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It’s been a non-stop weekend and I was feeling pretty knackered after a lovely hour long dog walk in the morning sun, taking Phoebe to a birthday party, doing some shopping and mowing the lawn (the grass so long in our garden that it’s taken two days to get it down to a not even reasonable length), but then Phoebe said she wanted to go on a bike ride. I envisioned a little ride around the block, but she had other ideas and we headed out of the village, Again I thought we’d get to the first significant hill and then turn back, but she was determined to explore and declared that we would go wherever the bikes wanted to take us. So when we got to the hill, her bike decided it was heading down a bumpy farm track to the right. I’d run down here before, but couldn’t quite remember where it came out, but it was all downhill so I was happy. Though at the back of my mind I thought that what goes down, must go up.
Finally we emerged on to a bit of road that I didn’t immediately recognise, but I checked on my phone and realised that we’d made it down to alternate route we take to the kids’ school when the bin lorries are blocking the high street. Phoebe had wanted to go to the next village and I could see that it was now within reach. There was a bit of a hill and the road was a much longer that I remembered it being (all the roads seem longer on a bike than they do when you’re in a car, for some reason) but we were able to cycle all the way to the school. Where we took pictures to send to Catie, who predictably was surprised that we were so far away. And that we’d cycled about 4 miles (the direct route is a bit shorter).
I was trying to think of an easier way to get back, but Phoebe was insistent we listened to the bikes and we went back along the same, slightly busy and scarily narrow and bendy road, she seemingly with utter confidence, me so admiring of her bravery and terrified of the task of making sure we got home unsquashed that I didn’t have time to think of how weary this was making me.
We stayed on the road rather than head back up the track, but it was much more of a hill than I’ve ever noticed driving down it, so we walked for a few minutes, but I was amazed that this was the only hill that defeated us. We did over 11km in under an hour and had been to a different village and both had a real sense of achievement. Plus if we keep doing this I am going to find it a lot easier to shift this extra timber.
Exciting, terrifying and bewildering that my little girl, who only learned to ride a bike yesterday (do it seems) is capable of this. And is, if I am honest, pretty much a better cyclist than me. But that’s a low handlebar.
