Bike

 When the Long Suffering Husband and I planned this little holiday we worried.

We worried about lots of things but one of our big fears was that after 30 years of marriage and nearly forty years as a couple, walking all day down a path that probably looks pretty similar all the way, we would run out of things to talk about.

I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with the companionable silence that you get in a long marriage but it was a concern that four hours a day walking in silence might get boring. However, we needn’t  have worried. The stretch of Thames path between Oxford and Abingdon that we walked on our first day had a unique feature.

“Bike!”

“Bike!”

“Bike!”

“Watch out! Two bikes.”

The variety was riviting.

Oxford is a biker’s city. Everyone rides bikes. Dog walkers and parents transport their charges in trailers attached to either the back or the front. Toddlers positioned at the front of the bike soon learn not to cry or they’d get a mouthful of bugs. Mothers cycle up and down the path shouting at their Olympic hopeful rower daughters from the bank. Fit, Lycra-clad men rush past and old men dither over which side to take. As you get closer to Abingdon there are teenager celebrating the end of the school year, on their way to a secluded part of the path with their tins of alcohol, sweary girlfriends in pants and Donna Summer blaring from their phones. There are also crusty barge dwellers on rusty bikes smelling faintly of weed.

“I spy something with my little eye. Something beginning with B.”

“Bike!”

“Yes. Well done.”

“No! Really! BIKE!”