{"id":7720,"date":"2020-08-31T07:56:39","date_gmt":"2020-08-31T07:56:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=7720"},"modified":"2020-08-31T07:56:41","modified_gmt":"2020-08-31T07:56:41","slug":"two-wheels-good-four-wheels-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=7720","title":{"rendered":"Two wheels good, four wheels bad"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
The silver steed\/damesnet<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

One of my children was obsessed with bats and balls from a\nvery young age, so much so that for his 5th<\/sup> birthday we bought him a\nproper tennis racquet \u2013 child size \u2013 and tennis balls, and he spent hours\nplaying against the wall in the garden before starting tennis lessons. I\nsuppose I could have become a tennis mom, except that I\u2019m not American and I\ndon\u2019t see how I could have ferried him to all the coaching and matches and\ncontinue to jointly breadwin, if such a verb exists.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other child turned out to be an excellent swimmer. The\npoint being that each to their own. This became noticeable when people chose\ntheir lockdown exercise. Walking was available to all and plenty of people were\nexercising to online classes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was fortunate enough to have another option. I ordered a\nreconditioned bicycle from a friend of a friend who specialises in this field\nand collected it from him in early April. Up till then I did my lockdown\ncycling on \u2018Old Faithful\u2019 \u2013 a cast off from my daughter\u2019s teenage cycling years.\nBut I was delighted to promote myself to the new silver two-wheeled steed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What fun we had cycling around London with virtually no traffic and clear bright days. Armed with a very handy app, it was possible to find unusual routes, cruise around the centre of the city, and see it virtually empty of people and traffic. It was wonderful and eerie, exciting and unsettling. We tried several routes and soon had our favourites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Parliament Square in lockdown\/damesnet<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I remember one day when we cycled over London Bridge and\nwere heading towards the City of London. Suddenly we both stopped, staring\nacross the road in total disbelief. What was this? Impossible. Were our eyes\ndeceiving us? Reader, as you\u2019ll never guess I will put you out of your misery.\nThe unbelievable sight was a \u2018little Waitrose\u2019, open with NO QUEUE. I guess all\nthe usual City workers were working from home. We dismounted and walked into the\nshop in a carefree manner \u2013 albeit wearing masks. I bought loads of rather\nunnecessary things. It felt marvellous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cycling kept me fit. When I was around 7 or 8 I used to bike\nwith my best friend around the suburbs of west London for hours on end, and the\nfreedom I felt cycling during lockdown took me back to those carefree times.\nAnd now I know I can cycle for extended periods I bike off to destinations that\nI previously would not have considered attempting on two wheels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are limits; I don\u2019t like very steep hills and won\u2019t be\naiming for the yellow jersey, but the next step is to invest in some good\nlights so that I continue cycling as much as possible once the days shorten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if it\u2019s pouring with rain and nothing will tempt me out onto those wheels, there is a wonderful range of cycle related films to watch. My favourite has to be Belleville Rendezvous<\/a><\/em>. Its plot involves the diminutive Madame Souza preparing her orphaned grandson, Champion, to be a world-beating cyclist by personally supervising his arduous training regime. During the mountain stage of the Tour de France<\/em>, Champion is kidnapped by black-suited men from the French mafia and whisked across the Atlantic to the city of Belleville. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You will need to see the film to find out the d\u00e9nouement.\nYou are in for a real treat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t like very steep hills and won\u2019t be aiming for the yellow jersey<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":7725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,270,297,132,182,303,302,269],"tags":[76,271,19,133,194,280,272],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7720"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7720"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7733,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7720\/revisions\/7733"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}