On yer bike
Another weekend, another distinct absence of dining out experiences… It’s funny, it’s not a conscious decision at all – sometimes I do feel like we should eat out less to try and save money but 2019 has just been a case of ‘different distractions’ meaning that we just haven’t found ourselves in the kind of places to do so.
That said, we’ve got a weekend planned soon to go to London to visit a museum so I’m sure we’ll managed to factor in some reviews and recommendations on the back of that. Until then, you’ll just have to follow the rest of our highly-self-catered existence.
This evening I did something I haven’t done for nearly 5 months: I rode my bike. The 5 months isn’t coincidence. It was the beginning of October when I ripped 4 muscles in my left thigh (adductor muscles, if you’re interested) and also partially severed the tendon from my hip. All from trying, badly I might add, to kick a football. I was advised to rest completely for 3 months and then start light, non-rotational exercise for the next 3. It’s still probably 3-5 months before I can play football again. It’s quite literally a pain in the *thigh*.
Riding the bike is quite a key point of recovery for me. My bike has always been, literally and metaphorically, my binding link to the great outdoors. I used to cycle everywhere and feel more at home flying through the countryside with the wind in my hair (below my helmet of course, as a point of principle) than I do nearly anywhere else. My physiotherapist actually said I was in a position to start riding again a few weeks ago but I never found (read ‘made’, it’s always just a case of priorities) the chance.
The kick start to start cycling so urgently on this Tuesday evening is that the main road I drive on everyday is closed for roadworks for about 2 weeks with only a fairly painful diversion available instead. Away from the peak traffic of commuting that diversion would be a pain, but at 8:30 in the morning I fear I’d get to work quicker by walking. So with my wife on the rota to put Piglet to bed this evening, and on her suggestion, I headed out tonight just to test it out before committing to a return journey. It was fairly easy to remember how to do it. Turns out it’s literally like riding a bike!
I’m actually looking forward to starting to cycle regularly again. You might have to remind me that I said that on the days that it’s freezing with horizontal rain coming in from all sides but I need the exercise for body and mind. I’m actually pleasantly surprised that I haven’t put on more weight in the last 5 months considering my enforced sedentary, but it’s as much the fitness of the mind as the body that’s the problem. I need some level of exercise just to balance my mood/appetite/drive and all round level humanness.
On the other end of the spectrum, Piglet seems to have been getting lots of exercise recently but has been even more cranky than me. This morning we had a FULL ON melt-down over the fact that, despite having been given the piece of toast he asked for AND a hot-cross-bun, he saw mummy eating cereal and decided the world could not go on until he had some too. A full 5 minutes of screaming and crying; excessive even for his toddler mentality.
He’s also been sleeping fairly badly, at least compared to the last couple of months. We’re now fully nappy-free and largely successfully but there have been a couple of unplanned middle-of-the-night-baths recently and a slight pick-up in the number of accidents at nursery. Only over the last 5-6 days. We think that my wife might have been accidentally been given soya sauce in a stir fry that was assured to be soya-free. We still don’t know for certain. But it’s interesting that this would have been just before the behaviour changed slightly. We’ve always felt that soya gives Piglet a much more ‘manic’ reaction that milk does. Who knows…
Anywho… last weekend saw some quality ‘daddy and Piglet time’. It was my turn to take him swimming on Saturday morning and it was a good session. It’s surprising how difficult it is to have a good anything when you have to be changed into swimming costumes, showered and ready to swim somewhere that’s a 20 minute drive from our house at 8 in the morning! I find it alarming how confident my son is in the water. He can’t ‘swim’ as such, but he loves propelling himself around and jumping in off the edge. There’s a sort of exhilaration and terror that you couldn’t lose concentration for more than a few seconds without panicking about the consequences.
After swimming we went for a bit of a trip down memory lane for me, driving a probably unnecessarily long way back to Oxford for a walk in a wood. Specifically: Shotover Country Park in the hills just east of Oxford’s ring road. I used to go here quite a lot with my dad and sister as a teenager and it holds a lot of happy, if fairly vague, memories. Having planned to go for a walk somewhere and with yet another winter picnic; I had a burning urge to go back here to do it.
On arriving, I realised I might have made a bit of a mistake. I’d forgotten that it’s not the kind of place that has toilets and the weather was getting greyer and greyer. But by this point it was a bit late to change plans. We decked ourselves out in layers of thermals and fleeces and headed out with a couple of rucksacks and “outside bear” into the depths of the wood. Eventually, stumbling unnecessarily far down into the off-piste ravine in the middle of the wood, we found a long fallen log and set up base for our lunch.
One amusing highlight was persuading Piglet that if needed a wee it was probably going to be an ‘outside wee’. A concept that clearly blew his little mind. He was very hesitant at first but eventually took to it like a duck takes to, well, um, a little pool of piss? Lovely!
I’ll be honest, there were a few moments where my heart rate might have quickened slightly. I’ve just started playing a cooperative horror craft and survival computer game called The Forest with my best friend. I usually stay away from horror type stuff – I scare pretty easily! But I love cooperative gameplay and the concept of just finding yourself on this (supposedly) deserted island where you have to survive based on just your surroundings after your plane crash lands is too exciting. Being in the wood felt disturbingly like the game at times. I feel it was a level of personal success that I didn’t scream out loud when a group of school kids suddenly ran past us out of nowhere.
We managed to get him to cover a decent distance of walking by persuading him to help us look out for the navigation posts of the shortest guided walk in the wood. He was repeatedly excited to spot the red triangles and advise us (mostly correctly) which way to go next. It was only right at the very end of the walk that he started to tire and want carrying. We finished the walk by trying to drink hot chocolate and biscuits while facing into a hurricane headwind before, very quickly, running back to the car as the heavens opened.
Sunday morning I took Piglet out of the house for a bit to give my wife some space to get on with some work. We’re still in the progression towards dropping the middle of the day nap. That basically means that he doesn’t get a nap but putting him in a moving vehicle needs a high degree of tactical navigation if you don’t want to have your bedtime unexpectedly delayed by 3 hours by an impromptu dozing off… Considering that – I took the gamble that I could drive him to Swinley forest (a Crown Estate woodland with Go-Ape and mountain bike facilities). Swinley forest is my go-to for getting out on my bike. They have a range of specially designed single-track with a medium and hard level of difficulty. It’s the kind of place I’d go every weekend if I had the time, freedom and fitness. However, it also has a great kid’s park and convenient facilities for nearby toilets etc… It also has a cracking little science exhibition centre that Piglet is just about old enough to start getting stuff out of.
We packed up a car with Piglet’s balance bike, a change of clothes, a plethora of snacks (including that morning’s oat flour pancakes – surprisingly good!) and more jumpers and coats than I could count. As mentioned, driving on my own with Piglet (i.e. with no one in the back with him to prompt him awake) was a sleep-risk. So I specially made a playlist of songs I thought he would like and we set out on the open road. The playlist worked a treat with Piglet beaming from ear to ear as he recognised song after song that he liked; often able to name the song after just a few bars (can’t think where he gets that from…)! I have to admit though, watching him in the rear view mirror singing along to Shallow (the main song from Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper’s ‘A Star Is Born’) brought a tear to my eye. To my astonishment he seemed to know every word and belted out the middle-8 like he was on stage to thousands of people! I was also very proud to see him singing along to the 80’s classic, ‘When will you (make my telephone ring)’ by Deacon Blue. Proud daddy.
On arriving at Swinley, Piglet refused to put on his bicycle helmet, I think on a fear that it would be too tight around his neck. He has a real thing about zips and buckles going too close to his neck – virtually every time you do up his coat he says “not up to my neck, daddy”. I don’t know where it comes from – we’ve never caught him in a zip or anything like that as far as I’m aware. The helmet is probably overkill for the glorified walking that he effectively does on his balance bike, but I want him to know that bicycles = helmets and so it makes sense to make that association from the start.
As a result, we left the bike in the car and went to the park. The weather was a bit miserable with a constant threat of rain in the air and a bit of a wind. It did mean, however, that the park was nearly empty and Piglet had free reign of all the equipment to choose from. As such, he worked his way through every part of the park including a gallant effort on the 7-years-plus fort in the most advanced playground section. He was in his element running from structure to structure, even if it did take him slipping over twice to realise that I’d put his winter boots on the wrong feet. In my defence they’re surprisingly ’rounded’ at the toe end! #Daddyfail
My biggest failing on Sunday was assuming that we’d be able to play for only an hour and head back home for lunch. Piglet was having so much fun that what I thought was heading back to the car to go home ended up being, despite protracted negotiation, just an excuse to go and get the bike out of the car and a chance to walk it around the car park (still no helmet, you see). Eventually I managed to persuade Piglet that he might be interested in going home, seeing his mummy, and/or having his lunch. I’m not sure what clinched it in the end.
Ahoy me hearty 
It’s fine daddy, I can man this ship alone 
Piglet doing his best impression of Daniel Craig as James Bond in Spectre – he straightened his tie just after this photo was taken
I do love my 1-on-1 time with Piglet. His relationship with me is quite different when we’re on our own to when it’s the three of us. He’ll often miss his mummy when it’s just us two but he also revels in the buddy aspect of being out with his dad. He also tends to be much more affectionate to me back at home after episodes like this.
The weekend disappeared pretty quickly and before we knew it we’re both back to work (me and mummy, I mean, Piglet’s too busy bossing the key workers around at his nursery to have time to ‘work’). Back into the working week and everything feels a bit tough at the moment. A combination of the lack of sleep, endless housework and work commitments mean we seem to be paddling ferociously just to stay afloat. I think we probably need something in the diary to look forward to – the last few weekends have just ended up being last minute affairs because we don’t seem to be able to look further than that. I guess Piglet’s birthday is one of the next big things in the calendar, but I’d also like to plan in some other things. Who knows, it might even give me an excuse to review some eating establishments. One can only hope!