Sunny Spring Sunday

Three words you don’t often put together. But  today spring was bursting out all over East Lancashire and Cycletta training along one of the more scenic stretches of the canal took place in glorious sunshine.  No need for thermals , the arms and legs were out along with the sunglasses.

This was, in all honesty, the first time I was really looking forward to getting out there. Despite  an early morning melt down involving a missing cross bar attachment leading to  speedy re thinking regarding transport  we had a brilliant time. We even managed a couple of hills – well not really hills  but there was an undeniable altitude change.

This was really an opportunity for me to debut my beautiful vintage box bag and fabulous new  front basket. This clearly marks me as a non professional but they did come in handy as we shed layers in the sunshine.

As my  pedalling companion remarked between the two of them they would hold more than  the RyanAir Hand Luggage allowance.

The basket was,  I must emphasise,  minus the white wine, though we did scope out several excellent picnic places for those days when pleasure will take precedence  over pain.

Clearly the weather had been a clarion call to walkers, dog owners and the more speedy cyclists of the county. All along our 17 mile route – we were knocked out by the stunning views. This  did include  a rather magnificent  male specimen who appeared to have teleported direct from Bondi Beach. Tight White T shirt and bulging biceps made a pleasant change from the  normal oceans of  neon lycra though it did result in a momentary fogging of my companions sunglasses.  Fortunately they cleared speedily as the canal path was positively congested  giving us plenty of practice in dodging the  dog. There is a computer game ripe for development there if only I knew how to do it.  Below is a picture of one of the stunning views… apologies, Mr Bondi moved too quickly for me to dig the camera out of the basket……

There was of course the traditional tea and toasted tea cake, this time at the end of our trek.  We sat on a balcony, basking in sunshine overlooking the marina swapping cycling tales with other intrepid souls  (alas not Mr Bondi)  and it was almost as if we were on holiday. At the end of a long day in holiday sunshine, its  usually a shower followed by liberal application of aftersun, rather than the deep muscle soaking bath which I have just enjoyed.  However, I must  admit it was accompanied by a rather nice glass of sauvignon blanc. After all what’s better than sunshine, white  wine, friends and family?

Lets enjoy it while we can.

 

 

 

 

 

Mothers Day Musings..

Once upon a time I remember Mothers Day passing in a haze of breakfast in bed, champagne , chocolates and flowers.

This year I had flowers, champagne and  an excellent meal cooked for me.

I was also serenaded by my cycling sister with the following ditty..

We’re cycling in the rain

We’re cycling in the rain

What a glorious feeling

We’re going insane…..

By which you will have detected that Cycletta training is ramping up a gear. A Sunday Cycle took place, timed to perfection as a passing rain cloud dumped its load on East Lancashire. Luckily, the musical muse did not strike earlier as  we attracted a small crowd of young boys  happy to provide technical assistance to my companion in replacing her front  wheel and ensuring the correct placement of brake cables. I am not sure they would have been ready for a sing song on the car park and they probably didn’t know the words to Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head. The musical interlude came to an abrupt halt as the preciptation became persistent just as the singing cyclist hit top note which coupled with the need to traverse a tricky roundabout  saved passing pedestrians  from further off key renditions of  weather related compositions.

It was not just us taking an active approach to Mothering Sunday,  as the cloud passed and we powered… well in my case crawled, along the canal path we  dodged children, families, fishermen and packs of dogs.  Fellow cyclists passed us in a blur,  one accompanied by so many dogs we were surprised he was on a bike rather than a sledge.

We did manage to locate the traditional stopping place, this week swapping scones for toasted tea cakes before a return in glorious sunshine.

The canal path was deserted at this point… perhaps news of the singing had reached the wider population and they feared an encore.  After a brisk pedal home due to the fact that though sunny, the temperature was  hovering only slightly above brass monkeys, I returned to another Mothers Day tradition… the bubble bath.  Deep, warm, welcoming, though this year not Jo Malone but Radox….

Not all doom and gloom….

Sunshine and all that goes with it is one of the great joys of life, and as we hurtle towards the winter solstice the lack of rays from our nearest star has a direct effect on my mood and energy levels. It may well be unseasonably warm, but crikey this morning here in East Lancashire it was gloomy.  On waking to the sight of a battleship grey sky, I felt a diaspora of gloom descending, reinforced by a look at the newspapers and television news where there was hardly a spark of brightness and light anywhere.  The bed was warm and snug and the thought of leaving the nest to pedal through the grey and slightly dank conditions was distinctly unwelcome.  Cycling was on the agenda and I wrestled with my conscience – could I claim exhaustion, dengue fever, plague or alien abduction as an excuse to skip, should I just be honest and say I just didn’t fancy it, or just hope my cycling companion would  feel the same and  we could agree to just potter out for coffee and cake? I went for the latter and was just about to breathe a sigh of relief that I was off the hook when the ‘where are we going’ text arrived and subsequent communications made it clear that no matter how doomy and gloomy I, the weather  or indeed the nation were feeling today, baling out was not an option!

The weather never got above gloomy today and it was freezing out in the Ribble Valley and there was some serious log stocking up going on – we noted the  need to stock up on long sleeve tops and neck snoody things but the Charlie Brown like black cloud lifted and there were some valuable lessons learned.

• True friends don’t take no for an answer and understand when to push you for your own good
• If you don’t cycle for 2 weeks your fitness levels drop drastically and the hills become enormous again
• If you grit your teeth and recite poetry/sing songs in your head you can get up the hills
• Toasted tea cakes and coffee are one of the joys of life especially on a grey Sunday afternoon.
• It is really cold as the sun sets in November
• Making the effort to spend time with friends is always worth it, especially when you are tempted to stay sunk in your own increasing gloom.
• No matter how much doom and gloom there is around at the moment we  are responsible for the creation of our own sunshine .

Deep Water

Deep water can be scary,  the fear of drowning, sinking  and what lurks beneath, but  you also need a bit of depth to float freely, to swim and to dive safely.  So while it’s  a bit of a contradiction it’s also a mirror of life. Comfort zones and safety blankets are great and we all like to return to them, but every now and then we need to throw off the blanket and push out into the scary deep water.  Sometimes this is forced on us – new job, unexpected changes in relationships, health issues, sometimes of our choosing and others forced upon us. As we strike out across the deep water sometimes we bottle it and return to the side and other times we find that actually we are quite at home out there and can touch the floor and it’s not so deep but strangely comforting.

Of course there is always the danger of coming unstuck and actually drowning so it’s always good to have a helping hand and a lifebelt nearby.  Today I have been out cycling – same distance as Cycletta, but with a teacake stop at the home of the Psychic Supper, with some of the people who have been my helping hands and lifebelts as we have pushed out into the deep water.  The Psychic Supper is still being advertised, I suppose the sign will self combust when all tickets have been ordered on the astral plane,  All the scones were sold out, however the coffee and teacakes were excellent, as was the company and even the weather. It was really excellent today to just cycle for the fun of  it chatting and catching up and not checking time and distance until we got home, pretty exhausted!

We have indeed  worked our way across the deep water and it is now scary that the Cycletta distance which had seemed  a major challenge at the outset was  today just a pleasure ride.  There are still challenges to overcome before I am totally comfortable in the deep water, hills are still there to be screamed at though less so now.  My current  freak out moments are the bridges on the canal , not the going  over them but the narrow bumpy paths under them. there lurk any number of trolls, cobbles, the possibility of the sudden appearance of dogs, small children or even worse intransigent OAP’s or ramblers who refuse to budge from the centre of the narrow path.  All of which mean that  images of me thrashing in the deep dark  foul water of the canal flash through my mind.  This was even worse when following a slight issue loading my bike onto the car rack my bell was immobilised meaning I needed to shout as I approached these areas of doom.  I now have a new bell which is reassuring, though it seems to have little effect on certain of the canal ramblers who steadfastly refuse to move an inch to allow safe passage. There is a particular type who  hearing the bell, turn and look, then freeze to the spot forcing those of us on two wheels to mount the slippery grass verge, making a  split second choice of veering towards a wall or the aforesaid murky waters.

However today I steadfastly rode under each bridge rather than doing my usual brake, scream  shuffle and scoot through, it still felt as if I was crossing one of those Indiana Jones type rope bridges over a ravine with crumbling slats, and to some it may seem a small and rather petty element but boy to me it was deep water indeed.

Sisterhood of sweat and scones

There are not many people for whom I would get out of a warm bed on a wild and windy Sunday morning with a Hurricane (or its tail) on the way.  However when I got the call this morning from one of my cycling sisters I did not hesitate, despite  having ridden with her the day before on a trip with a pace that had left me  sore and aching I agreed we should get out there and keep up our Cycletta practice. I admit that I was slow to haul my body from the pit and was not exactly my usual sunny self,  but fuelled with Oatibix I set off into the teeth of a gale to our rendevous on…you’ve guessed it… the canal.

So what made me not simply turn over and ignore  the phone  or answer and plead exhaustion and the call of the lesser spotted pile of ironing… well the need to make sure we can complete the course…. but also our sense of loyalty to each of us who have agreed to undertake this challenge. It would not have mattered which member of  Daft and Determined  made the call I would have answered and responded as would any of my fellow mad women. We are  not functioning as a traditional team, we are not rigid in our training schedules, we do not have timetables and stop watches, we do not all ride together, we have acquired a range of cycling buddies and companions who whilst not taking part in the event will be there and are just as much part of the team as those of us who will be pedalling round Cheshire – some of us for longer than others… We could not operate in a formal way  as we are all  busy, work ridiculous hours,  have full social lives, responsibilites to children, parents , cats and puppies so we just squeeze in what we can where we can and with whoever we can.

But despite all of that we are a team,  held together by the desire to achieve what we set out to do and to do it as a unit. We are indeed a sisterhood, and sisters are certainly doing it for themselves as we have learnt to firstly ride a bike again,  fit and load bike carriers to cars, attach the bungee elastic stretchy whatsits so they hold the bikes firmly rather than resembling a piece of macrame,  drive the cars with bikes attached, take front wheels on and off  (the bikes not the cars) and sort the brake wire thingy when you do so.

One thing we  have needed little instruction in is devouring carbohydrates with the now traditional cry of  ‘well we’ve earned it’  and as we have sweated – and it is sweat, none of the genteel perspiration stuff going on here -  pedalling up hill and down dale and along the canal paths, not to mention heaving bikes onto car carriers there has been one thing that has driven every single one of us on. Yes the reward at the end – or as yesterday a mid ride pit stop of coffee and scones. The toasted tea cake has become a firm favourite, however,  yesterday our rather refined coffee shop claimed not to have any – I think they were so horrified by our dishevelled state -  windswept and scary rather than windswept and interesting, that they thought denial would mean we would leave. But  we were undeterred  and settled for scones and very crumbly and yummy they were as well, providing perfect fuel for the return trip. Fuel we required to be able to put on a turn of speed as not only were the storm clouds gathering we knew we that passing a canalside hostelry at pace would be necessary to avoid the catcalls we recieved on the way out.

We cannot forsee exactly how our Cycletta event will go, what the weather will be like,  what time  we will achieve, though someone is clearly trying to tell us something.  As with our encounter with the invitation to the Psychic Fish and Chip night, as we were trying to make ourselves vaguely respectable  we noticed yet another invitation to a meal where presumably your choice of menu is pre ordered via the astral plane.

As I said we are not a team that meet regularly, have team talks and work to a framework but we have become a sisterhood with a common purpose and I don’t think we need to consult a psychic to tell us that we will cross the line together,  sweating and demanding scones with a chorus of   ‘we’ve earned it!

 

Stormy Weather….

When a gust of wind lifts your bike and moves it sideways and you are still on it… it’s just a little bit terrifying, by the third or fourth time you are getting used to it and eventually you just push through and your heart stops missing a  beat every time it happens.  So much for a gentle flat Sunday ride along the coast!

Actually it was a wonderful ride with bright blue sky, white caps and scudding waves being put to excellent use by the kite surfers who move at terrifying speeds across the waves, but the wind.. OMG it was strong and strangely,  it was a headwind on the 9 miles out and a head wind on the 9 miles back accompanied by the side swiping gusts. Actually it’s probably good that it was  in our faces as a tail wind of that speed could have had us over the rainbow and up the yellow brick road before you could click a ruby slipper.

Arriving at the start point after a slight altercation with the newly donated bike carrier – how was I to know which way up it went? Ok it was upside down and bike hanging dangerously across number plate and lights… but I  had spotted something was not quite right and following a heart stopping drive to biking buddy and technical expert’s abode with a well rehearsed speech to any early Sunday police patrol it was a matter of moments to turn it right way up and prevent a major disaster.  Another bike carrier adjustment in the rain at the petrol station for second party in the convoy and cars and bikes  arrived intact to be greeted with a  grey and stormy view.

Undaunted we set off into the teeth of a gale and lo and behold the skies cleared, the sun shone, stray dogs and pedestrians including some claiming deafness lay in wait to provide us with swerving practice,  the stragglers from a half marathon were no problem as they were too shattered to leap into our path.  Our little peloton .. or rather triton whizzed along in the sunshine, the only casualty being an earring lost to the sea wall and I reflected that I do not really appreciate the beauty of the coastline less than an hour’s drive from home. Cycling has made me realise that there is so much more to be seen than through a car windscreen and there is a world to explore on my doorstep.  Reaching the turning point an hour later we were flushed with success which is how I prefer to explain my pink and purple face rather than over exertion. A  short pause by a well known local landmark - the Blackpool Tower – not the rather phallic totem pole we appear to have surrounded and  full of bravado we set off back with minds full of thoughts of coffee and cake.

Well that’ll teach us to be so cocky – meeting the head wind and side gusts was like hitting a brick wall and all the way back it was as if we were cycling uphill through treacle.  The head wind was just exhausting, the side gusts scary and the sand whipping into our faces provided a facial peel worthy of any spa.  The jolly banter ceased for a while as we pushed through the worst section which was roughly mid way, there was  brief discussion regarding risk assessment and mutterings of no options as we gritted our teeth put our heads down and forged on.

Not much later we were sitting in a magnificent sea front emporium advertising a Psychic Fish and Chip Night – orders placed on the spirit plain and delivered by passing spirits one assumes. We resisted the fish and chips but indulged in coffee – full fat milk only  no skinny cappuccinos here, a pot of tea  accompanied by toasted tea cakes – dustbin lid size and a currant filled scone and butter. Skin and hair totally denuded of moisture were the only bits of us in need of emergency treatment and all in all there was a collective sense of major achievement.

On reflection it was a marvellous way to spend a Sunday in good company training for Cycletta but what it really demonstrated was not whether we are fit enough to complete the course but that there are times in life when you are confronting powerful forces  trying to knock you off track  and there is only one way to get through – put your head down and JFDI.