Sometimes, your guts just know that something is going to hit the proverbial whatsit, no matter what you do.
I spent the school summer holidays decorating the house and sorting stuff out. I was looking for work, but it was really nice to be at home with the boys as I’ve worked through most school holidays.
I love de-cluttering. It frees my mind.
In the back shed-thing I had two broken bicycles. And a cat litter tray. And a garden chair.
Bicycles are, quite frankly, the bane of my bloody life. Alongside the perpetual drag of cooking for two meat-eating sons who don’t like (mostly) to eat the same things as me, or each other. To which I have more than once alluded.
Trust me, even before these two were broken, they were impossible to get out of that bloody shed-thing. At least not without yanking an arm off the chair, putting your foot in the litter tray or grazing your leg on some chain or other while pulling both bicycles out together - perpetually locked, as they were, in some suspended animation akin to two locusts having their last ever, desperate shag.
(The shed-thing is like an overhang with a door but my pedantism means I can’t leave it at ‘shed’.)
So I decided to get them fixed up and sold. I needed some cash, the space and if we ended up with one bike fixed and unsold, that would be ok.
You would probably not be interested to know that the two working bikes of our household live chained to the roots of the front hedge and in the cupboard under the stairs, respectively, and holy crap it’s a palaver dragging either of them out. My household possessions end up littering the street. What DO people in small terraces with little space, do??
Anyway. I got one bike fixed up. Parts plus labour were minimal but it still clearly came to more than I was likely to get for flogging it. Still, I put it online, dropped the price twice after responding to some irritating queries and then forgot about it.
Until a couple of days ago, when someone with a very short name, and, I suspected, newly arrived in the UK, contacted me to ask if he could buy it. Obviously I said yes. But our attempts to exchange messages that resulted in him actually turning up when he said he would, failed. And I didn’t have a bike rack for my car or I’d have offered to try and get it to him.
So I think it’s fair to say I wasn’t over-enthusiastic when he said he’d be round to get it yesterday evening. I might have been more enthusiastic if I hadn’t just had a wonderful massage from one of my student friends which had left me feeling a) dazed and b) wrapped in a single duvet cover covered in pictures of animals in primary colours. I wanted a bath but instead I went and put on a couple of thermal tops and prepared to wait.
Half an hour later, he called again - to check that the bicycle was ‘ok’. I said yes, that I’d ridden it around my massage couch that very morning, having brought it in from the shed-thing. I’m afraid I started to sound a bit impatient and asked quite snappily if he was definitely coming. He said yes, but that he had two buses to catch. If things had been different I would have offered to go and get him, but I felt a bit wary and decided to trust my guts. (Wow - a first!) Plus I’d got into an awkward conversation about how tall he was, as I wasn’t sure if he’d taken on board that it was a bike my youngest had grown out of.
Eventually he arrived and we had a bit of a barter about the price. Which, I explained, I didn’t want to drop because as things stood, I was going to make a grand profit of £5 on it. I think it’s fair to say that I didn’t present my best self during this exchange.
Then we got to the bit where he leaves the house (out, into the cold dark night) with the bicycle, and I pocket the cash and go and get warm in the bath. Except actually I’d already started sweating in my thermals, running up two flights of stairs to find £5 in change.
And would you bloody believe it, as I moved the bike down the front steps, the back bloody wheel came off.
Jesus and all the angels and saints. My not best self became additionally flustered and very apologetic. Tried to work out how to get the wheel back on. Tried calling the guy who fixed it. Left him a very desperate and blamey-sounding voice message. Told the buyer that I’d drive him home to make up for it. Waved him towards the car. Yelled up the stairs to tell the boys what was going on. We got in.
It was cold. Very cold. And frosty. At this point I realised the car had iced up. So I leant down between his feet to get the empty sparkling water bottle from where I’d thrown it that morning. He jumped. I explained that I was going back inside the house to get hot water. He looked at me in a way I can’t quite describe. But it was quite dark.
If you’re wondering if I had engaged with my better self during this last twenty minutes, the answer would not be in the affirmative. I de-iced the car. Turned on the lights and as I was pulling out, the guy who’d fixed the bike called back. Offered to come round and re-set the wheel. Tempted as I was to end what already felt like the longest evening of my life, I said yes. With gratitude, just FYI.
We went back into the house. Awks in the extreme.
Bike fixer arrived. Sorted the wheel - although it looked a bit touch and go for a minute - and did some showy stuff with the gears to demonstrate that the bicycle was definitely, totally, good to go. Thank ****.
He left. The buyer looked happy enough but we’d both established by this point that conversation was not going to be our strong suit. Although he did try to barter me down again. You know what, I think he might have been playing with me. But I was stuck in grumpy. Especially when he asked if he’d be allowed to carry people on the rear rack.
I pointed him in the direction of town. Wished him very well. Collapsed on the sofa and phoned both kids to ask them to bring me down some of their Christmas chocolate stash.
Seriously??? This. For a fiver.
