I recently found a nice 25km loop for my bike spin right outside my front door. That might be stating the obvious but up until a couple months ago I would have to drive 5km to the main road before starting off. The local back roads resembled something from Main Street, Bagdhad until the County Council resurfaced them in September.
One of the joys of getting outside around your local area to run, cycle, or walk is that you notice details, colours, smells or hear noises that you would completed ignore or be oblivious to when, for example, driving your daily grind to work.
This time of year is fantastic. The weather is changing, the air is particularly fresh complete with a sneaky bite and also nearly time for Underarmour clothing to keep you warm on your run or spins.
The first time out on my new bike loop, the sights are all familiar from havng previously driven it but the senses are reporting otherwise. The sensory upload of countryside nuances soon comes to a sudden denial of services as I cycle past a field that has the stench of a pig farmers welly. This is what the countryside really smells like!
Milling along, the mind starts to wander. I noticed something very peculiar which made me think, very deep thoughts. All along my route, it’s very sheltered, high ditches, bushes, brambles, nettles and stingers. All very dull, shades of brown and dark green. Suddenly, I saw something white. I continued my spin but the image set my mind off.
It was set back into the ditch, surrounded by branches with thorns and prickly bits of foliage. It looked like a white balloon! But how could this be? How could a balloon get caught that far back into a melee of sharp and spikey bits of plants? Where did this baloon come from? Somewhere: was there a 4 year old little girl crying at the loss a balloon she got a birthday party, a party she was having no fun at until she got this balloon. Yet how did this balloon get stuck, wedged that far into a ditch? Was this some kind of existential metaphor on the struggle and meaning of life? The fragility and delicacy of a monocoq air filled vessel engulfed by dynamic, organic and living barbed wire!
Balloony’s exisitence defied logic. How could a balloon grow up and defy all the odds in that environment? I stopped thinking about him and got on with the job at hand, my bike ride. Later in the week I went for the same spin, did the same loop. I kept an eye out for Balloony and slowed up as I approached his Hill of Calgary.
To my horror, a REPS farmer had been there before me. The hedges had been cut. The ditch was in prestine condition, buzzed cut to an extreme. Balloony’s struggle was over.
I still found it odd how a balloon could have came to rest that far into a ditch. Why would any bother to blow on up and place it in there, just didn’t make sense.
Driving the other day I saw something large and white, on the side of the road, not too far from my house.
Balloony?
I stopped, Looked closely. It was a humungous mushroom then size of, well, a balloon. Got home, later that day, I went out again, drove past the place of the gargantuan fungus hoping for a further inspection but once again the REPS farmer had been there before me. A splurge of white chunks and bits lay strewn across the side of the road.
There a probably numerous moral, conclusions, cliches you can make of this little story. The only one I will make is the feeling that getting out into the fresh air gives you.
The surrounding outside environment is far from the sterile, dry air, cubicle based office or work environment that drags us all down for at least 5 out of 7 days per week. Whats’ it all about? Not being allowed to be creative, not allowed to think, working to rules, policies and regulations. Granted all required for a safe productive working environment. Not required to get out for a walk, run or cycle and to let your mind runaway.
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