Falling in love

I have gone through an emotional journey over the past three weeks. One that has taken me from active dislike, to indifference, to a grudging concession of liking, to actual genuine affection.

One of my earliest memories of riding a bike is riding, as a six-year-old, from our house on the edge of Jamestown to the rectory. Jamestown is entirely flat. I learned to ride on our completely flat driveway. Always a cautious and unathletic child, I never moved at more than an enthusiastic walking pace. This is why I didn't know how to use the brakes on the bike. There is one gentle slope in Jamestown, as you approach the rectory. It is a gravelled slope. I think we all know where this is going - not knowing how to brake using the, well, brakes, I braked with my feet, fell off the bike and sustained fairly painful gravel wounds on my stomach.

I never rekindled my love of riding. I didn't have a complex about it. Susan and I rode our bikes up and down the driveway and around the place like normal kids but, from memory, I was never comfortable with hills after that incident. Besides, I've always felt that walking pace is fast enough. I could probably count on one hand the amount of times I cycled between the ages of 10 and 25 (including cycling around Lake Burley Griffin . . . it was not a fun day).

So, buying a bike didn't fill me with a sense of unparalleled delight. I bought a cheap, rusty, ugly bike because I don't have a whole lot of money, and because this kind of bike is less likely to be stolen. I spoke to someone whose bike has both a first and a last name, like a person, but mine is called Bessie because I saw her as less a friend, than a pet. And less a pet than a pack mule. Really, she's all about getting me from A to B.

The day after buying the bike, I cycled to church and home again. This was undeniably the best choice, as I had met up with people after church and didn't leave the city until 10pm, at which time only the most amazing luck in the world would have allowed me to get a bus. But it was cold. And raining. And I was taking the main roads because I didn't know the bike paths. And the bike muscles were complaining because (as mentioned) they had rarely been troubled in the past 15 years. And for some reason, I had the chorus of 'Walking in a winter wonderland' firmly stuck in my head, despite the fact that I was cycling, it was autumn, and there is nothing wonderland-ish about the main roads through the southern part of Cambridge at 10.15 on a raining Sunday night. If my mind had been read, it would (apart from the music on loop) have just been the words "IhatethisIhatethisIhatethisIhatethis" until I got home and locked up the stupid bike in the stupid rain and kind of hoped the stupid thing would be stolen.

The first week, I still hated it. The bike paths are all through the back streets or green areas, so I was constantly taking a 'short cut' recommended by google maps, and getting lost, because I have no sense of direction. It was taking me 40 minutes to do what google told me should be a 20 minute ride. I was still taking the main roads to work so I didn't get lost, which meant I had to get off my bike 10 minutes before work and walk to avoid the terrifying bridge intersection.

Week 2: I actually figured out the route to work, and how this made much more sense than the main roads route. OK, I still didn't love the bike, and found it difficult to go faster than a brisk walk. But I could see the point of it. I wasn't going out of the city just to go back in, as was happening with the bus. That's a plus. And my commute was down to around 25-30 minutes. I rode to choir, which was a definite improvement on walking for 50 minutes in the dark.

Week 3: I figured out how gears work. Yes, snigger into your sleeves. Or, show your astonishment that a woman of my years had no idea what the bike gears were actually doing until literally 6 days ago. And mind you, I learned to drive in a manual so I should have been ahead of the curve on that one. But seriously, I was mystified about them. Figuring out that you can change those suckers up and down depending on the gradient of the land was a revelation. The commute went down to google's promised 20 minutes. My muscles congratulated me on this development.

Here are some of my favourite parts of my commute to work:

The first 5-10 minutes is a cut through a green area sort of behind my house. The bike path runs alongside a shallow stream bordered by hedges and occasional small trees. There are ducks and another miscellaneous water bird that I don't recognise. There are autumn leaves on the path.

Where the bike path turns into back streets, there is a cul de sac with a big stand of deciduous trees (no, I don't know what kind) that have shed golden leaves all over the road until it is a carpet of yellow, but there are still enough leaves on the trees that the light is muted and golden. It smells like fallen leaves. I always pause here for a moment before I go onto the streets. It's like a little piece of magic.

The street just before the station is also lined with autumn trees but these ones are bronze-leaved. If it's a foggy evening when I come home, the street lights are surrounded by mist and the bronze leaves shine in the slight damp.

There is a gentle slope from the station down to a roundabout where I don't even have to pedal on the way home, which is nice after a day at work.

Things I don't like so much:

The roundabout. I just can't judge the gaps. I end up waiting for years before I'll finally venture out.

Riding beside the stream in the dark (i.e. any time after 4.45 - boo, England, boo). It's lovely in the mornings but in the evening it's on my left so I have to ride on the stream side. I live in fear that I'll fall into that stream someday. At least it's more likely to be on the way home than on the way to work.

Riding down the shared bus and bike lane from the station to work - it's the only logical way to get there, and I only have to share it with the buses for about 200 metres, but I have a dread of being cleaned up by an inattentive bus driver.

Riding through the station car park to get to the guided busway because taxi drivers are the worst.

So, that is the story of how a resentful relationship turned into a proper friendship. Bessie is nothing short of an invaluable accomplice in my current adventures. I'd attach a photo of her but honestly I'm not really sure how, and I need to get ready to go out. She won't mind. She's not very photogenic, poor girl. I'm thinking of changing her name to Elizabeth and giving her a last name. I think she deserves it.

Cambridge: More English than England

I think in Australia, we have this idea about England and the English. Of course, some of those assumptions relate to basic loutishness, reality TV/tabloid style ideas. But there are others, and here are some of them:

Old buildings
People on bicycles
Rain
Cold
Politeness
Educatedness
Knowledge of things like Chekhov and where David Livingstone is from
Playing board games
Drinking tea
Roast lunches on Sunday

Well, Cambridge is like that. I had a conversation with someone I met in church a couple of weeks ago. He had moved to Cambridge around the same time that I had, only he had moved from somewhere in the north (Sheffield? For the sake of narrative flow, let's say Sheffield.) In the midst of, How do you like Cambridge? etc he said, "You do realise that England isn't actually like this?"

It's true - England is not like Cambridge. Cambridge (and I imagine Oxford as well) is its own little thing. The people here, by and large, are very educated - a lot of them have gone to Cambridge University and stayed on, or they work at Addenbrooke's (the biggest hospital in the UK, I believe) or they are attracted to one of the white collar jobs you can get here. And so things that wouldn't exist anywhere else are just normal here. For example:

• Going to a bonfire night party with home fireworks, where there is also a choir that sings a few songs and then gets the rest of the party to join in
• Sunday roast lunch
• Knitting club with young people in it
• Having a conversation with someone about how much we both love Steinway pianos
• Having a conversation with someone about civilian morale in WWII
• Mentioning David Livingstone to someone who knows where in Scotland David Livingstone is from (this shows me up, because I didn't know he was Scottish and the reason I had brought him up was that I'm related to him. Fail)
• Eating bacon sandwiches in a fellow's rooms in Pembroke College (that was just cool)
• Bike theft being the biggest crime issue
• Walking past someone in academic robes and a bowtie outside Starbucks

Needless to say, I like Cambridge. In fact, everyone in Cambridge is like me - only more so. Will the novelty wear off? Perhaps. But for now, it makes it much easier to make friends and fit in. It's nice to join a choir and a knitting club, and have no one bat an eyelid.