What a Year!

This year is far from over, but it's feeling a bit backendish and so I am going to indulge myself with a bit of a review of the year.

It's been a fabulous year. I started off recovered from last year's surgery, but not fit. I went to Spain for six weeks aiming to improve my fitness and rode over a thousand miles, transforming myself to the point where the first solo ride I did when I returned was my longest for over four years at 67 miles.

Rannoch Moor

Spring came, and Paul and I had a fabulous holiday in Scotland on our tandem with a CUK group led by our friend Gary. We had good company, superb riding and I heard (but didn't see) a corncrake!

Framlingham Castle

I spent a week in the beautiful Suffolk countryside when I went to the CUK Birthday Rides in Framlingham. There I rode with friends most days and I also did a couple of solitary rides, all with only a spot or two of rain and in rolling countryside which won my heart.

Kirkby Lonsdale

Not long after I returned, I found myself needing to be in Scotland again, this time to drive the van in support of my husband's CUK mountain bike tour of the West Highland Way and the Scottish Off-road Coast to Coast. But I didn't drive to Scotland. I rode there, alone and unsupported, with two small panniers and a tiny bar bag. 

Twelve months ago I would never have believed a year could be so good. Being so consistently free from illness was a dream I dare not have. Riding my bike whenever I wanted to, booking onto trips without fear of cancelling, and arranging to meet up with friends were all things I couldn't do.

The year has been great, almost scarily so, and I hardly dare hope that 2017 will be half as good!

Back to my First Love

If there's anyone out there reading this, it'll be pretty apparent that I haven't written anything for a while. And it'll also be pretty apparent why I haven't.

But life is good again. In fact, it's simply amazing - I just can't remember when I last felt this good and when I felt so positive about the future.

When I say I feel good of course I mean that the aches and pains I have are good aches and pains. You see I rode my bike yesterday, maybe a little too far in view of my still some-way-to-go fitness. My right knee hurts, and all of my left leg hurts. And my neck, my buttocks, and my right hand - but these are the types of pain I like to feel!

Yesterday was my first ride after returning from six weeks in Spain. I'll write about that another time because just now I want to focus on yesterday.

I set out into wind-less Spring freshness, and before I'd ridden ten metres I was overwhelmed by birdsong. I rode to Newtown where I met up with a Sky Breeze ride led ably by a lovely woman called Jackie. With two other girls (both a good deal younger than Jackie and I) we set off uphill, on a main road which on Sunday at least, is relatively free of traffic. I fought to stay on, but Jackie looked after me, riding beside me at all times. We had tea in a charming community cafe and then we set off up onto open moors toward a moorland watershed, and I place I just love. It was a simply lovely road, which I wouldn't have known about but for Jackie's willingness to take on the responsibility of leading others.

There I said goodbye to the girls, to ride home my own way. It was so beautiful in the crisp sunshine, with the cacophony of birdsong and swooping, courting skylarks, that I had to stop after a short while. I dug out my slightly crushed sandwich and ate it by the roadside.

This, as if I didn't know, is why I love cycling - my bike takes me to places that a car can only separate you from. My bike puts me in the land, without that sterilising layer of glass and metal.

I feel like the old me now, and I am back on track. Summer is just around the corner and I can't wait.

Feeling Fragile

Life throws obstacles in the way of each of us and we are all given different skills with which to handle them. In my life I've had quite a few obstacles already, and I haven't always handled them well.

Another obstacle approaches, but it may, if I handle it positively, sweep away some of my problems before it. I am being offered another chance to perhaps do some of the things I have never been able to do with the disabling bowel condition I have. This is positive, but the price I must pay is a heavy one. 

Another ostomy, this time for all time. 

I will be physically different to other people, and my mind needs to be comfortable with that. But I know I have more reason to worry about how my mind will cope than how my body will cope. If my mind can cope as well as my body, then this could be a very positive change. 

I have never felt more fragile than I do right now. 

A 1983 Selfie, there were no digital cameras or mobile phones back then so I took a shot of myself in a mirror. Spot the colostomy bag - underneath the skirt I made from a bed sheet which I died orange in a bucket! 

Change

I feel that change is coming - and change which I must try to look at positively.  I took redundancy two years ago because my delicate health had suffered and I was offered the opportunity.  And for two years I have enjoyed the privilege of not having to work because of my husband’s salary which has kept us both fed and clothed.  Now my husband’s job is ending.

During my unemployed time I have discovered a love of gardening, helped to build a sociable group of knitting cyclists, and rekindled my dormant love of painting.  But some of these activities are only possible in the right environment.  Painting, for example, needs time and space around it; it just isn’t possible to cram a painting into a spare half-hour.

As I ride around I see and feel my inspiration.  I ride amongst hills criss-crossed by field boundaries, and these images lodge in my mind and work their way onto my paper at some future time, normally weeks later.  I stop by a bridge, dismount and climb down to the riverbank. Burned into my memory is a moment of exquisite happiness which I just have to express, either by writing (I have kept a journal for more reasons than I can remember) or by painting.  Cycling feeds my painting, and painting gives a rich dimension to my cycling.

Working can bring many rewards (besides income) of course.  The company of a good and friendly team working with a common goal can be immensely rewarding.  Having a laugh with colleagues is every bit as good as having a laugh with friends.  To find work amongst people who understand the appeal of cycling would be a rare opportunity, but I will seek it nonetheless.  

But if I go back to work, I fear for my painting.  During the 28 years that I worked I only ever found time to paint on the rare occasions that I was off work sick. 

The very thought of losing my painting makes me shiver with a kind of grief.  I must see the positives; but for today at least, I am struggling to do that. 

Dolygaer - one half-hour walk, two training exercises, three trial runs and fourth time lucky with the final painting.

Speedy Recovery!

The dreadful cold and chest infection which laid me low kept me off my bike for the best part of a month.  My bucket emptied, so to say, and right down to the muck at the bottom.

My first ride after the enforced break was a shortish, flattish ride on the tandem.  I coughed and spluttered throughout, and was exhausted by the half-way mark.  But my husband’s strong legs looked after me, though he was only a week ahead of me in his recovery, and he’d been just as exhausted as I was only a week earlier. 

This weekend was our second post-recovery ride.  We’d had the opportunity to leave the van in Chester on Friday night, and the weather forecast for Saturday was for a deteriorating day.  So we set off early to ride a one-way route to Chester, the tailwind and the terrain assisting us. 

We flew!  We really sped along, and I don’t think I coughed more than half a dozen times.  I felt so much better than just one week before - tailwinds really are quite magical!  Best of all, the rain waited until we’d closed the van door to begin our drive home before coming down in truckloads.

So perhaps my fitness-bucket wasn’t as empty as I thought. I hope not anyhow, as we have only a few weeks to get ourselves into condition for a challenging two week tour of Scotland.  It’ll be great, though I’ll be surprised if the weather proves as advantageous to us as it did on Saturday!

A little change to the blog...

If you are one of the (very) few people who occasionally look at my blog, then you'll notice a few changes. I have changed the background, for no other reason than that I felt like a change, and I have also moved the Fragile Brush page to a completely separate blog. The tab on the left will take you there as it did before, but any links I sent to anyone before the change won't work I'm afraid. 

Spring is trying to arrive, and it does look like I shall have a pair of blue tits nesting in one of my bird boxes. So I shall add another cycling blog entry soon, I'm over my cough now and the bike awaits!