Last Fri (25th Jan) was Burns’ Night here and we enjoyed a slap up meal of haggis, neaps and tatties. It was delicious, made better by the fact that its pretty much the only time we have it in the year. One of Burns’ most famous poems, “To a Mouse”, includes that well-known line about our plans often going wrong. This happened to me this week… in quite a big way…
To a Mouse
(Original)
But, Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!
(Modern)
But Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!
Our weather has definitely had a wintry feel for the past week and we had snow and freezing temperatures forecast for the week ahead. I was therefore pleased to receive a call from the bike shop that my mountain bike was ready for collection with nice new brakes. This bike is very useful when there is snow and ice on the roads so I anticipated using it in the days ahead. After rushing home on Mon evening and picking my daughter up from nursery, we raced over to the shop and caught him just before closing time. Things were really falling into place I thought.
I got home and enjoyed a leisurely dinner before heading into the garage to put some studded tyres onto the bike for extra grip. These went on nice and easily so I put the wheels back on the bike and looked forward relaxing on the sofa for a bit before bed time (there I go making plans again!).
When checking the bike over I noticed a little bit of rubbing on the brakes so adjusted the back one then moved onto the front. As I was tightening the callipers for the final time my left index finger managed to sneak into the rotating front disc rotor, causing a nasty slice through the finger nail. At first I thought it was just a minor scratch as there was no pain, but it then started bleeding quite heavily…
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OUCH!
Only after slowing the bleeding down and looking more closely did I realise that actually this might need a bit of medical attention. Not what you want at half 8 on a Monday night! Anyway, my good wife took me down to the hospital (no I didn’t cycle!) and I sat in a packed out A&E waiting room expecting a long wait ahead. This didn’t make me feel any less stupid: holding the tip of my finger wrapped in kitchen towel whilst seeing people in wheelchairs, on crutches, eyes hanging out and generally looking a lot worse for wear.
Thumbs up to the NHS though as despite being so pushed, they saw me and had me treated in under 90 minutes. I was x-rayed as a precaution but nothing was broken so they cleaned out the wound, added a dressing and saw me on my way.
However, my plans for preparing myself for the week ahead definitely had definitely gone askew. Instead of relaxing on the sofa after getting my bikes ready I was left enjoying the company of 50 sick & wounded individuals and left unsure whether or not I would be able to ride to work tomorrow. Upon waking up on Tue I looked out to see that the forecasted snow had not really materialised and instead was a slightly slushy wet morning. Of course, now I didn’t even need the mountain bike after all!
I got dressed and coaxed the glove onto my injured hand. Not wanting to get my dressing wet I had covered it in cling film first – it was a very tight fit and caused quite a lot of discomfort. Gritting my teeth I headed out into the morning and despite me and my gear getting slightly wet the dressing stayed dry. It was really obvious just how rough the roads are in certain areas though. Normally I just bump along and don’t give it much thought, but this morning I was grimacing quite a bit over some of the lumps. Also, after battling with my rear brake for the last few weeks and finally looking to have resolved it, I found it too uncomfortable to use regularly!!! (I could use it if needed in an emergency though)
I’m not painting a very enjoyable picture of the ride this morning, but in actual fact it was a great sense of accomplishment when I got there. I found a couple of hand positions that left me feeling no pain and the bike made easy weather of the conditions. Also, if I hadn’t been on the bike I would not have been able to enjoy a scene like below on the way home:
Lesson for this week: You can’t be too careful even when doing seemingly simple tasks.
Lets hope the remainder of the week goes without further issues. I think my finger will be less sore as the days pass and the forecast is dry but very cold. It should be a good end to the week!
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Mark Cockshoot
Andy Fraser
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