My Bike!

Right, I am going to take you back a bit now, as I have never been able to drive, my sight has never been good enough to pass the sight test, I used to cycle everywhere. I loved it, just me and my tunes, enjoying a bit of me time. I was working full time and cycled  6 or so miles to work in the morning and the same at the end of the day, on a good day it used to take me 15 mins, I cant tell you how very much I miss it, when I had to sell my bike I cried and cried, all that I had been through the one thing that broke my heart was selling my bike, it was the end of my independence, the end of those valuable 15 minutes from work to home where I would think about the day and get it all straight in my head, working in a special needs school, with pupils with profound learning and behavioural difficulties, some days I would need time to think about some of the situations that had occurred and wonder if I could have or do it differently, sometimes I would think of nothing at all, and just enjoy being free and outside.  (Mum says I was always one for being outside, when I was very small she would find me standing at the back door with nothing on except my nappy hanging around my knees and my wellies on the wrong feet, demanding she opened the door so I could go and play in the garden!!) I would cycle what ever the weather, no fair weather cycling for me, one January when we returned to school after the Christmas holidays, it was a really frosty morning, the fields and everywhere was white, the path twinkled like glitter and I marvelled how lucky I was to see such a beautiful scene, I remember the journey taking a little longer than usual, because I was so busy taking in the beauty, when I arrived at school, my eyelashes had frozen and the first person to greet me at the door said....bloody hell, Lynda its -6 out there!.....I wasn't cold, I felt that I had just experienced something a lot of people don't get time to stop and see. Some weekends, a very good friend and I used to cycle around the villages, visiting pubs and eating from the pudding menu...good times.  As the time wore on, I began to have crashes...some my fault, others weren't. I remember two distinctly, the first one was while I was cycling along a country path, I hit a tree root and landed upside down my body wedged in a fence and hitting my head hard on the ground, a passer by helped me, telling me I needed to go to the hospital, but I got back on and cycled on to school, by the time I got there I was in no fit state to work, so my bike got locked up and my friend drove me home where I slept off the sick feeling although I had a head ache for days after and my body felt like it had been hit by a lorry, the second time, some stupid woman opened her car door on to me knocking me off my bike and sent me sprawling into the middle of the rode in front of a bus, she stepped over me saying she couldn't stop because she had a doctors appointment, the road was blocked off and I had my own ambulance with flashing lights and everything! I had hit my head again, and damaged my shoulder which meant I couldn't work for 6 months! The police never traced the woman, so I put it in a little box in the back of my head and keep the lid on it or it will make me sour!
After that things weren't the same, I got slower and found I was having more and more near misses with those other big chunks of metal I was sharing the road with, before I knew it I was getting careless and had even started trying to cycle with my eyes closed to see how far I could get. So, it was decided that my bike would go, not only did I miss everything about my cycle rides but I missed the people I would meet along the way, the same bloke in his silver merc that I would pass at the traffic lights each day who would smile and wave, the lady at the bus stop who I would always exchange a good morning with, I think probably, it was back then that I started to feel like I was loosing control of myself, my independence, I missed it so much. So, my ex took me to buy a Tandem, but it just wasn't the same, sitting behind someone looking at their back while they bellow orders at you, or try to have a conversation with you when all you crave is silence and the ability to take in my surroundings at my own pace. I think I/we used it 5 times over 3 years, I sold it earlier this year. I was thinking maybe about buying another bike, you know maybe a BMX, so I am near the ground, but I would need a big open space, and then maybe it just wouldn't be the same, and it might make me feel worse, so I suppose I should just put the idea to bed and keep the memories alive in my head x