Chapter 3 - pulled pork and cycle paths

The day began in the morning, as they tend to.  I woke up to the sweet sound of two small children watching cartoons.  

We breakfasted then headed into town where I was left in sole charge of two children in a play-park.  I was a little lost without my usual hi-viz, clipboard, two-way radio and sixty-eight other children, in fact, keeping track of two was a lot trickier.  They climbed up a giant castle, slid down various different slides, rotated rapidly on a roundabout-type thing, then chilled out in a huge circular swing, all whilst making friends with other children.  Both my niece and nephew were present and safely intact when Mummy returned.  Phew, that could have been awkward.  

We headed back to the house for lunch and to check on SAGE the Australian Shepherd - he's had a busy couple of years, bless him, with all those meetings.  

In the afternoon, we cycled to the beach along perfectly maintained cycle paths.  I haven't been on a bicycle since the last time I went on a bicycle, which was when I was last here, in summer 2018, when my tiny niece was even tinier and just crawling around the house - she has no recollection of me ever having visited here.  

I was a little unsteady on my bicycle at first, and may have tumbled off a couple of times initially, until I got my balance.  I couldn't get my head around the gears though - the laws of physics have always been a bit of a mystery to me, particularly in relation to transport.  Learning to drive sort of helped me understand the laws of physics, particularly when I crashed the family mondeo into a neighbour's house after four lessons.  I didn't babysit there again.  I then failed my driving test before I'd left the test centre car-park, but that's another story.

The sun shone and the sea was perfectly clear and great for paddling, which we duly did.  We stopped at an ice-cream parlour for sumptuous banana chocolate chip ice-cream and a cappuccino, then continued on our travels a little further until we found a dinner place where we enjoyed delicious pulled pork sandwiches.  We bundled back onto our bicycles and cycled all the way home.  I've done exercise twice in three days now - steady.