Andy Goes Cycling and A Couple of Segues

 The astute amongst you (e.g KJ!) have already picked up the hint at the end of my last blog that there is a story to be told regarding Andy plus bicycles. (By the way - Edith is all ticketty boo. After 24 hours of being zoned out and making Andy and I hypersensitive to her every movement, she suddenly perked up yesterday evening, trashed her hospital ward because clearly the arrangement didn’t meet with her approval, and so this morning has made a permanent return to her own home and I need fret no longer about finding a stray bunny poo underneath the sofa, probably when I move the sofa to show someone important, like Her Maj the Queen, the lovely engineered oak flooring we had installed 3 years ago. Well, it COULD happen…quelle embarrassement…)

Back to bicycles. Yesterday, I drove Andy to a nearby village to their bicycle shop which is closing down. Andy had already noticed they were having a closing down sale (20% off everything) and had reserved a bicycle. He announced this to me by saying, ‘I’m think I’m going to buy a bicycle. Audlem Cycles is closing down. I’ve reserved a bike.’ A sentence of 17 words which went from ‘I think I might’ to ‘I am.’ I, on the other hand, would have been more economical with my phrasing - ‘I’ve bought a bike.’ (4 words) But then I am well-versed from my teacher days in instructing students to ‘stop waffling’ with their writing.

(N.B Students only waffle because they can’t be bothered to think of what to say. It is too much like hard work when they could be doing something more important like Tiktoking or extending their eyelashes. Instead, they are given an essay to write. It has to be 600-800 words to meet exam board criteria. They panic because they think that is waaaaaaay too many words to have to think of, probably more than their entire learnt vocabulary. So they waffle. They use 10 words where 2 will do. It was then my job to cut their 600 words of waffle to somewhere around 250 words and send them away for round 2. ‘Stop saying the same thing in three different ways,’ I’d say. ‘You’ve already told me that,’ I’d say. ‘Stop waffling,’ I’d say. There would ensue a certain amount of eye rolling from both parties because the hapless student thought they had nailed the word count first time, and I knew another three drafts would be required and it was going to be bloody hard work. And that is why I stopped teaching. Actually, no it isn’t - I stopped teaching because of all the mindless bureaucracy, data analysis, treating children like robots and staff like, well, robots.)

Back to bicycles. I drove Andy to collect his new bicycle which he intended to ride home along the canals, a distance of around six miles. This is the bicycle…

As you can see from its position against the courtyard back wall, he made it home in one piece, albeit one huffing, puffing and sweaty piece. And for this I was relieved. For Andy does not have an encouraging history regarding bicycles. 

For example, when he was a child, he borrowed his Mum’s bicycle. On his travels he found a dead hedgehog and, being a scientist-in-waiting, he put it in the bicycle bag, rode home and completely forgot about it. Until it started to smell REALLY off a few weeks later when it was rediscovered and was too revolting to be of any further scientific interest. 

For example, at our wedding reception, Andy’s best man began his speech by advising everyone to ‘never lend your bicycle to Andy.’ Apparently, he had quite a track record of borrowing bicycles and either losing them or returning them in a less than tidy fashion i.e damaged in some way because of some cycling catastrophe.

For example, when Andy was at university he was riding his bicycle through Liverpool and had to stop at some traffic lights. An articulated lorry pulled up beside him. The traffic lights turned green. Both Andy and the lorry turned left at the lights. The lorry hit Andy as it did so, pulling him beneath the tyres and dragging him along the road. Hospital emergency ensued resulting in loss of bits of toes and a large friction burn on his arm which left him with permanent scarring. Andy says he doesn’t remember much about the collision itself but he was excused boots from one of his final exams on account of his being squished. Silver linings, and all that. These days he probably could have claimed compensation, but this was over 30 years ago, before Britain had taken on the litigious habits of the USA and accidents were seen as accidents, not as money grabbing opportunities. 

So, as you can maybe understand, I am feeling a little anxious about Andy scooting around on a bicycle. However, the events of the last couple of years have taught me that the most pointless thing in the world is worrying about stuff. The only person affected by the act of worrying is the worrier themself. Life will happen how it happens. We can mitigate danger by taking sensible precautions - ‘Andy, buy a helmet. And stay away from lorries. And dead hedgehogs.’ But we can’t stop living life on the off-chance that something might happen. Because the odds suggest that it probably won’t. And it if does? Well, we deal with it as and when.

Andy has bought a bicycle to improve his health. And that is a good thing!