A cheery disposition

This was last week, but I don’t think I wrote it up. If I did, and can’t remember, I blame my age.

I was on one of my regular routes, riding by the sparkling Trent, just down from Stoke Bardolph sewage farm. I saw about 4 dog walkers ahead of me, and about 7 dogs. Rather than cause mayhem as people called their dogs over and grabbed their collars, I decided to cut straight across the grass field to a tarmac road which is also a favourite route.

Some explanation is called for: the road is wide enough for a car to overtake a bicycle. It is perfectly flat smooth tarmac. It is on the Stoke Bardolph Estate, so it is not a public highway. Allotment holders drive along it to their allotments; the farmer drives along it to his farm; anglers drive along it to the car park further along; Stoke Bardolph estate Land Rovers drive along it. On any weekend day, or warm evening, one can see dozens of people bicycling along it - families, individuals, couples, occasional cycle clubs. Now and again, you see kids (accompanied by responsible adults) riding quads along it. It is part of the official route of the annual Great Nottingham Bike Ride, which sees literally hundreds of bicycles, tandems and tricycles flooding along it. And I’ve unicycled along it in daylight and in darkness, on 5 different unicycles for a year, and many of the locals no longer comment.

And at this moment, it was the sunniest, most pleasant spring day of the year so far. The trees were coming into blossom, couples were walking hand in hand, a gentle breeze was rippling the river. All was tranquility.

Got the scene? So this lady with a nasty little ankle biting dog, grabbed her dog’s collar, and just as I was about to thank her, she snapped, “You do know this road is just for walkers.”

There are many ways I could have responded. I simply said, “Thank you,” smiled and carried on.

You can’t argue with these people.

She’s just jealous because she can’t ride a unicycle :). I thought I should add this in here because I’ve got nowhere else to put it…
Yesterday I was riding along and a kid asked me, “Is that tricycle hard to ride?”

Andrew

Well, it was a good tri ! :smiley:

You suggested the dog-walking lady - or, as I prefer to think of her, the miserable sour faced old bag with an attitude problem and a face like a bulldog licking wee wee off a nettle - was jealous because I could ride a unicycle and she couldn’t.

How do you know she couldn’t? Perhaps she was passing on a friendly warning to me because she had once been reprimanded for unicycling along that very same road.

More likely, she is one of that growing majority of people who do nothing, create nothing, imagine nothing, enjoy nothing, and therefore are obliged to define their individuality and confirm their position in society by simply approving and disapproving of things that others do.

Re: A cheery disposition

Mike, I thought you were more of a linguist than that. What she really said was, “please, step down off of your unicycle and slap me. I need it.”