Cycling for a year

I've been cycling to and from my work pretty well every working day now for a year. How do I know it's a year? Because a year ago was the London bombing and it was following that that I decided to give the (Amsterdam) metro a miss, preferring instead to cycle the 25-30 minutes to the office. It's turned out to be one of the highlights of every day, simply to be outside, cycling along the river and through a lovely park before spending my eight or nine hours inside. I've come to know the trees along the way, watched their leaves turn red and golden, then fall away; seen them turn bright green in spring. I've found a little Italian take-away along my regular route that I sometimes use for a dinner when I'm late. And I've come to anticipate the joyous feeling of swooping round one particular corner as I cut through a housing estate to take the shortest route to the 'factory'.

I love it. And when I think about it now, particularly in the light of the previous post below, I realise that it's another example of my being driven by fear - but turning it around. I should do this more often.

Come to think of it, I know another example, connected to the same fear. When we were in London recently for one day, I wanted to avoid the underground at all costs so worked out a route to walk from Euston Station to Charing Cross. It's not all that far and as we were walking along, heading for the landmark Centrepoint building, Bud - who was thinking about buying a new guitar - spotted a brightly painted music shop, went in and came out an hour later the proud owner of a beautiful electric guitar. Of course, we might have seen it if we'd taken the underground but I like to think it's because we took that particular route on foot.

Footnote: I'm claustrophobic, even at the best of times. Bear that in mind before you lambast me for being knock-kneed