Random has – against the laws of probability – almost reached the age of six. And that is simply because she’s only loosely connected to this world of dull reality which houses the rest of us. Random’s world is merely an infinite goldfish bowl where every day is going to be brilliant and every thing she does is always new and exciting. She has an unnerving habit – in fact she has many, I’m merely picking one as a representative example – of snuggling into the sofa while – say – Shrek is on and after ten minutes of golden silence innocently asking “has it finished yet ?” or “Is the green man a cabbage?“.
Her elder sister never did this. Because she’s been going on fourteen since looking bloody irritated as she was brought into this world. It’s an expression she often goes back too. Could also be that we never let her watch TV while she was locked under the stairs for the first five years, but we don’t like to talk about that.
Random refuses to accept the nuggety existence of physical manifestations of dangerous stuff. Like cars on an intercept trajectory or interesting looking ground that could be better explored from ten feet up. Head first. There is some guff that a second child merely doubles your love for your offspring rather than divides it. This is clearly rubbish – it trebles at least with the gradual understanding that you now have two separate chances to totally screw them up in later life.
Oh and yes, I suppose they are sort of fantastic as well, frustrating, refreshingly selfish, expensive, bloody annoying, often showing violent sibling rivalry but kind of beautifully integral to your life. Sure we could have probably retired by now if we didn’t have kids, paid off the mortgage, sailed round the world, put an offer in for Guatemala, slept peacefully most nights and never suffered the stomach churning embarrassment of a three year old exploding in Tesco but apart from that….
Anyway, as a testemant to the robustness of RandomWorld(tm), she’s getting a rather tidy birthday present.
Well what did you expect? Of course it’s a bike. It’s pink, it has more fork travel than my first three mountain bikes and is rather better made. Verbal has been surprisingly and worryingly calm about being gazumped in the new bikes stakes but this I’m putting down to her current tomboy phase. If it’s not blue or can fire deadly weapons, she’s not that interested.
And while the Leigh collection of two wheeled detritus now extends to two outbuildings and a count of fifteen, I can finally sell/burn/disembowel with powertools the final singlespeed in the bikey herd. Poor old Random was spinning at about a million RPM out on a family ride, which also had the disturbing attribute of disconnecting her steering circuit and sending her plunging down the nearest railway embankment.
The outsourced postman will be delivering it tomorrow. Luckily it’s a bike box so the kids will just assume it’s for me which is a bit rich since Carol had a new one for her birthday and since then I’ve only had one more. This is likely to change rather sooner than Carol probably expects but if I wave my hands around in an excited manner and talk quickly, I reckon all shall be well.
So coming to sustrans near you soon – the Leigh family stone terrifying other legitimate trail users, playing chicken with the concrete and failing to crack the complex code of gearing. And that’s just me.
it’s going to be great π
..and when she’s grown out of it you’ll be able to use it on the dirt jumps π
Do you think I can do pink? My riding already has a hint of sexual ambivalence about it π
Happy birthday Random.