We have these thorns out
here, I think their actual name is Blackthorn. Their informal name – what we
call them when we’re pulling them out of fingers or arms or legs – starts with
and ‘F’ and ends with ‘ucking fuck, OwOwOw Bastard!’ And they are everywhere
(in addition to their almost armour piercing pointyness, I’ve always thought
they would go off like an absolute bomb in a bush fire so there’s that also).
As previously mentioned, it was one of these nasty pieces of intelligent design
that had quietly lodged itself in my front tyre and despatched my entire
stockpile of spare inner tubes in the space of 3 days.
At this point I have some
miserable excuses to make. These include (in no particular order): we live
quite a long way from the nearest bike shop, I did at this point have a full
time job to attend and the fresh memory of my recent arse kicking at the hands
of what 10 years ago would have been, quite literally, a 5 km ‘ride in the
park’ had me less than motivated. In retrospect, these all point to the
fundamental weakness of character that had led to me strapping on size 42 jeans
to go to work every day but there you go. The bike, as mentioned, was back on
the deck and once again gathering the dust dragged up our dirt road every time
we pulled into the driveway.
However.
I did start to walk. First
down to the gate and back. Then home from my daughter’s school when my shifts
allowed it. Then to and from my daughter’s school. And so on and so on. I cut
wood and pulled out feral scrubs (die Blackthorn die) and a couple of times
when it was raining I even ran up and down the stairs inside my house. The belt
came in a notch. Then another. Friends started to look at me funny, then (after
checking discreetly with my wife that I wasn’t in possession of some kind of
terminal illness) began commenting on my loss of weight. I stopped drinking
soft drinks and flavoured milk entirely and adjusted my diet to one less suited
to the maintenance of a herd of soon to be turned into bacon pigs.
Clothing purchases were required. The number
of ‘X’s’ preceding the ‘L’ dramatically reduced.
More videos of lunatics
riding very fast down cliff faces were consumed.
By a happy accident, the
local (and by local I mean less than 50kms away) bike shop was all out of
normal inner tubes but:
‘Hey you can try these
thorn proof ones if you want....’.
‘Did you say ‘thorn proof’
sir? You did? I would very much like to try them. Yes indeed’.
Back on the bike. Down to
the gate and back and surprise! Riding up steep hills is A LOT easier when
you’re not carrying the equivalent of 15 litres of water up the hill with you.
And that, Ladies and
Gentlemen, is how I started riding my bike again after 9. Long. Years.
NEXT: DOWN TO BUSINESS...
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