A new way of living

Mr Spencer has changed my life. Although only in the formative stages of our relationship, we spend time together almost every day and I wouldn't change him for the world. He is a refurbished 1960s Raleigh Trent Tourist bicycle which was built for me by Common Wheel in Glasgow.

I had various bikes when I was younger. My Dad is a cyclist and my brother and I would be taken on cycles around town, he and I falling in line behind my Dad like a family of ducks. I've had a couple of bikes as an adult including the endearing, but terribly impractical, folding bike, Penny. Penny was bought to accommodate space constraints; however, the supernova weight of her and the inordinate amount of exertion required to cycle even just down to the shops meant that it was not a long-term option.

What a delight it was then when I finally collected Mr Spencer. The unadulterated joy as I cycled away and yet I didn't even know then the immeasurable benefits that Mr Spencer would soon bring to my life.

Susan B Anthony, a leading American suffragette said, “I think [the bicycle] has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives a woman a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. The moment she takes her seat she knows she can’t get into harm unless she gets off her bicycle, and away she goes, the picture of free, untrammelled womanhood.”

Cycling embodies true liberation. I have the freedom to go where I please, when I please. No more waiting around at the bus stop, perpetually at the whim of the private bus company. No more shuffling onto the bus in the morning with the army of drones as they fill their heads with the trash that The Metro is espousing that day. No more playing the moribund bystander in rush hour traffic jam. No more paying for increasingly expensive petrol and rip-off bus fares. Even when the dreich Scottish weather is at its worst, when icy sheets of rain lash down on my face and I'm soaked to the skin, it's still better than getting the bus. And it's better because I have autonomy. 

Mr Spencer outside Rua Reigh Lighthouse, near Gairloch

Cycling is not solely about practical transportation from A to B. It gives me space and time to think. It gives me the opportunity to explore, to go places I would never otherwise have gone, and discover new things, whether that's a forgotten derelict building, or a second-hand book shop hidden down a lane.

When riding a good bike, the beautiful mechanics mean the smooth movement of the rotating pedals feels like you're majestically gliding to your destination. And there is no other feeling in the world that compares to freewheeling down a hill on a warm, sunny day.

Being a cyclist means being part of a community. Exchanging a nod with a fellow cyclist passing by evokes an air of civility from a time gone by. That doffing of the cap is not a phenomenon that can be experienced when boarding a bus or while driving a car. And with that single nod of acknowledgement, it becomes clear that you are now part of something.

Desperately seeking socks

They are available in many different shops, in all sorts of different colours and styles, so you would imagine that it would not be such a protracted chore to buy some new socks. Typically, when I have something specific in mind, the very thing I seek eludes me like a two-bit tease. Two pairs of socks; one plain red and one plain mustard. This was what I originally had in mind. This was, of course, before my two loyal pairs of brogues went on strike. Before every Tom, Dick, and Jenny had a pair of brogues which would add the finishing touches to their faddish wardrobe of the minute.

My search led me to online shops, high street stores (when I could summon the gumption), Ebay, even supermarkets and yet each search proved fruitless and my feet remained unhappy in shabby socks of yore. My innocent searching on Ebay led me to the not-so-hidden world of the foot fetishist. The next time pay day seems a bit far away, I'll know that I can sell off a couple of pairs of grubby socks to fund that week's shop down at Lidl. £8 for one tatty pair of (formerly white) sports socks with 6 days of bidding to go. And that's not even to mention the market for used tights. 

Cosy socks

  One day, I was feeling confident, yet evidently confused, as I finally left a shop with not one, but three pairs of socks. Inside the shop, I my abulia had me by the scruff of my neck for a good 25 minutes as I weighed the pros and cons of each different pair of socks available in the three for £6 offer. 

 

Back at the office, in the cold light of reality, the socks were revealed to be far from copacetic. As the haze of denial slowly lifted, I realised that I had bought a collection of entirely frumpy foot coverings that also strayed into the realms of novelty. My 'favourite' pair which in the shop looked like they had a very jolly snowflake pattern turned out to have twee lovehearts on them in between a design which only slightly resembled a snowflake. The second pair were red with small dalmatians on them, the like of which I had not seen since my time in the school orchestra. The third pair, which even in the shop I couldn't fool myself that I was really that keen on, were grey with an oranges and lemons pattern and would definitely be usually spotted on a Christian woman  wearing a mid-calf length skirt and a pair of sandals. Suffice to say I returned them later that afternoon.

But as one doors closes, another one opens. When I returned the ill-judged triumvirate of frumpety foot wear, I happened to pop into another shop, merely on the off-chance of finding a replacement. And what should I find beaming like a beacon of light on a dark and stormy night? A pack of five socks in a variety of colours including the holy grail mustard. Of course, it typically transpires that, when put to work, these socks are short, not quite as short as the very stupid trainer sock but heading in that direction.

And so the search goes on which at least gives me a small project in between anything interesting and worthwhile I might want to do. It's the little things that count, don't you agree?