Cycling in snow

Visiting a place that you once lived is, as I have discovered, a little strange at times. Family aside, Cambridge has left me in the occasional tailspin. Once I was over the jet lag hump, all the familiarities started coming back to me about roads, shops, what bus to catch and where to get off etc. And then it took a very stern conversation with myself to undo the old brain program that "I am not just back from a vacation and need to find temp work again, but this is my vacation and I need to just chill out"!

For the first time since arriving and on the auspicious occasion of New Years Eve, I rode my old chariot (loaned back to me by Michèle) to visit my cousin and fellow pirate, Fine, so that we could commence our "night on the town" and bring in the new year with some amazing food and hijinks. As I peddled along Green End Road, the nuances of my old bicycle came flooding back to me and we took the familiar route past my former residence and the Green Dragon and headed towards Tesco.  By this time, I was dreading the hills I knew were coming but once I got to them and very quickly over them, it occurred to me that cycling was not as tiresome as I remember and I don't know why I thought it such a boring venture. I will even go as far as to admit it was fun, and I have since cycled all over Cambridge, in snow, frost, fog and sunshine.

NYE piratical hijinks... photo expertly taken by Fine

There are some things I remember clearly and some things that I have absolutely no recollection of at all. Take for instance, the weather in Cambridge. I don't ever remember it being this cold in my two years of living here. This trip, I have been cycling home in minus freezing temperatures, unable to feel my chin or my gloved fingers it's so cold, yet I don't ever remember doing that before. Maybe I didn't stay out late. Maybe I only ever went as far as the pub a few doors down. Maybe I was just tougher when it came to the cold. Maybe I just chose to forget. Yet in all these maybe's, this time around, I'm enjoying the ride and find it rewarding when I finally arrive at my destination. I like being one of only a few people on the road late at night. I like cycling through the common while people are playing with their dogs in the brief winter sunlight hours. I like riding around cold Cambridge, all covered in sparkling frost. I like the feeling of coming in from the cold and feeling your face defrost slowly as you enter a warm house. This visual and physical sensory experience makes me feel very much alive and almost cross that I didn't appreciate it while I was living here. Don't get me wrong - cycling in summer is even better and I remember laughingly uproariously with my colleagues when I arrived at work with bugs stuck to my lip glossed lips - but winter, this time anyway, is glitteringly magical, even with it's chill.

One thing that I don't miss though, however superficial this may seem, is humidity. I had no idea that even in the extreme cold, humidity would turn my lovely, straight, ironed, purple streaked hair, back into the wavy mess it was in before. Lucky I live in the desert.