Accidental musings

I was in an accident. The words seem so innocuous...such a cliché...until the day it happens to you.

At the start of my lovely daily commute,there is about 1 mile of cycle route that happens in traffic. This is legal and fair, and at 7:30 am you'd think there's not much traffic around, right?

There I was, obediently signalling to the left in order to exit the roundabout, and from the corner of my eye a huge, grey blurb moved closer, and closer...ta-dum...ta-dum...a modern-day Jaws...and bang - I went flying. What an absurd moment. It happens so slowly and yet too fast to do anything about it. Sailing through the air, I screeched like a harpy; the sound transposing into a stretched out yelp as we (my bike and I) slid across the asphalt.

My first reaction was absolute, red-hot, straight-from-hell, dripping FURY. But then the pain made itself known, like an unwelcome salesperson persisting at your door.

'Knock, knock.'
'Who's there?'
'Pain.'
'Pain who?'
'From this moment, your constant compainion!'

I left a few things back on the tarmac. A trust that a motorist would see a pink neon-clad cyclist on huge purple bicycle in the
prime position on a bright morning with no other traffic around. A bit of skin. A tad of ego.
But I am alive, in one moving piece, and VERY grateful for that.

PS: On a sober note, according to this brilliant (yet belated, in my case) article on the Cycling Plus website, bikeradar,
this is the rule of the road:

Stay alert, follow the traffic rules, stay alert, look out for HGVs and stay alert.