(aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2707 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad
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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
“Hannah did really well on the hill,” I remarked to Trish as we went to shower.
“Yeah, so what?” she snottily replied.
“Given you’re a more experienced rider, I thought you might have given her a contest.”
“What for? Can’t do hills like you and Danni do.”
“You never will if you adopt that sort of attitude, young lady.”
“At least I came out with you, ’s more than Livvie.”
“Livvie hasn’t been that keen on bikes since she outgrew the Barbie bike, I thought you were.”
“Changed my mind.”
“Why?”
“Because I did, all right.”
“I think it’s because you’re scared of hard work.”
“Like why?”
“I see someone who is very clever and to who most things come fairly easy; however, riding a bike requires lots of practice to build up the strength and stamina required, plus of course the skills to ride hills or cope with traffic or distances.”
“What’s the point of getting all hot and sweaty? I do enough of that playin’ soccer.”
“It helps keep you fit and being fit tends to mean you stay well longer.”
“When I’m as old as you, you mean?”
“Certainly that, but also when you’re even older.”
“I’m ten years old, Mummy, I’m not going to worry about when I’m twenty and really old.”
“You need to keep fit, girl.”
“Tell that to Livvie, she does even less than me, so does Mima.”
“They aren’t taking oestrogens having lost their gonads. People like us who have been reassigned can become rather overweight, exercise helps to prevent that.”
“So, I’ll eat less.”
“Okay, I’ll tell the others no more treats like chocolate or ice cream for you.”
“See if I care...”
“You might not, but I do. I also enjoy having you ride with me.”
“That’s why you rode off with Danni?”
“No, I knew Danielle wanted to challenge me.”
“So you could beat her?”
“I wasn’t sure I could.”
“Like I believe that.”
“What you believe is entirely up to you, Trish, all I can say is I enjoy having you ride with me and I know you’d get fitter and faster with practice.”
“You don’t need me, you’ve got a new daughter to play with now.”
“That’s a very hurtful thing to say, Trish.”
“Well it’s true, you don't need me anymore.”
“I remember the day you first came here, that dopy girl from the home brought you over, d’you remember?”
“’Course I do, I was in a wheelchair.”
“I can still see your face when I said you could live as girl if that was what you wanted to do.”
“Yeah so? I was a girl.”
“I didn’t say you weren’t. In fact, I’ve never met Patrick, so to me you’ve always been a girl.”
“So’ve you with me, Mummy.”
“Yeah but the girl in me enjoys a challenge, I thought you did too, obviously I was mistaken.”
“Why can’t I just ride a bike like I do an’ not have to be racin’ people just cos you do?”
I had no real answer to this. “You’d get left behind, is that what you want?”
“Not if you didn’t go so fast, I wouldn’t.”
“Do you like riding with me?”
“Did in the days when you went a bit slower and I could keep up.”
“Okay, sweetheart, I ride at speed because I need to; you don’t and I respect that. I’m not quite sure what will happen in the future...”
“You still got Danni and Hannah to race with.”
“Yes, yes I have, although it was you I wanted to ride with the most.”
“I’ll come if you don’t go so fast.”
“Okay, sweetheart—you best go and shower and put your stuff in the washing machine afterwards.”
“I always do.”
“Because I remind you.” I left her to shower and went to take one myself. I had some thinking to do. Was I bullying her, trying to get her to ride faster than she wanted? It could certainly be seen that way. I just know if she tried harder she’d be a lot better, like she was with the soccer. There, once she realised she was quite good, she enjoyed playing much more, which made her try harder and so on. In her age group, she was the top goal scorer. If I remember correctly, she actually was second in the school with just Danni ahead of her—and let’s face it, Danni on a soccer pitch is something else. If ever she really works out how good she is, we’ll never get her head through the door.
I relaxed and tried not to think of anything but the feel of the warm water on my body, it was magical. Then stepping out into the cooler air and wrapping myself in a thick bath sheet and drying myself. I could hear and feel the wind strengthening, it was supposed to be wet tomorrow with quite high winds. Of course it would be, the children are on summer holidays, it always rains then—bloody weather.
Seriously, the weather is changing, or the climate is which has a knock on effect upon the weather. After drying myself and dressing then doing my hair, I grabbed a cuppa and a quick look at the net. According to the Guardian, some coal mining company wants to develop another opencast site near Caerphilly in South Wales. Apparently, they have one nearby which is the largest man-made hole in Britain. It sounded as if the developers were getting nasty and threatening to bankrupt the local council if they can’t get their own way and develop the new site.
I thought it was acknowledged that burning fossil fuels is increasing the rate of climate change; so these coal mining companies must either be in denial or just greedy, putting profit before the common good. Some of us just never change do we from the greedy, grasping selfish types who seem to represent some sort of primitive urge in us. Most of us want to do well and have comfortable lives but surely not at other people’s expense. I suppose, the changes won’t happen necessarily in their life times, but it will in the lives of their children or grandchildren and quite what will happen we don’t quite know.
Storms will become more frequent, which will make life more difficult, especially for those in vulnerable places. Lots of Asia is below sea level and likely to become inundated. Flooding in places like Boscastle could recur. If the ice caps melt, we could end up with changes to the Gulf Stream and thus experience much colder winters in the UK—it’s possible we could have one this year because the El Nino effect has been seen in the Pacific ocean and it led to a nasty winter here last time it occurred.
Still those who profit from the coal mining won’t worry, they’ll be in their summer homes somewhere that isn’t affected, enjoying the sunshine while we cope with wind and rain—lovely.
Comments
Like a pretzel
Trish's insecurity seems to be tying Cathy up like a pretzel - great dialogue.
I took a look at the Welsh open cast mine and realised that the mining company suing the local council for application costs is a bit like the global corporations suing nations that pass legislation that effects profits the corporations might otherwise have made. Can you imagine a tobacco company suing a country for insisting they increase the size of the health warnings on the packet?
Rhona McCloud
Hope Cathy can inspire Trish to try harder
lovely to see the family getting out for a shared activity. Now, can Cathy get Simon to ride?
I won't argue that the
I won't argue that the climate is changing, that is in fact the course of nature after all. Then again, I don't know how much is to be attributed to man's influence by the means of fossil fuels burning and such. To me it is somewhat all too convenient to blame the industrial revolution, and it's legacy, for it all. I can't be convinced we have that much of an influence on something as complex and vast as the planet's climate. Yes we influence it, but not to the degree that all hinges on us.
At the moment I think it's a little suspiciously convenient for all the global doom advocates and alternative energy supporting industries to prophetize the impending doom of the world lest we repent. Quickly. And pour milliards of dough into the emerging alternatives, who are still in their infancy for the most.
That said, I also am convinced that improving and refining alternatives is the way to go, and to try to wean ourselves from the fossil addiction. Not solely because we should abolish combustion engines and coal-, natural gas-, or oil-burning energy-plants, but also because we should be smart and inventive enough to take advantage of the largest energy source in our solar system.
And, and you may disagree, or scoff at the idea, but I also rely on man's ingenuity and comprehension of physics to be able to address the problem of nuclear energy, i.e. nuclear fusion, in time.
I am an optimist. :)
Jo-Anne
Not Physically Motivated
Not everyone can or wants to be physically competitive. Even when I was masquerading as a man, I was "in it for the long haul", so to speak. Her petulance is somewhat bothersome to me. She sounds a bit jealous about the new arrival and with her history, it is not surprising. She had plonker parents, and then the time in the home added nothing to her life. I have a dear friend who had doper parents, so at times he seems to act a bit Aspergers. Perhaps she's feeling insecure?
As to global warming, I've got 90 pages of a novel, that I did back when the screens were amber and the printers were dot matrix. It deals with the oceans having risen hundreds of feet, the desertification of previously fertile lands, war over resources, and such. It doesn't exist in a data file, so I'd have to keyboard the whole bloody thing again.
It's got war, slavery, BDSM, aliens, drug wars and space ships in it. I wonder if its time has come?
Gwen
SHAME on that coal company
SHAME on that coal company for doing what they are attempting to do that community. That is purely greed in large block letters.
To a point, I agree with some of the stated comments about internal combustion engines having an effect on Global warming.
I do disagree that it is caused totally by man and our use of coal, oil, gas and other carbon based fuels.
It was on the news yesterday due to Obama's newly minted EPA regulations regarding climate change, and global warming; that the year 2014 was the hottest since records keeping started, and the first half of 2015 was following suit. These claims are based on their records keeping for the past 175 years or so.
So naturally he and his minions placed ALL the blame on the coal industry, oil and gas AND us humans.
Really kind of him and them to do so eh? However they can only offer replacement energy sources to be available some 20-50 years down the road.
Strangely, their records keeping can't tell us a lot about PRIOR to that, things like WHY the "Little Ice Age" occurred during the 18th century across the North American continent, Europe, and other places around the world; why it didn't turn into a full blown ice age; and why it went away as rapidly as it did.
They tell us nothing regarding temperature variances up or down around the world and just how extreme they might have been PRIOR to their own stated records times of plus/minus 175 years
Did Global warming in times gone by cause the Sahara Desert? If so, what caused that global warming?
It is known and documented that a large portion of what is now that desert was fertile, green and lush grounds.
How about some of the other deserts around the world or semi-arid lands?
There certainly weren't, as far as we today know, any oil, gas powered vehicles and coal was NOT used to the same extent as it is today. eg: coal fired electrical power plants
Finally how about ALL the carbon dioxide, soot, microscopic dust particles spewed into our atmosphere and higher by ALL the volcanoes we have been witness to erupting around our planet these past years? Each time one goes off, we all see a dimming in the atmosphere. Ever lived near an active volcano? I have during 1980, called Mt. Saint Helens in Washington state.
We have them going off all over the world, and each and every time one does erupt, scientists start mentioning winters similar to what a "nuclear winter" could be like if caused by an atomic bomb.
So why not extremely scorching hot summers on the flip side? HEAT being held IN thus increasing our temperatures?
Just my opinion for what it is worth.
One thing is
for certain those who made profits from coal mining will not be giving it back to the mining areas that have been left looking very desolate indeed, Having just had a few days break in Yorkshire i have seen it with my own eyes what happens when an industry that was for many many years the backbone of the nation has the rug pulled unceremoniously pulled from under them , You can be pretty certain that those at the top of the tree will now be soaking up the sun somewhere where coal mining is very much never thought of ...
Having said that i had a lovely few days away, Yorkshire and especially the Dales is a beautiful part of the country even if it did rain for a large part of Tuesday , Not that it stopped anyone enjoying themselves the amount of people out walking around Malham was quite remarkable, Seems it takes more than a spot of rain to dampen the spirits of the British .... Which is probably just as well !
Kirri
It's a shame
Cathy can't see the joy and benefit of a slow ride with Trish, I always enjoyed taking a slow ride and seeing the surroundings - at least until I blew out my knees.
Maybe Trish can go riding with Simon
Since we know he won’t be able to go fast and Trish might even be able to beat him in a race.