A Good Ride

I am about to get my bike off the balcony, get into my biking shorts (etc.) and take a ride. Weather sunny, but cooler than yesterday. Maybe I’m going to have another go at the bottom half of Old La Honda, maybe as far as the narrow passage between the redwood trees. It’s not the prettiest ride around, because it’s house after house most of the way up, but it is the most challenging, and at some point I want to be able to say I made it to the top: Skyline, the ridge, whence the roads go down to the ocean. I won’t be going down to the ocean because then I’d have to ride back up, and in my books a good hike or ride is always uphill, then downhill.

I borrowed a novel by the Polish Nobel prize, Olga Tokarszuk: House of Day, House of Night. It’s lovely, I highly recommend it, though it’s probably not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. Still reading Pessoa, Tabbuchi. The reals estate agent who sold us this apartment managed to tamp down my enthusiasm for visiting a new apartment. Of course, I know she’s right; not a good idea to move, but I do love my nesting dreams, new rooms to arrange. My daughter sent me a funny story about buying greengages in the fruit and vegetable shop in the Vaucluse, and it makes a good poem. I think I’ve nailed the one about—again—bedsheets.