Two Wheels Good by Sheena Wilkinson

It is very unlike me to be in the fashion. I am either a late adopter or, more often, a non-adopter of trends. But my new hobby, which is really a rediscovery of an old one, is very zeitgeisty right now. Like millions of other locked-down people, I have taken to two wheels.

For me, it’s not about finding a healthier, non-germ-ridden alternative to public transport: living in rural Northern Ireland, public transport isn’t much of an option at the best of times. Nor is it really for exercise – I’ve always walked miles every day and for the last year I’ve been running too. 

my first trusty steed, circa 1977

No, I’m cycling for fun. Just for the craic. After not having been on a bike for almost thirty years, I am rekindling a joy in speed and freedom which I haven’t known for years. I remember going on rides as a child on my trusty Raleigh Amber with Vicky, my friend, on her Dawes Kingpin. There was something transgressive about taking these bikes out of our estate, sometimes even out of Belfast. Our mothers never knew how far we went and we never told them. Often my bike was a pony, sometimes a motorbike, sometimes a flying carpet – for a child, having two wheels as well as an imagination made the world a much bigger place. 

My partner is a ‘real’ cyclist and for the first few weeks I was content to puff along behind on his son’s mountain bike – for the loan of which I was very grateful. I was surprised at how easily I got used to being back in the saddle. In lockdown, we’ve been able to get much further on two wheels than on two legs and I’ve been able to get to know the countryside around his home, where I’ve been staying, more thoroughly than when I was only walking the dog or running the very local roads. And it wasn’t long before I started to covet the sleek lines of a road bike, and so my new trusty steed came into my life. 

my new trusty steed

The heroine of my (adult) work in progress, Stella, has also just bought a bike. It’s 1933 so her bike is heavy, and black, and she is wondering if she can get used to these new-fangled gears – three of them! Like me, she's part of a boom: cycling for leisure, as well as transport, was very trendy in the thirties. Like me she hasn’t cycled since she was young, though at  30 she’s much younger than I am, but it’s been fun imagining that we’re sharing the same joy in an old hobby rediscovered. 

Stella's trusty steed would have looked something like this 

Has anyone else used lockdown to rediscover an old passion? 

Torn between repainting the kitchen table a nice maroon, baking banana loaf, taking A. M. Homes’ paperback to bed with a cup of tea, pruning the buddleia, cycling to Nailsea, tidying my study . . . Tracy Alexander

The study

Last Friday at 7pm I emailed my latest book to the publisher. (I don’t like saying that in case it never morphs into a book, but story sounds short and manuscript sounds highfalutin so book it is.)

*sighs*

I have no plan. This is both pleasant and alarming. I don’t remember finishing a book before without another project composting in my back garden – hence the alarm, but what is enjoyable is my empty head. I am not wrestling with how my character should be reacting, interrogating his feelings or wondering how to get him from A to B. I am also not trying to hold down a new idea that is desperate to wriggle out of my soapy hands. I am instead looking forward to a short period of doing other things – see title.

Loving this book

(I suppose what I’m about to write is a complaint to do with being a writer - I’d rather have this particular complaint than not be a writer, but I'd like the complaint brought under control.)

*sighs*

I don’t feel as though I ever stop actively thinking (as opposed to idly thinking). Any moments that aren’t occupied by manoeuvring through busy traffic or having a conversation i.e. those requiring concentration, are filled up with whatever I’m writing. I like standing in the shower debating where my character should be when he hears the news, swimming while deciding how empathetic he should be to his mother, but am aware that the relentlessness of it is the opposite of mindfulness. I’m not ‘in the moment’, I’m in another place altogether. The ‘power of now’ has no punch because I’m no more revelling in the warmth of the water drenching my winter skin than I am noticing my easy breath as I plough up and down the pool. Away with the fairies, that’s where I am. It doesn’t bother me, but I can’t rid myself of the idea that it’s unhealthy. (So perhaps it does bother me . . .)

            I’ve strayed into an area that I find uncomfortable to discuss – my lack of structure. I should have the weekend off, or Thursday off, or some time off, but I don’t. I write whenever I have the inclination and opportunity to do so, and often when I don’t have the inclination but a strong sense that I ought. (I hate the word ‘ought’. If you stare at it, it looks like its beginning is missing.)

If I had regular hours, presumably my mind might switch off. A weekly period with no electricity coursing through me seems a nice idea. When switched on again I might be recharged, fresh . . .

So maybe I do have a plan.

*looks pleased*

I'm somewhere in Wales ( in orange)

I don’t know how long it will take for some feedback to come back from the publisher, but I am not going to write anything (except this blog) or worry about what I might write next. I am going to work through the list of things I’d like to do, starting with the table. I am going to focus on the task in a peaceful and attentive manner, batting away other thoughts. I am going to enjoy the way the paint covers the marks left by my godson’s erratic colouring, watch the shine soften as it dries, enjoy the rhythm of the brush strokes, smell the toxins and reward myself with banana loaf between coats.

When the email arrives from the publisher I will address the content, and whether that means I have to redraw the mountain or just mess around in the foothills, I will keep a day author-free. I will not write or think about my writing or answer writerly emails. Friday seems like a good day to choose as a non-work day because I’m a keen cyclist and there’s often a group going out that I can tag along with. (The weekend would be more obvious but I like working in my pyjamas (like Liz Kessler) and I can only do that on Saturday and Sunday.) So, on Thursday evenings from now on I intend to place the Do Not Disturb sign on the *door*.

We’ll see how I get on . . .

Tracy Alexander
www.tmalexander.co.uk