Always Take The Doughnut
And always always write your diaries
Happy Friday!
And welcome to Bournemouth, where I am writing — no, wait — that’s a lie.
I’m actually dictating this to you through my phone because I have somehow injured my left wrist and it hurts to type.
This injury was really bumming me out — until I re-read my old diaries.
When this injury made itself known last Friday, I had no idea from whence it came and was seriously concerned that my 560km ride from Liverpool to Newcastle had triggered nasties.
Not good when only weeks away from joining Thighs of Steel on a little two month ride from Glasgow to Athens...
A friend of mine got a horrible hand injury from cycling last year that took six months to recover. I can’t do that.
Then, on Monday, the shooting pain caused by my mild evening stretches triggered a flashing memory — a moment exactly like Proust’s petites madeleines, only with more downward dog.
One day in winter, as I came home, my mother, seeing that I was cold, offered me some tea, a thing I did not ordinarily take. I declined at first, and then, for no particular reason, changed my mind.
She sent out for one of those short, plump little cakes called ‘petites madeleines,’ which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim’s shell.
And soon, mechanically, weary after a dull day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake.
No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place.
(I absolutely love that book.)
Unlike Proust, rather than spend the whole of the rest of my life lying in bed tracing back to source this momentary mnemonic sensation, I searched my 2022 and 2021 digital diaries for the word ‘wrist’.
Prosaic, but effective.
I found two patches of entries, in April and November 2021, where I complained of an identical injury to my left wrist.
Reading on, I was relieved to learn that neither of these injuries happened after cycling. The first might have happened pushing my nieces on the swings for an hour, while the second probably happened on a climbing wall.
In November 2021, the injury took about ten days to recover, but only after I stopped typing for a week.
The worry of my injury’s uncertainty has been replaced by resignation — even relaxation — and, furthermore, my diaries uncovered a recovery action plan and timeline.
Score one for diary writing!
Anyway… For those of you new around these parts, welcome 👋 My name is David and I’m a writer, outdoor instructor and cyclist-at-large with Thighs of Steel. I write stories that help you and me understand the world (and ourselves) a little better.
Sometimes I get hurt; I always write diaries.
Welcome to edition 366.
DID SOMEBODY SAY ‘CAKE’?! 🎂
Tomorrow is my birthday!
If you’d like to show your appreciation for this newsletter or simply want to give me a birthday present this year, then please think about making a donation in solidarity with refugees, migrants, and people on the move.
My fundraising page has raised £155 so far — it’d fill me with birthday joy if we could nudge that over £200… today?!
For those of you who have already made a donation: THANK YOU.
Collectively, Thighs of Steel cyclists have raised £24,730 — a solid chunk, but still a ways off our £80,000 target.
This is particularly on my mind because Tuesday was World Refugee Day.
Living as a refugee — indeed, forced migration of any kind — is not a one-day-a-year kind of thing.
JustAction Samos, one of the solidarity projects supported by Thighs of Steel fundraising in 2022, last week reported on the sinking of a ship carrying 400-750 people in the Greek Search and Rescue Zone of the Mediterranean Sea:
Everywhere in Europe, we see the shipwreck described as a ‘tragic accident’. It is tragic. It is heartbreaking.
But an accident it wasn’t. Everything was intended.
The authorities knew what they were doing by not rescuing people in time and by creating this situation in the first place. It’s happening again and again and again.
As in Greece, so too in the UK.
World Refugee Day gives us a minute to pause and remember that there are small things we can all do to change the narrative around migration and move us one step closer to the world that we want to live in.
Every donation is a tiny revolution against the power structures that make leaving home such a deadly decision for many millions of people worldwide.
If you would like to join the 780 people who have already donated to this year’s fundraiser then please click here.
Thank you.
Always Take The Doughnut
Yesterday morning I was walking back from the beach, up the cliffside zigzag, after a sunny run, swim and friend surprise (👋), when I heard the shuddering skid of something wheeled and weighted right behind me.
An electric tricycle.
The young driver wrestled the heavy vehicle into a right angle turn and pointed himself up the zigzag (No Cycling).
‘I nearly missed it,’ he said, before whirring the engine, pumping the pedals and overtaking me at a crawl.
Rather than giving in to some kind of nimby-level irritation at the interruption to our pedestrian slowway, I inspected his vehicle.
(In fairness, the painted No Cycling warning was covered in sand and may well, in any case, be insupportable under law — see here for the fascinating difference between cycling on a footpath and a footway.)
The tricycle was a scuffed red, with a wire basket fixed behind and a black electric motor strapped to the basket. Also in the basket: one box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, four remaining.
Before I really knew what I was doing, I blurted out: ‘Where are you going with those doughnuts?’
‘I’m going to see my wife, share ‘em with ‘er,’ he yelled back, reaching the first of the zigzag’s zigs. Then: ‘D’you want one?’
At this point, post-run, pre-breakfast, I should have said, ‘Ahh — yes please!’
But I didn’t.
Instead, I automatically said, ‘Nah, you’re alright, thanks. That’s really kind, though.’
‘I got ‘em free, at Waterloo station this morning. I told ‘em I was a delivery driver and if I could have a doughnut — they gave me the ‘ole box!’
At this point I definitely should have said, ‘Ahh, go on then — I’d love one.’ After all, it is nearly my birthday.
But I didn’t.
‘I missed my train last night, had to sleep at the station, didn’t I?’ the young man explains, letting me catch up as he struggled with his engine on the steep zags.
‘They won’t give me my money back, even though I got train insurance. Two ‘undred quid they owe me. It’s a joke.’
I commiserated, then smiled as his engine kicked in and the tricycle burned off up the zigzag, scattering the first of the family sunbathers and the last of the early dog walkers.
This microscopic, heartfelt, sunny connection with tricycle-doughnut man got me thinking.
And list-making.
Things I Can’t Do Right Now Because Of My Wrist
Type words on a mechanical keyboard
Play guitar
Shift gear on my bike (chainrings)
Open doors while carrying an object in my right hand
Get into downward dog pose
All very specific things that can be adapted around easily. (And at least one of which I can’t do even with a fully functioning wrist…)
Things I Can Still Do
Dictate words through my phone
Run
Flounder in the gentle waves
Have funny little interactions with strangers
Connect
Listen
Love
Allow
All the important things, in other words.
More than anything, though, tricycle man’s beautiful attitude taught me another of life’s little mottos: Always Take The Doughnut.
Days Of Adventure 2023: 35
🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢 🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢 What is this?
Rest!
Thank you for reading and I hope you found something to take away with you.
This newsletter (and the writer behind it 👋) is 100 percent community supported. I don’t take a wage for my writing, only what appreciative readers choose to give me.
Even better —
⚠️ Make your contribution direct to this year’s Thighs of Steel fundraiser ⚠️
If you’d rather I got paid, then it’s easy for you to give what you feel is right:
There’s also a tier where you can pay £50 or more.
Whatever you choose, thank you.
Big love,
dc: