The white ice crackled under my black cycle tyres this morning as I set off. Shorts? Oh yes, there’s nothing like having raw red knees to start off with, which then warm with being rapidly bent. Cold but gloriously sunny for most of my usual Sunday morning journey into Wales and up to Pen-y-fford for a newspaper, and then return. On the way there I was distracted by one of the most vivid rainbows I’ve seen for ages. This is has been a rainbow month so far – all those rain showers and sunlight. The sun has to be behind you and striking an angle of 43 degrees as it hits the raindrops (impossible to have a rainbow with no rain – even if it is not wetting you) and refracts back to your eye. I saw the primary bow and its Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain colours, the secondary bow a few degrees outside of it with reversed colours, and pale but distinct supernumerary bows, of weird pinks and turquoise, inside the primary. It seemed really close too. I could see the primary bow sink into a stubble field in front of a farm building. But of course as I reached for that pot of gold…
I cycled up the long hill from Higher Kinnerton to Hope, twice. Near the bottom the first time, I noticed what looked like a discarded black handbag in the wet grass verge. As I cycled past it I thought maybe a thief had snatched it, robbed any valuables and discarded it there. In which case there was nothing of value I could return to its owner if some ID remained. On the other hand, it could have been accidentally dropped last night, on the way home from the pub, by a now desperate woman who’s lost her purse, keys, cheque book, credit cards, photos of loved ones, antique brooch – a heirloom given to her by her dear white-haired old great gran on her deathbed uttering ‘don’t ever let this brooch leave you, Agnes dear.’ Of course by the time the compulsion to pick up the bag and check its contents, I’d reached the top of the hill. Oh well, it’s all good exercise! So I returned – the easy downhill whizzing along – and picked up the black patent leather bag. It was a Vauxhall motorcar wallet containing the service manual and other automobile documents of no worth. So it probably was a thief who discarded it after all; having stolen the car and rummaging through the glove compartment. I placed it in the next rubbish bin.
I seem to have lost a couple of pounds from yesterday morning. That can’t be right, so it’s probably just water loss from this morning’s bike ride even though I drank a pint of water enroute. I wonder if the bicycle pump, used in reverse, is any good at liposuction..
