleasure and enjoyment returned and we bowled along up to the park… and there encountered our first hill of the year. Oh how it hurt first time round – slow and plodding (and by the way this is a slight incline not the north face of the Eiger)  with sundry dog walkers overtaking us with pitying glances…but second time it was slightly easier, so I decided to quit while I was ahead.

It was not a long ride and we quickly returned to the terrace, BB back to hibernation and me to a deep warm bath – back in the old routine . It may seem a long way to October but it will come quickly and there is the promise of much between now and then, this year we will be joined by  friends who have yet to  buy bikes let alone ride them. We will again be riding  for our local charity  The John Bury Trust- most of all we are looking forward to an event which celebrates the achievements of women of all ages and abilities, which challenges and rewards, and yes in this Olympic year there will be great achievements, and people will no doubt cycle further longer and faster than we will, but whether they will have so much fun – and eat as many scones along the way remains to be seen.

As one of our team said this week  Bring It On!

I am, however, girding my loins and gritting my teeth for the first cycling venture of 2012 – and the teeth have been gritted or rather polished today.  Oh yes it was the first trip of the year to the dentist and worse still the hygenist.  The teeth were chattering in fear as I approached  with the dawning realisation that  I had managed to miss a visit.  I gritted the teeth and gulped hard as the hygenist deflected my  attempts at small talk , whacked the chair to such an angle that every blood cell in my body rushed to my head, selected what looked like the ice pick from Basic Instinct,  and with a flex of the muscles attacked my molars with gusto.  When I was a child the dentist wore a white coat – grunted and went about  his business of butchery in workmanlike fashion – there were no hygenists, polishing was for posh folk and if you had a hole it was either drilled with something sounding like a Black and Decker and filled with a lump of metal or summarily yanked out leaving you walking home  clutching a damp bit of tissue in no way designed to stem the flow of your life blood.  I once saw a street dentist in China performing an extraction in full view of the assembled townsfolk and from analysis of  his neanderthal approach I am sure had  been trained by our Mr Cropper.

Nowadays, my hygenist and her henchwoman are garbed as if about to enter a post nuclear contamination zone. Full face helmets channelling  those worn by the flashdancing welder of the 80′s -  scarily the practice loo has  a high tank chain flush..though thankfully I could see no trace of legwarmers tucked amongst the glossy magazines and terrifying array of superpowered toothbrushes and other assorted oral weaponry.  Once restored to an upright position  with exhortations of not to forget to use my little brushes in the nether regions of my upper molars ringing in my ears,  I staggered down to the the boudoir of the divine dental diva . You may have now realised  that the entire practice is populated by women – which does at least allow for some mitigation in that the glossy magazines are always the latest editions of Vogue, Marie Claire and Elle.  Once in the correct position, upside down on the tasteful purple leather couch I spotted the latest refinement which my expensive monthly payment is fuelling – a flat screen plasma tv screen inset into the ceiling, which no doubt soothes and distracts the more restless clients, however as I had relinquished my glasses  I spent 5 mins watching what appeared to be a live action version of the artworks of  Hieronymus Bosch.

Five minutes of poking, prodding and attempting to decode the incomprehensible and cryptic stream of numbers which pass for assessment and I was restored to my feet, told I was a good girl really, metaphorically patted on the head and despatched back  to reception.

Well my gnashers are now in tip top condition for a bit of gritting and gritted they will be this weekend as  it is time to rouse the Burgundy Bombshell from her winter slumbers, give her a bit of TLC, strap the new bag to the rack and venture back on to the roads or at very least the canal tow path,  and who knows  once I return I may even be tempted to rifle  iTunes  and download  ‘What  a Feeling’….. but I may give the leg warmers a miss…

I’ve already had the motivational text from Fat Club Leader – shame it didn’t arrive before I stuffed a whole bar of marzipan chocolate down for breakfast… I have already committed to reaching my target weight, getting back on the bike in the next week, completing Cycletta again only faster, sorting out finances, clearing cupboards, selling stuff on Ebay, the list is endless.  Probably like many people’s the same, with a few tweaks as it is most years.  I already feel the pressure and yes the guilt about the flaming chocolate! In thinking  back on 2011 I  realise that the things that gave the most pleasure were none of the things  on the list this time last year.  I did lose weight, get fitter – and cleared a couple of cupboards but what gave the greatest pleasure included

watching my  10-year-old nephew swim in the sea for the first time

spending time with my family in Ibiza

crossing the line in the Cycletta

seeing  Kevin Spacey in a phenomenal Richard III

spending time with friends in Manchester,  Cheshire,  London, Newcastle  and Glasgow accompanied  by chilled prosecco, laughter and kettle chips

late night chips in Manchester after the Christmas markets

Early morning coffee and croissants in Aix-en-Provence, lunch in Les Baux

Strangely none of these were on my list of resolutions last year and if in dogged pursuit of achievement and being able to tick the box I may have missed some of the great experiences along the way.

This year then I’m going to work towards reaching the things I’ve committed to but not at the exclusion of everything else, I intend to take advantage of opportunities for enjoyment where possible and if it means deviation from the list for a week or two  I won’t beat myself up.

There will be a lot written and spoken about achievement this year and I  am sure the words failure  and defeat will figure as well if someone doesn’t quite make the time. the distance or injury prevents them meeting expectation, but they will not figure in my list.  I will be kind to myself if things go a bit off plan and I hope you will be able to do the same to yourselves.

It is important to realise that I am a woman who can be turned to mush at the mere mention of  Mulberry, Hermes, Birkin or Kelly bags, I have coveted Balenciaga, Tods, Prada and Gucci to name but a few, but now I sit transfixed by a simple saddlebag.   This is  testament to the years lifestyle changes, clambering back onto a bike and rising to the challenge of  Cycletta, rediscovering the fun of turning pedals, cycling with friends, not to mention scoffing scones and cake in celebration.

I am almost reluctant to fix it to the rack in case it gets dirty – but then that will be part of the fun – once  filled with emergency ponchos, muesli bars, spare scones -and oh yes the puncture repair kit we will be off on next years journey to Cycletta triumph with maybe  new adventures and tea shops along the way.  On our travels should the opportunity arise to divert to a tempting emporium of good taste, this year I will be able to indulge secure in the knowledge that purchases will no longer be pulverised in  back pockets or squeezed into backbacks but  will be transported back to the terrace in classic style.

Following the end of communism my brother travelled to what was then still Czechoslovakia to teach English and initiated our connection with Eastern Europe which endures to this day. Back in those days there were no cheap flights – in fact my brothers first journey from London to Brno was on the bus! The airport had one terminal, Prague was not the Stag Capital of Europe – hotel rooms were almost non-existent and cripplingly expensive. When we visited we stayed in rooms rented to us by residents who had moved out for the night to stay with friends and family. Even then there were signs of  capitalist culture creeping in – one time having paid the fee to an accommodation agency we arrived at our overnight accommodation to be met by the landlady who proudly  displayed the room mini bar… stocked to the gills with beer and in her only few words of English telling us – this was her bit of business and we should pay her direct for anything consumed.

I remember the buzz and excitement of the first Macdonald’s opening in Wenceslas Square and the fact that it sold beer as well! Wenceslas Square today has morphed into the main street of any Globalised Capital City with well known brand names but I still love Prague and there are  many places that have retained their identity not to mention their tradition of rude and surly waiters.

We have travelled to some great places in Czech – well off the beaten track of the normal tourist trail and had wonderful experiences – staying in a fabulous  picture perfect lakeside lodge – with the shower cubicle in the kitchen, visiting Cesky Krumlov in depths of winter drinking hot grog in a warm restaurant, watching my brother get married in a Czech Castle. Holidaying in sundrenched vineyards and skiing in the Krkonose Mountains. We have spent wonderful summer evenings  sitting in family gardens  enjoying  sausages grilled over open fires,  trudging through the endless winter snow to local eateries and an unforgettable night cheering the local Ice Hockey team to defeat in a concrete silo of a stadium with the temperature approaching that of liquid nitrogen  as we sat on pile inducing metal seats.

Our cultural exchanges have taken many forms, just this  month we have swapped gingerbread recipes and though these baked by my sister in-laws are far more accomplished than mine, I will be baking and decorating a batch and they will be sitting on our table in the terrace over the christmas period. Equally in a small village in Moravia  turkey with all the trimmings will be enjoyed. We will build many more memories over the coming years, but I would like to just put on record  my personal thanks to Mr Havel for making all of the above possible. A great man who touched the lives of many people he knew and some he didn’t.

Nightsafe has for over 20 years  provided not just shelter and accommodation for young people, who for what ever reason find themselves homeless and struggling, but has helped the young people who have come through the doors to make the best of their lives and reach their full potential.  The people who make this happen are not the trustees but a dedicated and committed team of people  for whom the move to the new building is indeed a dream come true. The new building, an initiative from our local Community Voluntary Service is a triumph of partnership working with the Local Authority. It has enabled Nightsafe to move its  Emergency Night Shelter  from a small terraced house with shared bedrooms to state of the art facilities with single rooms, spacious lounge and kitchen facilities.

A young person spoke movingly last night about the difference Nightsafe had made in his life and how he valued the new accommodation and  relocated Day Centre facilities.  He also talked fondly of the old terraced house where it all began and how even in such a difficult environment there had been warmth and encouragement for the people who found themselves there.

This was the key for me, the Nightsafe staff who  have built the service from a night shelter in a small terraced house to  3 successful  projects, provide not just physical warmth and shelter to the young people but  create and maintain an emotional shelter at times when it is most needed.

We all know our Maslow, and yes physical warmth and safety are key priorities and the charity more than delivers on that especially now we have this new facility.  However,  lets not forget that we can treat people with respect and dignity  what ever the circumstances.  The Nightsafe team have never forgotten this and are living proof that  its not just about the building but what you do in it that  provides shelter from the storm.

www.blackburn-nightsafe.org.uk