Saturday 16th May – Byron Bay.

I awoke this morning after a nourishing nights sleep. One of the many perks of sharing a bed with another human bean is the shared body heat, meaning you can manage to snooze away, toastily oblivious to the arctic conditions whipping thru the room. My beloved boy and I seem to have developed this slightly odd habit of intertwining our limbs throughout the night, so that we wake up completely bound together in some sleepy time pretzel formation, face to face, but comfy and warm as monkeys, leaving you with the age old conundrum of who’s going to make the first move and burst the bedtime bubble.
My plan for this AM, was to hot foot it down the road to blast thru a quick ashtanga class with Laura, Sams replacement while he floats around India, on a cloud of incense, pranayama and the remnants of Delhi belly I suspect. My new found love of my previous torture, has to do somewhat with the fact that I have finally mastered the jump back. Oh yes dear ones, I can now, finally, fling myself, somewhat gracefully from Uttanasana to Kumbakasana with a style and panache all of my own, thus bestowing upon me a new found sense of confidence as I ceremonially remove my yogic stabilisers.
Alas, twas not to be. The reasons being:
1.) During all jump backs in class yesterday, I must have finally stimulated my enthusiasm gland or something, as I spent the rest of the day showing anyone who would stand still long enough my new party trick. This meant that upon attempting to leap energetically from my pit, I was hit slap bang in the abdominals with the karmic sledgehammer, followed by “ah, ah, ah, ah, ah” as I instantly realised and regretted my foolishness, and tried to return supine with out tensing a single shredded muscle.
2.) Upon opening the fridge, discovering a distinct lack of Soya milk and yoghurt for my fruit salad, and drawing the ever increasingly short straw, I made my way out of the house to ‘go fetch’. Yawning widely and attempting to scrape my greasy mop back into some sort of ‘doo’, as I picked my way thru the undergrowth of our front yard to collect my trusty 10 speed, only to find….what the f*%$! “OLLIE!!! MY BIKES GONE!”
Yes ladies and jellyspoons, it is true. For the second time in a month some cretin has taken it upon themselves to rid me of my adopted cycle in the middle of the night. I held back the tears, stifling them with a small yelp as I spotted the smashed combination lock next to my parking tree, (of course I instantly collected up the pieces to be turned into some decorative neckpiece later, but I digress…)
“I just don’t get it, why do they always take mine and not yours. Mines a shit bike!” I whined into my beloved boys shoulder as he did the thing he does best during these times of distress, he gave me a huge cuddle and offered me his bike, mainly because he was hungry and wanted me to get to the shop quick time.
After a lengthy autopsy of the nights events over breakfast and Charlie, the temporary landlord, lending me a cobweb covered mountain bike that had been adapted at some point, to fit a dwarf with a handbag, as the seat was 6 inches too low and it had a crappy basket wired to the front that threw the steering wildly off, adding an element of “steer or die” to the situation, we made our way down the road to, our local, Tallows beach to drown our sorrows, literally.
Just as I was yanking the hopelessly rusted handlebars to the left to avoid my untimely demise for the third time, I heard Ollie yell “Sal, hold up, I found something for you.”
I swerved to a stop beside my lover who had spotted, amongst a pile of rubbish left on the pavement….a bicycle! It was a rather funky little BMX that had obviously been left in a garage and forgotten about. We heaved it out to get a better look.
“hmm… bit tatty, needs a new tire but otherwise its in pretty good nick” confirmed my hero. “It would be perfect for you baby, you’d look so cool cruising round on that!”
Just as I was giving it a test run and checking out how much of my underwear was on show as my knees ended up somewhere around my ears as I pedalled, a lady came out of the house, presumably the owner, tho she didn’t look like a BMX trickster to me.
“Go ahead, take it.” she said.
I couldn’t believe my luck, karmas a funny old thing aint it?.
I wheeled it home to await its new shoe and decided that it definatly needs to painted electric blue with large flowers, to make it truly mine, and hopefully deter any future stealing.
I spent the rest of the morning with Oliver teaching me to boogie board. A highly terrifying if slightly enjoyable experience that left me with a nasty stinging rash on my tummy, what, im told, the kids these refer to as ‘hose nose’, and a huge sandy grin on my face.
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