Cold Hard Ground

I woke up Sunday to find my mountain bike had ice tyres on it.  This was good news.

The snow in March debate seems to have been raging somewhat.  Personally, I'm confused by the folk who are bemoaning the weather, feeling somehow resentful about it stretching into March, feeling somehow angry about the ongoing cold.  I don't get it.  I don't  understand why it's not just something you joyfully accept.  I mean, yes, the weather does make me change plans sometimes, but why not just embrace that as change and enjoy the consequences?  I didn't ride to work today, mostly because I am lazy and didn't really consider simply swapping the tyres on the road bike, but that doesn't mean the weather is bad, it just means I'm lazy and I'm doing things differently.  It's really not a big deal.

The weekend just gone saw some fabulous sights.  It saw roads closed due to drifting snow, patterns in dry stone walls, 4x4s stuck on the way up back streets.  Roads where suddenly bikes and walkers were empowered to walk down the middle.  If you were prepared to go on foot and pedal a new world was open to you.  A weird feeling of having reclaimed the isolated places.  Places which aren't normally isolated, but somehow, perhaps should be.  It felt special to be up there, riding on ice tyres along the back streets where normally maybe I wouldn't ride at all, or maybe I'd feel I needed to manage my riding so that sometimes I hug the kerb and others I own my space.  It felt good to ride down the middle of the road, revelling in the views only a few would see that day in those conditions.

It doesn't feel weird to me at all, this weather system in March.  But then I did have a summer which ran from mid December until the end of January and that didn't feel weird either.

And I leave you humming along to Taylor Swift ...

"Flew me to places I'd never been
Now I'm lying on the cold hard ground
Oh, oh, trouble, trouble, trouble
Oh, oh, trouble, trouble, trouble"