Car-free means care-free

I can't tell you how exhilerating it feels to pedal off to school, my daughter tagging along behind, her book bag and lunch box in the basket on the front of my bike, and the car resolutely left on the drive. Fresh air, exercise, and a new perspective on the world are so easily accessible on a bike, and it is infinitely pleasing to leave the car at home. I read a statistic the other day that people who cycle regularly are 50% less likely to suffer from depression. There's such a feeling of freedom, and it is so easy to connect to other people by shouting out a greeting as you shoot past. People say things like "That's lovely to see", or, commenting on my daughter's tag-along bike, "That's the way to travel"! It really brings a smile to my face.

As a result, our school run has been transformed. Rather than bundling grumpy children into the car on the last minute, angrily driving round to school cursing our constant lack of punctuality and using far more diesel and far less safety-consciousness than driving calmly, the school journey is now so much more fun: the kids can't wait to get outside and I represent far less of a threat on the road.

My son goes ahead on his scooter, and when we get to school we meet him in the playground and he gives me the scooter to bring home with me. (Unfortunately the school doesn't have enough space to store bikes and scooters during the school day.) I had to dig out a large rucksack to carry the scooter home, and the only downside is that this gives me a bit of neck and shoulder ache. But then again, so does persistent hunching over a steering wheel. I just have to choose.

SO enthusiastic am I about being on my bike that I started oggling a bike trailer somebody had the other day. Ooh - the things I could get in that and pull around with me! A little while ago I heard about a chap here in Swindon who used his bike trailer to transport his old fridge to the domestic recycling centre. I am in awe.

Sausages for Tea

In this day and age of local food, farmers' markets, the annually observed National Butchers' Week (just passed) and neurotic, middle-class "ethical consumerism", of course I agonise over how planet-friendly and compassionately farmed the meat I buy is. But since I also have 2 children and a husband, mostly I agonise over whether my fussy family will eat whatever I prepare with it, or whether the wretched animal gave up its cutlets or loin chops in vain, just to find themselves chucked in the bin, which now sits outside our house for two weeks before the Council empty it, as opposed to the original seven days. It's a doubly ignominious end to a life lived in organic pasture.



In our house we've got into a bit of an impasse over food on numerous occasions, largely due to the fact that my husband and my kids like eating certain things over and over again and I get bored cooking the same things over and over again, so try and experiment with something different occasionally. I'm not talking about anything too exotic, lamb shanks maybe, or duck-breast. The ox-tail I had in the freezer had to go last week, no doubt to the extreme relief of everyone else in the household, because the heating element-?!- or something in said appliance failed and all the contents defrosted. (Hmm - now I'm wondering whether there has been some sort of conspiracy...)



Thankfully the one dependable meat which I can prepare without causing ructions is sausages. Usually baked in a herby tomato sauce and served with conchiglie pasta. It HAS to be conchiglie, because then I can count on some of the tomato sauce stowing away in the centre of the shell on the perilous journey from plate to mouth, so at least the kids get a bit of their 5-a-day without even realising it. This is a meal which invariably elicits a cheer when it is announced, on the back of THE wary question from my ten-year-old: "What's for tea Mum?"



So tonight sausages are on the menu, and cheers will ring out. There shall also be a healthy serving of all kinds of veggies, which noone but myself will eat of course. If I serve up too many visible vegetables on the plates of my husband and my kids there will be "playing with food" rather than "eating" taking place at the dinner table, and usually this results in me storming sulkily out of the kitchen, feeling unappreciated and under-valued. It happened just last week, when there were too many leeks in the creamy bacon and leek sauce to accompany the spaghetti. I ended up fuming in the dark in our bedroom, and my son has been bending over backwards all week to ingratiate himself with me and put things to rights. I'm not one to bear grudges, not at all, it's just that meals can be such emotive occasions and food can be such an incendiary topic that every so often there is an explosion, only to be calmed by mutiple peace offerings and, the piece de resistance, sausages for tea.