The kindness of strangers (and friends)

I was looking forward to the cycle ride home.  I'd had a great stay with some relatives near Jedburgh in the Scottish Borders; and the forecast was fair.  I'd had a quick look at an online map; but only for the portion of the journey to Hawick.  There's a limited number of back-roads in the Borders, and I've known them since my teenage years.   But my plan was foiled through my own haphazard bicycle maintenance regime: I had tried to get a few extra miles out of a ropey old back tyre by attempting a cack-handed botch on it some months ago.  And as is the way with such botches, they often come unstuck at inconvenient times.  And so it was.  Some miles on from Hawick, as I hauled myself up the hill enjoying the sunshine, a metal strand of the wire in the tyre popped out and punctured the inner-tube.  I valiantly but hopelessly attempted an improbable mend.  This resulted only in the tube blowing out again.

Nothing for it but to walk the bike back to Hawick.  In the interim, while I was faffing away with the bike; I may have thought ill - or at least envious - of a person who swept by in a new looking and sparkling BMW coupe.  I can't fully remember if I did; but if so, I shouldn't have.   As the lady drove back down, she stopped, asked me if it was a folding bike and then offered me a lift.  There were a number of problems with this including the fact that her car had beautiful leather seats, her boot was full and my bike was filthy.  But she seemed unfazed; dismissed my concerns by saying any oil from my chain would wipe off.  So I packed the bike and all the other paraphernalia in and a few moments later after a pleasant chat, she dropped me off back in Hawick where the buses to Edinburgh go.  That saved me quite a long walk.

I was wondering how to pass the twenty five minutes until the bus arrived, before someone else at the bus stop engaged me in conversation and before long I was speeding towards Edinburgh.  The views would have been better and I could have taken longer to admire them, if I was travelling the back-roads on a functional push-bike.  But somehow the kindness of a stranger more than compensated for that.  And I always enjoy eavesdropping on fellow passengers during bus journeys.

I disembarked at a shopping centre in South suburban Edinburgh which is a convenient place from where to head home.  There I bumped into a friend and went for a coffee and a chat with him, which was splendid.  That day panned out in an unexpected way; but I received a barrel load of undeserved kindness.