No, I’m not blogging about The Pushbike Song (sung by Australian band, The Mixtures, and released in 1970) – I simply need a title for my post, which happens to be about a ride we took on our bikes this afternoon, and the first line of The Pushbike Song came into my head. Unfortunately, I listened to the song whilst I read the lyrics and now it is stuck in my head…

You looked so pretty
As you were ridin along
You looked so pretty
As you were singin this song

Uh uh, aah
Uh uh, aah  etc….

I must try to forget it. Uh, uh, aah. Now where was I? Aah, I remember…

At four o’clock the sun was shining, the air was crisp, and Chris and I headed off in the direction of Dawlish town with the intention of following the brook out of the town and into the countryside. Owing to the hour, we plumped for the relatively short ride to the ford (where we dangle our feet on summer evenings).

At the end of the Newhay path, past St. Gregory’s church, I had just rounded the corner to go under Aller Arch when a voice called out:

“Hello Sally!”

Funnily enough, I knew who it was because I had been thinking of Brian only a few seconds earlier – for some reason we always seem to meet Brian when we cycle around the Newhay.(I used to work with Brian when I was eighteen and he was twenty-six, and now Chris knows him too.) While we laughed about the coincidence and reminisced about the olden days a van pulled up – it was Steve the plumber.

“Hello Sally and Chris, hello Brian,” Steve greeted. Of course, we all know one another – Dawlish is quite a small town.

“I’ll never forget when Sally rode on the back of a dolphin,” Steve launched into a new conversation.

“No, I didn’t ride on his back. I just jumped in, with all my clothes on, and swam with them,” I corrected.

“Well, I remember you jumped in on the morning the dolphins came to Dawlish. I’m going to put my beans in now,” Steve said and he opened the gate to the allotments.

 

On our way back from the ford we called in to the allotments as Steve was putting up his bamboo structures for the beans and he gave us a seat as we discussed a problem we have with the boiler.

“That was a bit of luck,” said Chris as we left and made our way down the Newhay to the church.

A smart lady walked ahead of us and I called out to let her know we were advancing. She turned around and we got off our bikes.

“Hello Pam,” I said.

“How is John?” asked Chris.

 

We arrived home from our short ride two hours after we had set out.

“That was a fruitful ride – wasn’t it?” Chris remarked. “You had nice compliments, Steve is coming to see the boiler tomorrow, and Pam and John have invited us around for coffee – and to think that all we had bargained for was a ride in the sunshine…”

“And that was beautiful!” I said.

“Yes, it was.”

Here are some photo’s…