This Old Sporting Life...

This old sporting life...

Those who read these columns regularly will know I spend a great deal of time riding around on bicycles. It will also not have gone unnoticed that not so long ago I had an hip operation.

It's spring and the cycling season has really started. For several weeks now I have been out in the forests or on the roads. Most weekends I have joined a group of cycling friends on their Sunday rides. Despite having to drop off the rear of the bunch a few times my teammates have been very complimentary about my progress and performance. Even my physiotherapist, who also happens to be one of the group, is impressed at the speed of my recovery.

My own feelings, however, are somewhat mixed!

I am pleased, and a little proud, that I was back on a bike just five weeks after the hip operation, a week ahead of schedule. A week later, six weeks earlier than most predictions, I'd already made a few trips on my mountain and road racing bikes. However, although it slipped by almost unnoticed, I can't avoid the fact that between the operation and my cycling come-back I had a birthday. It was my 70^th birthday. Seventy! How did that happen? It seems such a short time ago that I was pretending to be 18 so that I get into bars! Anyway, the point is, I have no idea what level of cycling performance I can reasonably expect at this age. Is there still room for improvement or is this as good as it gets? And what about all those sports related aches and pains? Which ones will eventually just go away, which ones can be treated and which ones are here to stay?

Yes I know, some of you will be thinking that at my age I should be sitting in an armchair watching sport on TV. That I should be down the pub sipping beer and grumbling about how things used to be better and that I should not be cycling around the countryside dressed in tight fitting cycling clothes. You may be right but my confusion is not restricted to my cycling activities.

Many of my friends are working less, will soon stop working or have already retired. That I have stopped  working as a  bike courier was inevitable, it was time, I don't miss it. Unfortunately, though, most of the clients and contacts for whom I provide cartoons and illustrations are also slowing down, stopping, moving on or changing direction. That leaves me both happily retired and desperately looking for work at the same time! My search for work is partly motivated by financial reasons (artists don't have pensions) but it has even more to do with fulfilment. Rest and relaxation is not for me. I need and want some stress, some challenges and some serious deadlines to stimulate my creativity. And I need an audience to create for. As for recreation, well, a whole lot of activities are no way near so much fun when you have all the time in the world to do them.

I am lucky enough to have many young real and virtual friends. A large proportion of these live in or come from Kyrgyzstan. I am pleased to say they they don't treat me with all the respect that they have been brought up to show their elders and in the same way I have always treated them as fully grown adults which means that we converse or communicate on fairly equal terms. Because I am older and therefore theoretically wiser, they do however at times ask my advice. Well I suppose I am wiser,  wise enough to know I shouldn't be giving advice to anyone.  However I am quite prepared to relate my experiences and share my opinions so that they can make their own mistakes! On the other hand, to be honest, I learn a lot from them, not just about their background and culture but as they progress up the educational ladder some of them are simply getting to be a whole lot smarter than me!

However it will be a long time before they are qualified or experienced enough to help me with my current dilemma: 
the birthday I mentioned was four months ago and I still don't know how to be seventy!