Sunday cycle to chat to friends, and eat cake. Mud also featured!
One of our mantras in life is ‘efficiency’ (said very tongue-in-cheek).
But still – nothing beats the feeling of smashing through 3 things on your ‘to-do list’ in one go.
---Except maybe cake---
My local work cakery. Fabulous. I have no idea how I'm not the size of a house by now...
But mostly, efficiency. If you can eat cake whilst being efficient, then you’re getting the hang of this thing already.
As you’ll be learning, we like to stay fit. Lisa does triathlon (she will shortly be telling you all about it... in the meantime, let's just link to this little event here...), and Will cycles with the wonderful Cowley Road Condors (if you're in or around Oxford and want to cycle, do look them up!). And in winter, when the days are short and mostly taken up with work, that only leaves the weekends for cycling. (Because we draw the line at cycling in the dark.)
So you’ll find us pretty much every weekend – unless there’s a really good reason – shoehorning a long cycle into whatever else we have planned.
At Christmas, we took our bikes with us when we stayed with the parents. Boxing day was cold, and wet, but it was still good to get out. And seeing somewhere new is one of the best things about cycling. Being on a bike puts you a bit higher up than a car, and that, combined with going a bit slower, means you really take in the world around you.
Here's Lisa outside Ely Cathedral on Boxing Day. About 2 seconds later, she took off her gloves and wrung the water out of them. But here, she just looks happy. Isn't it great how photos can lie?!
Anyway – as we close in on our departure date, we’ve organised a few ‘farewell’ events, and one of those was a weekend cycle with friends. And cake.
So, you see:
Farewell event + Cycling/exercise + Cake = Efficient
We got going before 9am, and were rewarded with a very misty Thames Valley morning. It started to lift by 10, and we got some spectacular views (sorry - I was too busy keeping the legs spinning to take any pics. I will do better next time!).
And while the weatherman kept his word, and it didn’t rain, it turned out there was still plenty of water on the road – so we all got absolutely covered in mud ☹. But we still got coffee and cake at the lovely Court Hill Centre, and it was a great way to say goodbye to some good friends who have encouraged us up steep climbs, and given us a wheel to sit in behind when we’re struggling.
All in all, a good Sunday morning, and just 3 weeks to go…!
