Weather Warning

The Met Office has issued warnings again this week for heavy rain and high winds. It’s been freezing or foul every free day I’ve had since Christmas, and I’m starting to get a very itchy throttle hand.

The cold has induced further battery issues, so now my baby is sipping from a trickle charger while I try to decipher what the various blinking lights mean and whether I need to pack my jump-starter power-pack just in case. (Damn, I love technology. These things are great ideas). I watch the calendar and count off the days since my last ride and try to reassure myself  that it’ll  be okay and I’ll be able to ride the next time my schedule and halfway decent weather coincide.

I miss the feeling of riding, the sense of that I’m only responsible for my own ride; nothing more.

It’s an unfettered freedom that an open road and a full tank invoke in me. It’s a world full of possibility and potential to discover some new gem (a road, a pub, whatever) just around the next corner. 

It’s a sense sadly lacking in a day-to-day of deadlines and hierarchies and squeezing meetings into hectic diaries, and having the facts and patience to answer all questions (which mostly, you’ve answered before).

Granted, this wonderful feeling of freedom is somewhat diminished by layers upon layers of Gore-tex and thermals and wool. It’s hard to move when you’re bundled up like the Michelin man, and in the temperatures we’ve been having, I would have to be.

So I nibble on my fingernails and obsessively check the forecast and daydream about mountain passes with sinuous curves and long days spent in the saddle.