Hills, the Buggering Hills!

After Dave called me voluminous the other day (honest, it wasn't an insult, just a witty response to avoid giving an emotion felt answer to one of my questions) I decided I had better do something about my extra saddlebags. It takes me ten minutes to drive to work so I decided on an experiment for my day off.

I would cycle...

However I forgot about the fact that Perth is built on hills. I came face to face with the first mountain whose summit I couldn't see as it was above the cloud line (Only joking, there are no clouds in Perth!). I changed gears on my rusty bike that Daves dad generously rescued out of a tip for me, and huffed and peddled furiously. Half way up the 'hill' I knew I had made a mistake and when I got to the top the look on the newsagents face confirmed it.

I put a bottle of water on the counter and he asked me what he could for me.

'oh, just some oxygen and this water will be enough' I replied

He looked away from my face for the first time and spied the bottle, 'sorry' he said, shuddering, obviously trying to shake the image of me from his mind 'I didn't see that there in front of me. ...Now take it easy out there. Don't cycle too hard or far. Take care'

It was official. Not only was I battling with palpitations and waves of nausea interspersed with waves of faintness, I looked a right mess with it! When I checked out my reflection in amongst the scratchies adverts in the window I got a shock. My face was bulbous and a chameleon of colours from 'fat man puce' to 'vomit awaiting yellow'.

So I sat for a full two minutes sipping my water and willing my legs to not buckle under the weight of my newly acquired lard arse. Pretty soon my heart rate dropped back into the 'almost having a heart attack' bracket from the 'very soon you'll be dead' bracket. So I swung my legs over the saddle once more and attempted to cross three lanes of traffic (the traffic here is Calcutta like. Everyone overtakes on the ouside lane, speeds and never lets old ladies cross the road with their dumped/rescued bicycles).

The rest of the ride to work was uneventful. Many more hills were traversed but none so big as that first. So as the hospital came into view my first thought was 'Bugger, this is totally do-able, now I'll have no excuse. Damn'. It took me forty minutes to ride which isn't that bad for an unfit 'al quine' on her first attempt.

I 'rewarded' myself by cycling back home along the river. It is a much more pleasant ride but a lot more twisty and longer. It was a beautiful day and everyone had their boats and kayaks in the water (apparently it was a bank holiday to celebrate Queenies birthday. This is how laid back things are here in WA. The Queens birthday is sometime in (?) June/July but we only get our act together to celebrate it in September!). Every pub was full and every free barbeque (which is in fact another stroke of genius from the local council!) was taken. Kids were playing and swimming in the river amongst the Ibis' and ducks and probably jelly fish too (shudder). The lorikeets and galahs were out in force too making it near on impossible to hold a quiet conversation in amongst the squawking.

By the time I got home I felt invincible so I decided to grab my bikini and go wrestle the sharks at the beach. There was an alleged almost shark attack on Saturday at a beach in Perth. The surfer punched the toothy one on the nose and it swam away without it's rubber clad surfer burger.

Luckily, however, Dave was home early from work (nope he doesn't get bank holidays off either!) and convinced me that it was a silly idea. Not because of the sharks mind, but because the Indian Ocean is still pretty nippy in September.

He twisted my rubber arm and convinced me to go to the pub instead!!