New toy- sorry, Machine!

Eek!

The stress has evaporated and I’m literally quivering with excitement! Ask anyone of the poor folks at Info, I have been having a great deal of trouble concentrating all day.

The thing is, you see, I got a text off my lovely housemate Suzanne yesterday informing me of the arrival of my new bike- exactly as described, exactly the right size, exactly what I needed and just just on time! A big thank you to Big Bills Bikes in Chester for that (www.bigbillsbikes.co.uk), after all my ebay troubles they helped me so much and restored my faith in internet shopping- a dangerous activity indeed, and far scarier than cycling across Spain and Portugal.

After staring wide eyed at the screen and jiggling for a bit I asked my very understanding boss person and friend, Tobi, if I could go and play; whistled down this side of the valley, panted up the other side at record speed, and put the beast together.

Oh he’s so handsome. A fine and trusty steed. Definitely my favourite non-living object of all- I’ll soon sort that out with some googly eyes and fluff (sorry to all you real cycling enthusiasts who would sooner die than (de)face a brand new shiny kona jake in such a way, but it has to be done. Things might have been different if I wasn’t travelling alone, but as it is I’m going to need his company!

After putting him together, with some help from my other lovely housemates Tom and Paul, I got on for a little test run and somehow couldn’t quite get a grip on the brakes. Juddered down the little driveway from our house over some bumpy rocks and roots of the ash tree, turned the corner at the bottom a bit wide and a bit fast with eyesight still wobbling, and had a forceful encounter with a big clump of brambles draping across the track. Tom found me picking the many embedded thorns out of my arm and sulking.

I’ll show you a picture when I work out how! I’m starting to understand that weird psychology of bike people where the worse a crash or an injury is, the ‘sicker’ or ‘sweeter’ it is… I’m actually quite proud of my wound! Now I will really respect my new machine, and I expect our relationship to be a fiery one!

Today he took me to work, and we missioned to town in my lunch break to get some last-minute essentials at the Holey Trail again. People stop and look at him in the street. I overtook 8(!!!) people and 3 of them said "oooh, nice bike!" or words to that effect. I swelled with pride each time and am still having trouble thinking about anything else. I feel like singing. Basically my friends, I'm in love.

Tonight there is a clothes swop in town to raise money for Grania's circomedia funds, and afterwards I'm being seen off by my dear friends at CAT. I can't believe my volunteering stint is over, it has been a beautiful spring and summer and I have seen a totally different side to my already amazing home town, and learnt so much about all the things I expected, and even more about all kinds of things I never expected to learn- about myself, about people and their incentives, about volunteering and what a wholesome thing it is to do...

I've made so many lovely friends and I'm going to miss them! This aspect is really starting to sink in now, and I won't be able to sneakily skulk off like I usually do! I better go off and see them now...