Cycling proficiency

I have ridden to work a few times in the last couple of weeks but still didn't really feel like a proper cyclist. Wednesday, however, saw me earning my cycling commuter stripes.

This Wednesday, feeling a bit cocky after almost halving the time it takes me to get to work in a couple of weeks, I pushed my bike out of the underground car park at work and swung my leg over the bike like a pro. Unfortunately, I'm not a pro, and I continued the sideways momentum to the floor and managed to graze both knees causing one knee (my bad one, typically) to swell horribly, graze my palm, pull my trapezius and bruise my arse. All this from toppling off a stationary bike. It was not one of my prouder moments.

I'm not really sure how I managed to cause such damage from a minor topple, but I have analysed the black-box of my memory and I think I have established how I probably made things worse. Below follows my thought process during the split-second event:

Me: "Am cyclist; see me gracefully champion the mounting of a bike."

Swings leg over bike, and begins to lose balance.

Me: "Ah. I did not foresee this. Do I recall seeing anyone else about? No. Good. Gosh, the hard-looking concrete ground appears to be meeting me at haste."

Puts hand out to avoid meeting ground with face. Grazes palm and one knee and bounces bottom off ground (which turns out not to be as padded as once thought).

Me: "Ah. That somewhat stings. Oh. This is a new bike!"

Attempts to throw self under the bike to break the bike's fall. Fails miserably, but manages to entangle other leg in the bike resulting in a horrible impact to knee, which immediately registers its indignation at being used as cannon fodder by swelling impressively.

Me: "I don't want to commute anymore."

Crawl pathetically away from bike like a drunk raccoon. Stand bike up and tentatively attempt to remount bike. Survives this technical manoeuvre and slowly rides away, leaving my pride and bits of skin in tatters.

On arriving home, I instantly demanded sympathy from Husband, who was sensible enough not to mock me at this point. I then spent the evening wondering if I'd chipped my patella as I couldn't bend my knee (turns out it isn't chipped, I'm just a wuss).
I still went to dog club that night, but Husband drove. Tangent seemed to be overly fond of banging into my knees during the session, leaving me wondering if he hadn't quite forgot the time when I accidentally poked him in the eye with my toe.

Taken after getting home from fall

Taken three days after what has become known

as 'the incident'

 This hasn't put me off riding to work, but I sure have a lot more respect for skilled cyclists. And concrete floors, definitely more respect for concrete floors.

My daily nemesis

It takes me about 45 minutes to walk to work, and about 35 of those minutes is spent trudging up Feeder Road. This unassuming path has become a daily torture to me that I've decided I simply must address. Every step I take on Feeder Road is a step closer to insanity. I kid you not; Feeder Road is making me a little crazy.

It may seem a little extreme hating an inanimate object as much as I do, but that's the problem. Feeder Road is just too inanimate. It's so dull! One long, straight path stretching 1.5 miles. The only thing that could make it worse would be if it was a hill, with an upward incline on the way home. Or maybe if it was a Travellator and I was trying to walk in the opposite direction. No, wait, it already feels like that.

For your viewing pleasure, I've added a crude rendition of Feeder Road below. I could have coloured it in, and applied perspective and depth. But no, Feeder Road, you don't deserve that.

I think my absolute hate of this road stems from my complete lack of patience with anything. That and my constant need to be amused and entertained. Feeder Road aggravates both.

My first attempt at combating Feeder Road Fatigue was to run to and from work. This was awesome for a few weeks; more than halving my time spent commuting. Then Feeder Road gave me tendonitis, so I had to stop running for a while. Score 1 to the road. I briefly contemplated driving to and from work, but the thought of braving commuter traffic made me baulk. That and the £18 a day it would cost to park somewhere.

So, I have now invested in a bike and I'm going to attempt to cycle to and from work. This isn't as straight-forward as it sounds for several reasons. Firstly, I haven't ridden a bike since I was 12 years old, and that was with stabilisers and some kind of preternatural power keeping me upright (can the sheer force of childhood imagination alone halt the laws of physics?). Secondly, although Bristol is described as a cycle city, what this actually means is that drivers spend an inordinate amount of time picking spokes, shards of disc brakes and human bone out of their tyres.

Feeder Road; you will not win

Reasons to work from home

Since graduating, I have joined the throngs of the full-time employed. I gave myself a good few months to settle into a routine and come to terms with having a lot less spare time than I was used to.  And after a year of full time work, I don't much care for it.
I decided to come up with a few pro's and con's about working from home - you may not be able to do much about the full-time bit, but you can about your surroundings. Initially I considered moving my couch to my desk at work, but decided that would be a tad impractical and probably against a zillion safety regulations.

Pro's:
1. I'm socially inept
To me, this is the strongest reason to work from home. I don't know how I manage it (if I did I wouldn't be socially inept) but I always say either the wrong thing completely, or the right thing but to the wrong group. This always results in an awkwardness paralleled only by holding your husband's hand in the supermarket, only to find it isn't your husband at all, but some stranger you grabbed by the frozen veg.

 2. Personal development
This is touted so often in the office environment I doubt anyone even knows what it means anymore. It has nothing to do with nude photography. I checked.
What better way to develop your cultural understanding and knowledge than surfing the web at home? If it wasn't for home net-surfing, then I would never be aware of things like this, and frankly, I think I'm a better person for it.

 3. PJ days!
Seriously, who doesn't love the idea of lounging working in your PJ's on the couch? In fact, the PJ day shouldn't just be confined to those who work at home, we should campaign for PJ days at work, and discourage people from dressing up just for a web conference.

4. Avoiding the office coffee
I think this one explains itself:

5. No commute
The problem with working conventional hours is that so does 97% of the population (I totally made that figure up, but I bet it's high). This not only results in traffic jams and tardiness, but also a complete lack of identity, as the amorphous "we are one" being crawls its way to and from work. Depressing.

                                

Con's:

1. I'd become even more of a social recluse

The more time I'd spend at home, the more of my paltry social skills I'd lose. Eventually, I''d barely be able to form a coherent sound, let alone sentence and I'd be become known in my street as the crazy lady with all the dogs. Whilst technically correct, it isn't an impression I'd like to encourage.

2. Money
Once the novelty of working from home has passed, the reality would strike and I'd find more and more excuses to avoid working. The home environment is the worst place for procrastination - there is always something that needs cleaning, calls to make or personal development to catch up on.

3. The real PJ day
The reality of of the PJ day looks something like this:

Very little work is actually conducted during a proper PJ day, and the work that is done is probably crap because your mind is set to slob mode and nothing you do is going to achieve a standard that will actually get you paid.

                                

To summarize, whilst there are more reasons to work from home than not, none of them are likely to result in an income that could support my dogs in the lifestyle they have become accustomed to. Maybe if I actually thought of a viable idea rather than wait for one to fall in my lap...