15th June Martha sets off for her first operation transportation cycle!

Martha's enjoys:

Cycling, tootling, talking,

Cycling, tootling,chatting

And a more peaceful neighbourhood

- apart from all the cycling tootling and talking....

According to Martha:

This evening after a rather hectic day, I tootled off to my local shop to put some kind of food into the house! The ten minute cycle elongated of course, with chatting! That's the great thing about the bike; meet a friend or neighbour and just tootle over at your own
ease.

Okay this isn't Martha or  Ireland for that matter. But no matter where you are on a bike, it is very easy to pull over and chat, as Martha has been finding out. Image is from www.trendy-travel.eu

While I was talking, my bike was borrowed and taken for a spin around the estate by my friends husband. When retrieved, I still had not been to the shop. So more tootling and talking along the way.

I also noticed the difference the bicyle makes to the atmosphere of a place. When a car comes, all the children run to the foot path, disrupting their games and mothers start screeching after young children not to run in front of the car. When you are on the bike, everyone smiles and salutes you and you win brownie points by efficiently retrieving roving footballs. I think I'm going to really enjoy operation transportation.



Bikes don't  splash people or disrupt play the way cars do,
although admittedly the boys in this photo may have wanted to be splashed, see: http://metro.co.uk/2008/07/07/car-puddle-soakings-new-youth-craze-252530/ for the source.