Let me explain...

Mamma Po's request to write about my bicycling couldn't have come at a better time.

You see you nearly got a post about how I am coming off my anti-depressants and am swinging between extreme anxiety and normalcy, all a bit dull really, not that I can guarantee that this will be any the more interesting.

You see I didn't learn to ride a bike as I child; I never cycled down the street yelling 'look no hands' (although metaphorically speaking I may have done that a few times in life); I never really got the 'it's as easy as riding a bike thing'.

10 years ago I bought a mountain bike and paid a man to come out and teach me to ride it. He did, within an hour I could, somewhat shakily, ride a bike. My then boyfriend spent many an evening running alongside ready to catch me - ah that must have been love. You see the thing about learning to ride a bike as an adult is that you are fully aware of how much it will hurt if you fall off.

For the next few years we did go on the odd bike ride, but we always put the bikes on the car to get somewhere to ride, say Richmond park for example, we would ride a fair bit when we got there, so much that at a dinner party on an evening following a bike ride my bottom hurt so much I had to have a beanbag on my chair before I could sit down.

But, I never really felt I could confidently say that I can ride a bike. To me riding a bike is when you can hop on it to pop to the shops and return with your shopping merrily swinging off the handle bars.

For the last six years my bike lolled about in shed, simply serving to get in the way of the lawn mower, and with each year that past my confidence in riding shrank to pygmy proportions.

This year, I'm not sure why, but I suspect it has to do with an image of freedom, I once again decided I really, really wanted to be able to ride a bike. I want to be able to cycle to yoga, ride to the park with my daughter on the back, I just want to ride with the wind in my hair and feel free.

My mountain bike didn't fit the picture and with that aid of the City of London, a sale in the bike shop and the sale of my bike on eBay I bought the beautiful Pashley you saw on the previous post. This bike is much more me.

But, the first time I rode it I fell off. I already knew I couldn't take my hand off to signal and that I couldn't just hop and go wherever I wanted but this just confirmed to me that I couldn't ride a bike. The graze on my knee to took four week to heel but my pride and my confidence seemed permanently dented.

Until yesterday.

I tried to ride to my lesson but the knot in my tummy made me zig-zag too much.

The nice man, moved things about to make my bike truly mine. He built my confidence little by little until I could slalom around objects, cycle in ever decreasing circles...

The thing I'm most proud of - I can now release my white knuckle grip from the handle bars and signal where I want to go.

At last I feel like I can ride a bike.

I might even cycle to yoga tomorrow.

(I promise I will practise more before I take Isobel on the back, apparently I need to practise with potatoes first!)

It's just a question of confidence

I've just realised that Isobel and I are both going through the same mini crisis at the moment - and it's all about confidence (albeit in the face of grave physical danger).

As I wobble on my bike, she wobbles on her feet. Just as I can get from A to B on a bike but as yet choose not to go too far, she can easily take 8 steps yet chooses not to take more. Just as I have a DD to help me...

She has me!

Actually it's more true for Isobel, she generally chooses to only walk in my presence, not at nursery and not for her PD. She will do it in front of them and even let her fairy godfather get in on the coaching act at the weekend, but just as long as I was there.

As confidence is one of the things I really want my daughter to have, something I struggle with, I guess I have to get on my bike and ride.

My, that thought makes a mighty fine pair of stabilisers.

I want to ride my bicycle...

This morning I was to be found in a playing field with a rather fit, and quite nicely tall Danish Dude. And I returned home with a slightly sore bottom.

Ok so the title kind of gives it away, it wasn't the DD I was straddling, I was learning to ride a bike.

Ten years ago I had a lesson but now it's serious; I must learn to ride a bike before Isobel does!

I mean since that lesson ten years ago, I can ride a bike; if by ride you mean propel a bicycle from A to B without falling off. But, if by 'ride' you mean go in a straight line, with minimal wobbling and be confident enough to lift hand and look over shoulder (as is necessary to turn a corner), well that is another matter.

( I wasn't even sure about the ability not to fall off after 4 years of bottom not touching saddle)

I wobble, I weave, I grip the handle bars so tightly I think my knuckles will burst out of my skin.

I have never ridden on a road (lots of lovely cycle paths in the borough of Richmond) and to fulfill the image in my head of me in a summer frock cycling to yoga or taking babe and picnic on the back, well I'm a long way off. Even after that 2 hour lesson kindly paid for by the City of London.

I have to practice, which is cool, but hard to do when you can't take babe, and if can't practice can't get confident enough to take babe...

I have two weeks before the next lesson and the DD wants to be able to take me out on a proper ride!