The Girl With A Bicycle: Memories That Have Made Me

So much has happened in my life already, and a lot of those experiences have stayed with me.  They are not all monumentous, nor are they all life changing.  But every single one of them (and the countless more that are buried deep within me) have made me who I am.   I hope others will join in with me and post their own memories on their blogs (or in the comments).  I will be posting mine every Friday, but it doesn’t matter when you write yours or if you wish to do them fortnightly or monthly – your writing should fit with your schedule.  If you do join I ask that you link to my blog with this link: http://emptythoughtsrewritten.blogspot.co.uk (until I’ve worked out how to create a button for you to display) and that you will link your POST (not just your blog link please) in the comments each week (until I’ve worked out how to make a linky thing for you to add your links to – I’m really not very tech-savvy!).

I don’t really remember the learning process of first riding a bike, other than I am fairly certain I veered off into prickly bushes more times than I’d like to admit.  I remember my Dad teaching me to cycle, holding me up and helping me along as I attempted to pedal fast enough to create enough momentum so I wouldn’t come crashing down the next minute.

What I remember most though, is that when I had finally mastered the art of cycling I still struggled to push myself off.  For some reason this was impossible to me, and so every time I wanted to practice I had to cajole my Dad into coming outside with me so he could hold me steady while I carefully put my feet on the pedals before setting off.

Then we went on a camping holiday.  I don’t actually remember the camping, or the area, or pretty much anything about that holiday except that there was a girl also camping with her family and she had a bicycle with her.  Naturally we became close friends over the week as that’s just how it was when you went on holiday (or was that just me?) and spent most of our free time together.

The other important thing to note about this camping site was that there was a hill right in the middle of it (I remember that our tent was at the lower end of the camp and the girl with the bike was at the top).

Most of the time we spent taking turns on the bike as she had recently learned to cycle as well.  The great thing about there being a hill was I didn’t need help pushing off as gravity did that for me (now that I think about it, it’s probably not gravity, but I can’t recall enough science to even hazard a guess at any other explanation).

So when my family reached home, before anyone had a chance to unload anything, I begged to be allowed to try pushing off by myself on my own bicycle – after all, I’d had a week of practice.  I expect that I was so annoying that I was finally given my bike and sent on my way.  I did attempt to push off on the driveway but stones were still a problem; and then went to the edge of the driveway and pushed myself off for the very first time.  Of course, once you can do it, it becomes a lot less exciting.  But ever since, I have remembered the campsite with the hill and the girl with the bicycle that taught me how to ride a bike.