Mind over Matter

Last night I lay awake worrying pretty much all night. Work pressures are getting the better om, with redundancies, budget cuts and now the election has gone what to present for the Page One image tomorrow. I hear the church bells tolling every hour through the night, stood in the dark listening to the noises my son makes as he sleeps. The last hour before dawn chimed and I must have dropped off. I woke at 5.45am, then lay staring glassy eyed at the ceiling as the sunlight crept across it. I felt like death, kind of hungover but without the booze - I've stopped drinking in the week. Tea, I need Tea, more tea, BBC news, Sky and radio four all droned away washing me in a news wrap that would see me through the morning. I dropped Noah at school, went back home and stood looking at my bike. It starred at me through it's cateye, leering. "Get on if you dare - loser" I hated my bike. I unlocked the car, guilt got the better of me. Dragging on my kit, cursing about how much I hated cycling, life, work and fresh air I hauled the bike out of that garage and kicked into the pedals. Anger at my lack of sleep, lack of breakfast and general emotional state surged through me. I shot out of my road and towards work, my pulse accelerated in my ears and I was flying, powering up the long drag to Pollhill standing on the pedals I found a sudden peace in my rythmn. The journey blurred streets, buses, commuters, towns - Knockholt, Bromley, Catford, Lewisham one long blurred road a tunnel of quiet in a mad world. I could only hear my heart pounding in my ears. Suddenly I was at work. I stopped the computer - amazingly I had destroyed my best ever time by over 4 minutes, including stopping at red lights - I'm a polite social cyclist afterall. As I locked my bike in the underground car park, I smiled at it lovingly - "Who's a loser?"