dream hunter

You wonder if you should take a step to the unknown. She leaped. You wonder if you knew how. She taught you. You wonder if you could. She did. A friend who's always there. A source of inspiration and admiration. Courageous, beautiful and full of amazing thoughts. She's someone so annoyingly perfect you'd want to hate her. But you can't help but love her. by iiris

Monday, September 29, 2008

biking again

Last weekend we decided to take the train down to the country again. The weather was supposed to be spectacular, which, considering I live in England, could mean almost anything but we decided that it meant that we could see the yellow, warm fire up in the sky – also known as sun.

I must say that the best thing about London is that it is a city easy to get out of. Despite the horrific UK rail service I could get my toes into the grass after a 2.5h train ride. The fresh breeze welcomed us when we walked to the car park and drove off to our hobbit house destination.

On Saturday the day woke up brilliant. It was warm. The sky was blue – clear from the most remote sign of clouds and rain and I the temperature was hitting levels at which I could almost consider wearing a t-shirt.

We jumped on our bikes and headed off for a day of biking. The first bit of the journey was nice and easy. After 5min we stopped at a pub. I should probably note that one member of our biking company was a Scot.

Well hydrated we tried again. This time we made it all the way into the forest. Bumpy paths were an excellent way to verify the quality of suspensions, tyres and the rest. I concentrated on reminding myself that my bike did indeed have gears. So I should use them.

The first hill was a killer. It was steep. It was long. It was rocky. It was slippery. I kept pulling my front wheel up, which made the back wheel turn like a whisk in cream. I fell off. I fell off again. And as soon as I was back on the saddle I fell off again. Every time I fell, I banged my knees into the frame of my bike causing the inside of them to turn into reddish-blue. Finally I got the hang of it. “Keep your bum down to put weight onto the back wheel so that it has something to work with” my friend told me and it worked. I made it. Well not all the way but the rest of the hill climbing exercise involved a lot more biking than walking.

Coming down was a lot more fun. And a lot more scary. I, being a bit of a wimp, was forced to hold on to my brakes like to my dear life, in order to avoid falling straight on my face. After a while I got more comfortable with the speed and the bike and the descend and let it go. I was still not going fast but bounced happily down the hill.

But what goes down, must come up.

After 6hours of hard work we arrived back to the house. Most of us city dwellers were suffering from a serious overdose of healthy living and fresh air. What a divine feeling. Think it was the 15th uphill that made me realise why I keep myself fit – knew there was a reason for it.

After a hot shower and a big meal we slouched in the living room, with a glass of red wine, in front of a real fire, watching the Saturday fun of “Strictly come dancing” (Tanssii tähtien kanssa), trying to guess the judges’ verdicts. And seriously criticising the poor dancers who all did better than any of us ever could.

I think that this is what they call happiness…(and I climbed that first hill running the following morning…down into the valley, up the HILL, down again and back up to the house with a spring at the end…no wonder I have the tights of a Danish workhorse)

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