It was one of those parental questions implying a degree of autonomy amongst your offspring but in fact is cleverly engineered to steer them towards what you have already planned for them or otherwise have in mind meeting the criteria of low cost and low hassle but critically for today, 14th June, not to overlap in any way, shape or form with the England World Cup match versus Italy.
I led with a few suggestions. These were the worst I could think of by way of softening his expectations for the day.
On the proposed short list.....
"How about a trip to find that head shaped sculpture somewhere near Warrington?",
"What about a walk into town and a celebratory latte and Danish at Starbucks? (I have a voucher)
"We could do a tour of the city museums" (They are free entry)
"Let's go for a pint at the local" (He doesn't drink and has a rather choice opinion on "the local")
"Pub Lunch down the road?". (Similarly vocal on that establishment)
All of the above must, really be quite insulting and downright patronising to a 19 year old.
In fact William, he has a name you know, was determined in what he wanted to on his special day and that was a 56 mile mountain bike trail ride.
That was a positive but the downside was that it inevitably involved me as well. He had ridden the same route on a magnificent solo effort over 6 long and hot hours just the week before and was naturally interested and not a little determined to get around in less time even with a reluctant old man in attendance.
I will be the first to admit that I did struggle a bit in the middle section of the ride, the muddiest and steepest sections and regretted my misguided bravado of churning out the pedal strokes to lead the way for the first part. After all it was flat and with no impeding breeze.
As soon as the terrain began to rise I fell behind by a few lengths and had to stock up on more than my fair share of the packet of Malted Milk biscuits. My reasoning was that the more I ate the less weight I had in my backpack amongst the spares, inner tubes, tool and puncture repair kit. It seemed perfectly rational at the time but then again if suffering from the dreaded cyclists bonk, or loss of energy, anything seems a good idea however absurd. It is evident that Malted Milks take at least half a day to get into your system because only now am I feeling the benefits. A bit of a waste of time after all.
We did eventually limp back to the house after five hours in the saddle. We were mud encrusted, I had an interesting pattern of sweat streaks down my face, (Will looked fresh as a daisy), a sensation in my right leg muscles with cramp, fatigue and a possible hernia competing for my attention but William had seen his birthday wish fulfilled.
Happy Birthday Son.
(We did stop once or twice and this idyllic scene made us stand and stare in utter amazement)
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