Drop, Deflate, Invert and Lower! (On reaching sixty and the overuse of parentheses)

Tags

Aerlingus, Alentejo. sixty, deflate, drop, Flying with a bicycle, handlebars, invert, paranthesis, pedals, Portugal, saddle, VW camper

(Going abroad with a bicycle the easy way)

Parenthesis:

• ‘ A word or phrase as an explanation or afterthought added into a passage which is grammatically complete without it (usually marked off by brackets, dashes or commas.)’
• A woman who on reaching sixty, finds herself adding many afterthoughts and unnecessary explanations (parentheses is the plural) to her writings.

You would be excused for thinking that the title for this post was to do with a new yoga regime for the older woman.

Or that my absence from this blog (it must be at least three months since my last post) is due to the fact that I have been away on a such named boot camp devised for the middle aged.

As an aside it has occurred to me that, while NOT writing, I have become sixty!

(A note to oneself: Keep writing… it prevents you getting OLD!)

And though I do feel some days that I have been inverted (Silly me to imagine things would slow down when I reached the above age) and even somewhat deflated, (It’s getting harder to find time to write) the above title is only to do with my fast approaching holiday in Portugal (Where I plan to rent a VW camper with bike rack and explore the Alentejo region) and the obvious question….

Do I bring the yellow bicycle with me or rent a bicycle when I arrive?

It might seem a simple enough affair to throw a bicycle into the nether regions of a plane but its more tedious than you would think (or maybe on reaching sixty things just appear more tedious)

You see for the passage of a bicycle, airlines request that you;

• Deflate both tyres.
• Invert both pedals
• Drop the handle bars and turn them sideways
• Lower the saddle.

These procedures are simple to accomplish with a good spanner, pump and wrench but the tediousness comes with the redoing of the undone.

Flying the yellow bicycle to France all those years ago when I was a young and energetic fifty year old (as opposed to the ease of cycling it fully intact onto a ferry and off the other side last September as I approached sixty) seems a long time ago.

Yet the recollection of sheltering from the downpour under a walkway outside the main doors of Bordeaux airport as I struggled to unwrap a large sodden cardboard box in which my bicycle had travelled, is still vibrant.

As the rain pelted down and the taxi men sat warm and smug in their cars watching the show, I wondered if it had been a wise idea after all.

I had packed it into a large cardboard box, courtesy of my local bike shop (The other option of using one of those fancy bicycle bags I dispensed with as unpractical. I didn’t intend hauling any unnecessary equipment on my journey). The idea that I would just tear up and throw away the cardboard seemed the best option (I had a month of cycling to consider how I would pack it for my return journey)

It turned out to be easy to fill up the various bins outside the airport with the sodden stuff. Whether it was legal or not was another question but nobody stopped me and as I cycled across France, I quickly learnt that if you are on a bicycle you can get away with anything.

At this stage, strip by strip the yellow bicycle began to reveled its shiny self and just as I had run out of bins, it stood before me, a sorry sight, its metaphorical head hanging as though in shame at being caught at its most vulnerable.

I got to work, my audience twisting their heads to get a better view.

Inflating tyres with a small hand pump is a lot less fun then deflating them but I pretended that I was having the time of my life.

Eventually that task was complete and I had less trouble attending to the inverted pedals and raising the saddle.

It was when I tried to tackle the final chore that I had to admit defeat.

No matter how well I held the handlebars upright and how tight I tightened the screws they just stubbornly dropped back down again.

Meanwhile the taxi men grew either bored or received a passenger because one by one they roared off enveloping me in a wreath of petrol fumes and leaving me with a bicycle that looked like a cross between an Omafiets , a hybrid and a racer.

However there was a happy ending to this story.

On finding a nearby bicycle shop a handsome young man (without any look of disdain) not only righted and tightened the handles to the correct height but also oiled the chain and finished inflating the tyres and, refusing to take any payment, handed me back my bike and wished me ‘Bon voyage’

Needless to say (as in all good films) I had only left the shop when the rain stopped and the sun came out.

With a light heart, I turned the yellow bicycle towards the west and headed into the setting sun.

My destination was Arcachon where I dipped the tyre of the yellow bicycle into the Atlantic before turning eastward and cycling across France to the Mediterranean.

In hindsight it hadn’t been too tedious and as I write this piece this piece this morning I know what I will do

I will bring the yellow bicycle to the dutch bicycle shop (the only bicycle shop where the employees don’t hide under the table when they see us coming) and get a few lessons on the raising of handlebars.

Then I will ring Aerlingus and add the yellow bicycle to my flight.

The end

(Arriving at the Mediterranean successfully with handlebars still aloft)

 

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Why do you shout so loud Bear Gryllis?(Random and inane thoughts from a Portuguese wedding)

Tags

families, family, Portugal, weddings

We are back from the wedding.

Well most of us are.

The two main components, the bride and groom, are still swanning around Paris.

Those of us who are home, continue to discuss the wedding on a daily basis.

Posts appear on facebook. Phone calls are received. Fuzzy drunken photo’s poured over.

‘Ha ha just look at you’

‘Wow! she looks beautiful’

‘That can’t be me’ (Me)

‘I cried my eyes out it was so lovely’ (my fifteen year old niece)

But Lets start at the first photo’s.

The ones taken in Tavira castle.

Where the ceremony is about to begin.

A cream vintage Mercedes pull’s up at the castle gates. The driver helps the bride out. I find this ironic as she is young and agile and well able to leap out by herself despite her layered organza wedding dress and lace veil.

Really its me(I am after all the mother of the bride) that needs the help, but as no one pays any attention to me, I sit a bit longer in the low slung beautiful leather seat .

I wish I could sit in it forever.

I wish I owned it for it’s a thing of beauty.

My hat is askew from the breezy spin up the winding cobbled streets to the castle.

Past the old doors of peeling paint half hidden by trailing bougainvillea.

Past the old men sitting wobbling on plastic chairs whose four legs cannot find an even patch on the cobbles.

Past the tourists sitting outside the café’s drinking ‘meia de leite’ and eating freshly made ‘pasteis de nata’.

Eventually when no one comes to the rescue me,  I haul myself, straighten my hat and tug at my dress. Is it my imagination or has it got tighter? Whether it has or it hasn’t, I feel and probably look like a mild but younger version of Mrs Bucket.

I go over to stand beside my daughter. The bridesmaids, looking exquisite in mint green are fussing around her straightening her veil.

Its hot , but we have become acclimatized to the heat by practising life without the air con.

Even though the Villa is very luxurious with air conditioning in every corner we are under strict orders of the bride not to turn it on.

(The villa also has a lift which at first I laughed at but in the heat began to use when no one was looking).

We cook without it in a hot kitchen.

Sleep without it under a duvet.

Walk into town on the hottest of days.

And it worked.

(Though I did draw a line at sitting in a warm sitting room with outside temperatures of thirty six degree’s threading ‘order of service booklets’ together.

It was either straight, clean and in the correct order with air con

OR

Crumpled, sweat stained and in the wrong sequence without.

I won and the order of service were pristine).

Yes, thanks to our ‘heat training’ I find the day pleasantly warm with a tropical breeze coming in from the sea.

My son in law comes running out through the gate.

His sons, the two ring bearers, aged six and just four refuse to carry up the rings.

I become flustered in a granny like manner.

I want every thing to run smoothly.

I want this to be my daughters perfect day.

I want no mishaps. No botching of chores no matter how young the chore doer’s are.

BUT….

‘Don’t worry’ my daughters voice is calm and serene ‘If they don’t want to carry them they don’t have to, it’s OK’.

She pats her brother in law on the arm.

I feel ashamed.

I was about to march up and shout ‘JUST DO IT’ at them even though I’m not in the slightest bit stressed.

The sweet strains of Tabhair dom do lamh. (played by my brother Gregory on the flute) float high above the castle and the bridesmaids are off.

They walk gracefully up the gravel path like water nymphs.

The sun striking off their silken hair.

Even the scrunching of their feet sounds delicate.

My daughter smiles at me.

Her eyes say ‘relax Mom’ and I try to, but only after a quick struggle about which side I should be on and who’s holding who’s arm.

My memories of walking my daughter up the garden path are dreamlike.

The tree’s casting dappled splashes of mauve shadows across the path.

A scene that must look like a Monet painting to any passer-by who stop’s to watch.

I remember the smiling faces of family and friends.

I remember my younger daughters voice singing ‘Raglan Road’.

‘On Raglan road of an autumn day

I saw her first and knew

That her dark hair would weave a snare

that I might one day rue.’

I don’t think the Bride or Groom will ever rue this wonderful day.

I feel my daughter squeezing my arm.

I know I have tears in my eyes as we weave our way through the tree lined path to the waiting groom.

We are high above the town, away from the noise of the traffic, the only sound is the hushed whispers of the guests and a voice singing sweet and high.

The bride’s dress is picking up the sunlight turning it into gossamer.

Her skin is ethereal.

Her dark hair, glimpsed at through her veil, is flowing over her shoulders in shining waves.

She looks so beautiful.

A fairy princess.

The old stone steps of the castle, the crumbling ramparts, the blue sky above, the rose pedals strewn along the path below, the various flowers of Portugal, all lend to this fairy tale wedding.

And how peaceful and illusionary it is.

An inane thought passes through my head.

Why does Bear Gryllis insist on shouting?.

Why is he is so noisy and frantic,

I don’t own a TV. Nor do I babysit much. But when I do and my grandchildren are in bed I am fascinated by this ‘shouting’ man as he tackles various means of survival and helps himself to bits and pieces of tree’s and things that grow on tree’s or live in tree’s.

When I first used to watch him I kept the sound off for fear his loudness would waken the children but as time wore on I left it off as he is funnier when you can only see him.

He is always in such a sweat and a tangle.

I was recently reading a piece about the Tukano peoples of the upper rio negro.

a https://www.culturalsurvival.org/ourpublications/csq/article/endangered-ideologies-tukano-fishing-taboos.

Please Bear Gryllis take a leaf out of their book.

Because, well, any place of such natural beauty does not need noise like that.

I push the absurd thoughts of Bear Gryllis out of my mind.

We continue to move gracefully and quietly through the tree’s (Though when I looked later at the video of us walking up the path I thought I walked not very gracefully but more like a farmer. I blame that on the high shoes.)

The ceremony is in both English and Portuguese,

I prefer the Portuguese version with it’s soft sshhhhing sounds.

My eldest Grandson (the one who is old enough to be depended upon) reads a long poem.

I like you because……

He reads so well, remembering to pause and look up and not run away with the word’s. We give him a round of applause when he finishes.

The grooms best friend and best man reads a Poem. First in Portuguese then in English.

Had I the Heavens’ embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

of night and light and the half light,

I would spread these Cloths under your feet;

But I, being poor, have only my dreams,

I have spread these dreams under your feet

Thread softly because you thread on my dreams.

This time I prefer the English as this is one of my favourite Yeats’s poems.

The ceremony is given by a Man called Jonas,

He first has to translate the legal ceremony.

I am glad to hear my Daughter has no impediments.

The civil ceremony is beautiful and thought provoking.

Jonas has obviously formed a connection with the the bride and groom and gives a compassionate and very wise talk.

I see all the older married couples leaning forward and pricking up their ears.

I see middle aged wives digging their heat snoozing husbands in the ribs.

Even the younger ones are paying attention.

At last the ceremony is finished and the newly married couple pass through the well wishers who throw petals .

Down the path they run and out through the castle gates and back into the real world.

I must remember to share my Bear Gryllis thought’s with someone later.

My shoes scrunch on the gravel as I follow the merry makers…..

I wish I could have brought my yellow bicycle, she could have danced with this handsome chap.