Quiet Road Victims

I was cycling along quite happily today, alone with my thoughts on a calm, wind-less day, when I caught sight of something in the verge.

A barn owl, dead, lay haphazardly; its beautiful silent wings beating no more.

Three weeks ago, my husband, a friend and I happened to drive by a truly horrific sight. A woman in a cycle helmet was giving CPR to a road victim, unfortunately to no avail. The lady who lost her life that day was walking her dog, it pulled her into the road and a vehicle struck her. I was upset for days by what I saw, even more so when I realised that I knew the woman we'd seen performing CPR. But my distress was nothing compared to the deep grief of the family who lost a loved one.

We grieve for people killed on the roads, but we accept the carnage as an unavoidable consequence of our preference for a means of transport that gives some of us convenience, even as it ends it for others.

Whilst in Scotland last week, a red grouse flew into the grille of our hired motorhome. There was nothing we could do to avoid it, other than not go there, nor hire that killing machine. How many non-human creatures lose their lives on our roads each day? Who amongst us can say they have never been a killer?

I shall mourn the barn owl I visited by the roadside today, because no-one else will.

I am sparing you the bloody bits

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! 

Light on a Dark Day

Sometimes when I write I find that I dance around issues, trying so hard to miss out the less pleasant bits of my life that I tie myself in knots. But the world is changing, particularly the world of social media. “Honesty” is clearly now acceptable, and so I am going to give it a go. Warts and all.

You see, my bowels don't work properly. I have written before about the extensive surgery I had to have 30 years ago (10 operations over five years on my lower abdomen, three more 12 years later, and two for altogether other reasons) and I have hinted at the long period of recovery I had back then. I wrote about it positively because it certainly was positive – and it fed my love of cycling, which has grown and grown ever since.

But my treatment also damaged my bowels. For a time whilst I underwent radiotherapy I had a temporary colostomy, and I was too ashamed of it even to tell some of my close friends. I kept the full “horror” of it from my parents, with whom I officially lived at the time (I was 19 years old). I was traumatised – and I just couldn't wait for the colostomy to be reversed. I was scared it never would be. When it was, probably too early, I got bowel adhesions. I couldn't eat for six weeks and I went down to 5 st 10 lb. Eventually, after accepting the inevitability of death, I somehow recovered. My body just decided to get better.

But the bowel adhesions persisted, and the radiotherapy had burned me inside, scarring me irreparably. Ever since then I have had episodes of blockage which are excruciating. I also have sickness, diarrhoea, constipation, faecal incontinence, and never, ever, a fully normal day. Each day I go to the loo between 0 and 20 times, at any hour of the clock. I get virtually no warning. In thirty years, I have probably had a “one trip to the loo and then forget about it” day maybe half a dozen times.

I had an unconnected operation five years ago, and the surgeon, in addition to doing the job he'd planned, spent 2 ½ hours dividing adhesions. He said to me afterwards that my bowels were such a jumbled mess that he was surprised I could go to the loo at all.

This condition has a name no-one has heard of, and it's not life threatening. The doctors are not interested because nothing can be prescribed for it. And yet the fear of it affects me every minute of every day. It's cost me my job, and it regularly renders me housebound. It distresses my husband monumentally. It stops me riding my bike, and it interferes with every plan I make.

So my point – what is it? Well it's this. If you search Youtube you can watch a lovely pretty 23 year-old girl called Laura change her ostomy bag. You can see a gorgeous guy demonstrate what he does with his bag to secure it when he's surfing. You can see a model in a bikini, her ostomy bag showing above her bikini on her simply stunning body.

These people don't hide their issues, they get on with life, honestly and grasping every opportunity. I applaud the element of openness and honesty that social media has facilitated for these people and I admire each of them immensely. Social media helps people to find support amongst others who are in the same boat as them, but half a world away. The support changes opinions, and the exposure changes attitudes. There are critics, but I am not one of them.

If I'd been able to be find inspiration from these people thirty years ago, I think my attitude to my colostomy might have been much more positive. And now, on some of my worst days I find myself thinking – how might my life have been, if I'd kept that bag?

Mother Nature

It's wet, wet and it's wet. There have been 50 days of rain.  Huge swathes of the countryside are flooded - particularly those areas visited by England's longest river, the Severn.

• The Severn - its winding and circuitous route falling only a hundred metres over hundreds of miles. 

• The Rain - water from the sky, driven by the wild, wild wind.

• Humans - not so immune to the weather as we might think.  No amount of science can make us master of the whims of …

• Mother Nature - whose wet hand is raised in defiance as she reminds us:- "I am in control".

There are days when I feel like taking up canoeing. But I am a cyclist first, and Mother Nature's work is all the inspiration I need to love the life-affirming hobby I have, without following the urge to try something else!

Floods

The River Severn
stops me in my tracks

No sooner had I uploaded my last piece than I realised that the wet roads I’d been writing about were as nothing as compared to what was to come.  The very next day the rain started, and continued, with devastating results for many unfortunate people.  Let me say right now that I am not one of the people whose homes have been inundated - although many of the roads I have been riding have been wet (and I’ve had to turn back once or twice) I am always privileged to have a warm, dry home to return to at the end of the day.  I’ve no direct experience of being flooded, so I can’t profess to truly understand.

But it’s not by accident that our flood risk is low.  When we moved into this house, I privately lamented its lack of proximity to water.  There’s a little stream by us (some would call it a drain) but it’s very little indeed, and no risk to us or our neighbours.  To stand by a proper river I have to cycle a good few miles, and descend quite a few metres.  It’s not much, but that small descent, and the ten accursed steps between the street and my house (which I struggle to carry my bike up), keep us free from the risk of water ingress.  This is something we considered carefully before we parted with our money, and we will again, if ever we move.

My husband added a comment onto my last blog entry, saying that the Severn had flooded around Welshpool.  I rode there a few days later to see what he meant and it was quite a dramatic sight, in many places a rather beautiful sight. But I can only say it was beautiful because I don’t think any homes were flooded in Welshpool.  The flood plain around the Severn is undeveloped, so it can do its job.  The sheep might find their field size reduced for a while, and doubtless many farmers are being significantly affected, but the water birds are in heaven. 



In other places of course, that's not the case.  Flood plains have been built on, with dreadful consequences.  Winter always brings wet weather and flood defences have been tested in the past.  But our drains and defences seem to be inadequate these days - is this because of particularly adverse and unusual weather, or because we have become complacent in thinking we can always build structures to tame nature?   

I can’t answer that question.  But it’s no secret that I love nature, in all its wild fury.  I like bad weather, with its stormy purple skies and underlit clouds reflecting onto the ripening crops in autumn. And I revel in the sound of trees swaying in breathtaking windiness, when my wheels are stopped in their tracks and I can only gaze in wonder, even as the rain stings my eyes.   

Wind can be very destructive, and rain can be too.  But they were here before us, and they will be here after us.  Whatever the misery they cause, they have my unfettered and humble respect, and I would hope that our city planners have respect for them too. 

Gold, Rubies and Pearls

A lane, exquisite in all seasons

Each year I feel a sense of sadness when Summer passes, and Autumn seems to settle like a coldness coming from above. But no sooner has it come then Autumn raises its game with a spectacular show of colours that never ceases to enthral me.

It can be a brief show, and the weather may be so inclement that the desire to go out to see it is almost suppressed.  But normally I find sufficient self-motivation to go out on my bike and to enjoy the best show of the year before winter’s grip takes it from me. And so, in the past month, I’ve had quite a few really fabulous rides. 

Riding along Wenlock Edge, a flock of migrating birds flew over.  As the sun pushed its way through the mist, the mist’s last wisps clung to the clods of earth left by the farmer’s plough, as though the very earth was steaming.  Woodsmoke hung in the air, giving a homely smell of the hearth and a promise of warmth at the end of the day.  Golden leaves on the road made for skidding bicycle wheels, but they also gave an impression of riding over a road paved with gold. 


Money grows on trees - or so it seems, when you look at the golden coins hanging from the silver birch in autumn.  Copper and bronze hang from other trees, and some leaves are so red that they seem to be in flower rather than in the autumn die back.  Nuts and berries drip from branches, though the squirrels make short work of those cobb nuts left by the farmer’s clippers.  From the holly, hawthorn and dog rose hang rubies, from the snowberry, pearls.

One day many years ago a lowlife burglar stole from me, amongst other things, an eternity ring, gold set with rubies, which had belonged to my late mother.  It couldn’t have been of any great value to him but for me, it was priceless.  I missed it sorely, so strong was its association with the mother I had lost.  But gradually, as time passed, I began to see that autumn brings gifts which are also priceless.  

And so I shall always feel my mother’s presence, whenever the wild rose shows to me its bejewelled hand.

An Age for Cycling

I'm a life member of the Cyclists’ Touring Club (CTC) and a big fan, but I have one fairly large concern about it.  Every time I go to a CTC event, whether it’s a local event or a national one, I notice that I am one of the youngest.  If I was 12 that would be ok, but I’m middle aged - almost everyone else I see is well into retirement.  That’s not a bad thing - I hope to enjoy cycling well into my own retirement - but it is a noticeable thing.

On the one hand it’s easy to see why - retired people have the time to pursue their hobbies whilst working people have many competing commitments.  But that doesn’t explain why sportive events are mainly entered by younger, working age people, and why these events tend to sell out their places very quickly, even if they are quite pricey.  In fact, the tougher the event, the more quickly they seem to sell out, even if they are downright expensive.

The CTC is the national charity aiming to represent all cyclists.  Along with British Cycling, which represents sports and competitive cyclists, it offers free 3rd party insurance to all members, and so it is a very good organisation to be a part of.  But increasingly I feel that there is a sector of society which isn’t interested in what the CTC has to offer, and it’s a big sector.  It follows that I feel that the CTC must work to attract and benefit this sector. 

Things you see from a bike No.1 - a Belgian Blue Bull

“Younger people aren’t joiners” the Chief Executive of CTC recently said to me.  That may be true, but there is more than one way to support people who ride bikes, even those that don’t like to join clubs.  The CTC could boost its coffers and its profile by setting up a subsidiary company to run sportives and mountain bike events, the proceeds being paid to charity (ie, the CTC) with the tax advantages that would flow from that.  These proceeds could be spent on stepping up the already good work that the CTC does, particularly those things that are of concern and interest to younger cyclists. 

If the CTC doesn’t attract younger riders to cycling, then British Cycling will (indeed it already does) and it'll be British Cycling that these new riders will join.  Before long, that could mean that the CTC would become a club of mainly retired people, representative only of an aging sector.  I would hate to see that happen. 

That’s of course assuming that British Cycling don’t eventually take over the CTC...

From British Cycling’s website: 

“The breadth of British Cycling’s work is testimony to our status as the only organisation that works across all levels of cycling – from the playground to the podium. Whether people are looking to get on a bike for the first time, wanting to find great places to ride, seeking to enter a sportive or race, or needing tips from the pros on riding safely and keeping their bike in top shape, British Cycling is with them every step of the way.”

Things you see from a bike No.2 - Bridges in Millers Dale