Reminiscing....

Today, as I cycled along on my wee bicycle, something triggered a memory. You know that feeling: when you're doing something totally common place, and all of a sudden you're right back in the past. It could be a smell, a sound, an action, or a thought. In my case it was changing gears up a hill.

All of a sudden I found myself back in New Zealand, on the last day of our epic Otago bike trek. The last leg of the last day featured just 4 lonely souls: Julia, Tim, Uncle Mike and yours truly. It was a magnificent day, crisp, clean and cold and we were meandering along a beautiful tree lined path next to a river bank. But the meandering was short, because quite soon into the track we came across loads of little hills - and so up and down we went, with sharp turns, the failure of which would send us straight into the river. And all of this under a closed canopy of magnificent trees.

Uncle Mike and I left Tim and Julia behind, and I spent a wonderful time whooping and hollering along the track. Trying to get up as much speed as possible on the down hills and screeching (literally) up the up-hills. With Uncle Mike not far away - either in front or behind me. The man needed earplugs by the end, I'm sure, but put up with me without complaint!

At one stage we stopped and created a "tree fall" by stacking up twigs and branches across the path, and then hid in the bushes from Julia and Tim. Okay! It was all me! Uncle Mike just looked on in mild amusement! The idea, and look on Julia's face, kept me giggling for hours.

At one point on the journey, after much gear changing I said: "if we haven't got the hang of the gears by now, we never will", and it was that comment that came back to me as I changed gears up Savages Road this morning. And not only the comment came back at me - the feeling of pure joy that I experienced on that day, came right back at me. I remembered feeling exhilarated and having so much fun! Thank you Uncle Mike, Julia and Tim, for sharing that special day with me - and adding to its pure joy!

I love, that on any ordinary day, a memory can recreate the wonderful feelings of the past.....