As the time of my wife’s return from a well-deserved break in Finland, visiting her multitude of relatives and having more cooking lessons in the process draws to an end, my enforced isolation draws closer to an end as well. Talking to myself and refereeing two cats who still don’t like each other isn’t my idea of something that I’d like to do a lot of, but it has had its rewards as well. I have been able to get lots of stuff that has been hanging over my head for a long while sorted out and been able to attend to lots of important and unimportant matters.
One of these very important matters has been trying to get my riding back into shape again. After coming back to riding much too soon after the accident, as most lifers will remember, I found that my enthusiasm was not matched by the speed of my recovery. I was still too restricted in movement, too sore to ride any more than a short distance without experiencing considerable pain and too prone to dropping the bike on its side at sudden stops because I simply couldn’t get my foot off the footpeg quickly enough to steady the bike. So I took the decision to cash in the rego, play it safe and hope that I would, one day, recover enough to be able to ride with confidence again.
I’m not saying that I am doing that, my riding is dreadful compared to the smoothness that used to be one of its main features, but I am making progress. Today I did “The Lap” and it felt good. Very little traffic in the middle of the day made it easier but the roads were quite wet in places and caution was required. Coming down into Kangaroo Valley I had to stop to take these pictures of the fog lingering in the distance, very pretty, I thought.
I am eternally grateful that I have been given the opportunity to once more enjoy this simplest of pleasures, not the least to my wife who, despite her fears for my safety, has generously allowed me to get back into the saddle again. We are, each one of us, in the lap of the gods, and someday we will have to give account for what we have done with what we have been given. Food for thought.
jeffb says
Good to see that you are out and about on the bike, Phil. Glad the leg’s up to it. Catch up soon. Jeff
Phil Hall says
Let’s do that.