looking pretty, feeling fine

Somewhere in the middle of the story I am about to relate there is a moral - I'm struggling to find it, but I just know it's in there somewhere.

Maybe I should start at the beginning.  Yesterday afternoon I had an appointment to shoot pictures for the latest in my 'French girlfriend' series,  it was a beautiful day, I decided to cycle the 20km there and back.  Had a great time, easy ride, stopped to take some pictures en route, picked some berries for the imminent Christmas wreath, ... all went like a dream.

At 5pm I collected my youngest from school and stopped at the sports shop on the way home.  Well, you can imagine after 20km on my bike, I was feeling like a positive sporty saint, and we sailed around the store looking enthusiastically at all sorts of instruments of torture  exercise machines, then we got to the cycle stand where my son was thrilled to find an electric bike and asked permission to try.  A very nice young salesman tried to sell it to us explained what a marvellous machine it was, and my boy was off.  Well, it looked such fun and I was feeling so sporty for the afore mentioned reasons, that I expressed the desire to have a go too.

Let me tell you never to ride a bike inside a shop with highly polished concrete flooring.  I sailed up and down a couple of alleys like a real pro, and was attracting rounds of applause and gasps of admiration (OK,  that bit I made up) until the last bend, where the bike and I parted company!  The shiny floor took control of the brand new wheels and pulled them from beneath me.

I am sorry to report that the first part of my body to hit the ground was my cheekbone, now black and swollen, hence the photo at the top of this post.  The resemblance is alarming, but there's no way I'm showing you a photo so you'll have to take my word on that one.

My sweet son  managed to mutter something about it being quite cool to have a mother who wants to try things out;  the staff in the store were in a frenzy, worried no doubt that I was about to sue, but I'm not that kind of a girl!

It is extremely annoying to have to admit that one is growing older, and although I don't feel I should abstain from being very active,  I guess that  age dictates that we have to become more wary of what we do - especially in public!!