Wiped out

I'm lounging on my steamer chair on the front lawn in the sunshine. The lawn needs mowing but I'm too tired even to cut back the dead bluebells. I've been reading Billy Collins' poems from Sailing Alone Around the Room.

Every morning it's a choice between easing the day open gently by writing the blog, or getting up and out on my bike before the tourists descend.  Then if I decide on the bike, there's a choice between the Monsal Trail - gentle gradient, deserted on the outward trip at 9 a.m., becoming cluttered by hikers and cyclists on the homeward trip - OR a determined attack on Longstone Edge. I've cracked two of the routes to the top, but the steepest remains to be conquered.

Last time I was at the top of the Edge, off my bike, walking the last stoney path to the summit, I met two men whom I didn't know walking down. We stopped to say hello and talk about our routes. One man, while engaging me in chat, felt my front bike tyre, I assume to see if it was suitably inflated.  I was so flabbergasted by his cheek, I said nowt. But I seethed all the way back home. Dave laughed at my outrage. I discussed it with a friend who works with a bunch of cycling men, and she said it was par for the course. It no longer bothered her. Am I alone in thinking it was an invasive impertinence?

Anyway....this morning I chose the Trail, and rode to the end and back. It took me two hours with a ten minute half-time break. When I got home I was too tired even to blog. It's four and a half hours since then and I'm revving up to play table tennis with Dave. He got a new bat yesterday. It's the same as my new bat - the one that he thought beneath him. He decided to get the same to make it fair, to avoid what he called "Bat Wars." All it means is we're back to where we were: he's beating me again.

Tomorrow I'll choose some energetic gardening and eschew the bike ride. I can't do both in one day. I may be fit but my energy - like life - is finite.

This is the current status of our lane. Isn't it fine?