Proposition in the Park

As I cycled in this morning, heading north through Hyde Park towards Speaker’s Corner, another cyclist overtook, then stopped dead. I overtook him, then he came up alongside. He said he had also once had a Dawes Mean Street of this vintage – I bought the bike in 1990, I think, but his had been wrecked in a traffic accident. He wanted to buy mine, but I had to declare my love for it – not least with its various scars and dents from accidents it has somehow carried me through. But a rather nice moment, nonetheless. A bit like having another rider admire one’s horse, not least because I had just passed a couple of what looked like Buckingham Palace horse-drawn carriages about three minutes earlier.