“How come you don’t get bored doing the same route every day”, I get asked.
Though I think the question was rhetorical, it resurfaces as my bike casts its shadow on the trail near a sea of giant pink Orchid-like flowers, vivid yellow islands of soft feathery fluorescences (try saying that after a night on the town) high climbing plants with distinctive large heart-shaped leaves, topped by white trumpet-shaped flowers and low-lying clumps of vibrant yellow daisy like flowers.
How can this living breathing space EVER become boring? This yearly cycle of ever changing colours, stems and branches reaching for the moving sky, with whiskers and tiny wings that twitch and hum within their protection of green and backed by the ever changing song of river, rain, wind and wild things.
Down river is an area where diggers have recently created ugly mounds of earth in an (as yet untested) attempt to create better flood defences. To my amazement, the very act of breaking the ground has allowed an exotic garden of beautiful annuals to plant themselves behind the metal fencing. Wild and garden flowers of every variety are shouting out a final fanfare of colour, tall sunflowers seemingly keeping vigil over their charges.
Fortuitously, a friend joins me at my cafe table, where she helps to name the flowers that I described earlier as Himalayan Balsalm, Goldenrod, Hedge Bindweed and Ragwort. I’m loving the ‘cuteness’ and strange appropriateness of their names, as well as feeling rather chuffed with time well spent.
At this time of year, something rather special happens. Almost as an apology for the fading flowers in our gardens, the pathway offers up an abundance of blackberries. Each year, you’ll find the enthusiastic pickers, collecting the swollen black fruit ready to make home made jams & crumbles. And for as long as I’ve been cycling this trail, I find it odd that my head seems to be forcing me to make a decision. “Either you cycle OR you pick fruit. Choose now, because there’s not enough time OR energy for both of them”. And I’m in the extraordinary situation of continuing my journey feeling simultaneously sad and exhilarated.
This year, a lovely neighbour waited for me to come home one day and, knowing that I thrive on good company and conversation, helped me to break the ‘cycle’. That day, I discovered the wonderful group sport that is picking fruit! Days later, after a couple of us fell too far behind other cyclists on a group ride, my legs said “Enough now” as we passed a sea of unpicked fruit. How I didn’t explode after 20 minutes of ceaseless ‘sampling’, I will never know.
In the spirit of newfound wisdom, the bike is steered toward a rarely frequented coffee stop where there are huge wooden tables, great for resting laptops and where they serve fresh orange juice.
Lesson for the day: ‘Happiness sometimes lies in breaking out of a rut’.
