Always wear your helmet

After 3 days of eating toffee pops on our boat (and catching fish of course!) I decided I better get back to the programme. I needed to do a 3 hour bike ride. Problem - only an hour to do it. Blow it an hour is better than nothing.

Now my Grandma gave me many pieces of wise (at the time in her opinion) advice. The first was to do typing at school (the world needed secretaries not lady vets according to her). This was in 1979 when there were (yes it's hard to believe) no PC's. I took typing through to School C level, and actually did really well. It didn't interfere with my other core subjects nor my desire to be a vet. Wow am I grateful I did typing now! I can touch type very fast, a great asset in todays computer world!

The second thing she made me do was to buy a bike helmet when I went to Massey University. We all had bikes as students, apart from those in my class who got high paying jobs in the meat works etc. In 1984, bike helmets were for - shall I say it - geeks and lecturers (who also had bikes, as they were generally so poorly paid!)

So I joined in the brigade that wore helmets before they became compulsory - sigh!

Anyway the point of this post is that today I was grateful I was wearing a helmet. When I bike around the farm I generally don't, as I like the feeling of freedom! My plan was to practice lifting my bike over gates etc and go on the road for a short piece, so the helmet went on.

Anyway in the middle of my ride I was happily booting it down the cow tracks, thinking of a limerick which we need to write for the ARC adventure race. Good I thought - there's a new gateway there, and I can shoot through there and through the paddock to avoid going through the cows. Oh dear, too late - no gate - instead two high tensile electric fence wires!

I remember hitting them at speed, standing up to avoid being decapitated, bouncing off and then under the wire, collecting a biff on the ear, knees and elbows in the process. Ouch. Quick check to see if anyone saw, collected up myself and bike (made it to the other side of the fence!), rearranged my pride and continued on. My ear still hurts, and I've had to check that it is in fact still attached to my head!

So wherever you are Grandma - thanks!

By the way, I composed two limmericks, what do you think?

We’re about to embark, without even a squawk
On ARC’s Operation Nighthawk
Two lasses from Ngatea
Preferring a wine to a beer
Puffing so much we can’t talk

Two tarts on a mission
Operation night hawk calls for precision
Getting the map the right angle
Save’s our tit’s being in a tangle
And to finish by dark? – here’s wishing!