flemmings | The end of a dying month: August megrims

Why do I read Peter Ackroyd? Why? He gives me the fantods. But I keep on reading him, as I do not keep on reading Chatwin's equally fantoddy Viceroy of Ouidah. The 80s were very good to me but I look back on its literature, the stuff I read then and mostly in Picador, and have claustrophobic attacks.

Equally Kate Elliott posts a picture of Salisbury Plain. Which makes me understand, even more than the Niagara Peninsula, Auden's prayer:

I cannot see a plain without a shudder,
'Oh God, please, please don't ever make me live there.

More happily, a Star reporter talks about learning to ride a bicycle at age 23. I was 29 and thought that an achievement; I also had an easier time. Start by riding on grass? or worse, Queen St? Lord no. School playground on the weekend, third try. Friend held the handlebars till I had my feet on the pedals, let me go, and suddenly I was bicycling. (I didn't learn as a kid because my mom was convinced that to ride a bike was to die. Even if my dad had got his way and tried to teach us, I'd have been like the reporter: fall off once, forget it.)

But my hat is off to the Toronto Councillor who learned at 45. Go him.

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I didn't learn to ride a bike until I was 8, which was very late for my generation; we had 3-year-olds in our neighborhood who could ride around (with training wheels at first, later without). My bike was nearly adult size and did not have training wheels; after some initial falls in the cul-de-sac near the house, things went quite well after that.

The councillor is a brave, brave man!

Why so (relatively) late? Lack of interest on your part, or like the accountant, parents too busy to teach you?

I no longer remember exactly, but it could be that my mom was a wee bit overprotective of me and was scared I'd hurt myself. Or it could be that I was a big ninny.

I was may have been nine or ten even. My dad was away at sea most of the time and I was a big ninny. And my mother worked ... and there WERE four of us. But my sisters all could ride already and had their own bikes. I wasn't allowed one till I learned. *sigh*

One day when my dad was home (which was rare) and everyone was out riding and I really really wanted to go. but was very very afraid to. My dad said 'that's it you're learning now' He dug up this old bike. From whence it came I have no idea. I was very very afraid. My dad is sometimes scary and that rickety old bike was also pretty scary. Also we lived on the top of a slope. It isn't a steep slope. But to someone who never bicycled before ... it seemed steep. We stepped out the side gate. He ordered me to get on this metal contraption. He wheeled me to the centre of the avenue. He said he wouldn't let go. He lied, I flew down this hill, it became a hill in 3 seconds, I hit a rock, I flew some more ... and a tooth cracked. It hurt like all the seven (eight? ten?) levels of hell, and then he made me get on again and I didn't even have time to cry. He let go again, barely having time to remind me this time about brakes, and pedalling and handlebars and by the third time down that hill I could cycle.

I do not recommend this mode of teaching at all. Thankfully hubby taught our children to cycle as I would have nothing to do with it at all. ^_^ It is probably why I cycle badly and fearfully still.

But ahhh fun times it seems now.

My god, that's a bit... drastic. And expensive, cracked teeth and all. What a way to give someone a dislike of cycling for life.

the tooth was ok, just chipped in one corner. And my dad can be said to be unconventional at the best of times.

I think he didn't think it would scar me. These sort of things don't occur to that man sometimes. He is a great guy, and I love him to pieces but ohhhh the things that man does. Infuriates all of us. A lot of the time. ^_^

I have this really cute picture in my head of you in the playground, your friend's hands on the handlebars, feet on to peddles, hand letting go, and off. Go you. :-)

Even cuter than you think. I'd bought a girl's bicycle for ten dollars from one of the university parking attendants who had it for sale. Literally a *girl's* bike, so my feet could hit the ground easily at need, which meant my knees almost hit my boobs when I pedaled.

which meant my knees almost hit my boobs when I pedaled.- I'm sorry but a giggle escaped me just then. ^_^

Hmm...
Speaking of Chatwin, have you read The Songlines? I read it a few years ago and thought the first third was really interesting. After that, it seemed like he got bored or blocked and threw in random vignettes (possibly fictitious) culled from his travel notebook.

I think the only other Chatwin I've read was In Patagonia ages and ages back. There's something a bit oogey about a lot of travel writing. I first encountered it when I was reading up on Japan, and all the male travel writers never seemed talk about anything but themselves in the face of these amusingly different foreigners. Now I'm suspicious of the genre on principle.

I don't think it's restricted to the men, but I take your point.
I really like William Dalrymple's books (City of Djinns for example) and I love Suketu Mehta's Maximum City because they both show me new ways of looking at cities I know well.
I found Holy Cow (written by an Australian woman in Delhi) completely off-putting at first (she is so very unapologetic about how much she hates India), but I came to appreciate her frankness.

The end of a dying month: August megrims

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