We lunched with friends on the southern boundary of the county today, east of Westport and north of Plum Hollow. It is an unhurried drive from here to there and back. Aside from a passably good meal – and some bakery delicacies afterwards – we caught up on all that had transpired over the winter including of course brief summaries of the mid-winter explorations and related social activity and encounters. Our focus was uninterrupted by either staff or the meal, as we strategically dissolved the seasonal snowballs and re-engineered ourselves for a new beginning at the golf club.
On our way homeward mid-afternoon I routinely contemplated fulfillment of my usual and shamelessly common enterprises but instead subdued the calling and relented to the struggling control of my instincts which – equally dilatory – provoked me only to spend more time with my new tricycle in hopes of conditioning myself to its proper operation. It was to my surprise a profitable diversion (and this before having read the “display” manual – more on that later). For one, I mustered the ascent of the slope from the subterranean garage to the surface. It’s a small victory but nonetheless an important one because it has in the past impeded my enthusiasm (and the joints of my limbs).
Another gain was the application of the electric spirit to the mechanical output. This particular electric tricycle is best described as an “assist trike”; that is, it is not, for example, a scooter that just keeps running when the power is turned on. Instead it expels its power (in three different degrees of choice, small, medium and large) when the pedals are rotated. Thus, if the power is on (at one, two or three), nothing happens until the pedals are pushed. Depending upon the power level, the trike moves ahead calmly, more quickly or speedily; but – I remind you – one must continue to pedal or the power quits. This is especially material when mounting an incline (as I discovered – but not to my distress).
Third – and this is perhaps most important – my outdoor sleuth about the neighbourhood reminded me that the most significant feature of the trike is the moderate level of exercise it affords. I have already accommodated my thinking to my age; which is to say, at 76 years of age I am not about to punish myself with exercise. The object is not to sweat; rather, to gently glow.
Now back to that remark about the manual. Last evening I emailed the retailer from whom I bought the trike, asking whether I could get an owner’s manual on the internet. My attempts had failed. This morning I had a reply from the Canadian distributor of the trike, attaching a manual. The manual was not however a manual for the operation of the complete trike. It was limited to a manual of the “display” by which one activates the electric pulse. Matters relating to changing gears, for example, were left to me to negotiate. Which, thankfully, I did. By trial and error mostly, but it worked. The customary 8-gears of a bicycle or tricycle are available on this electric trike. While I don’t expect I’d ever use the eighth gear with normal pedalling only, it was handsomely employed when I turned on the electric strength. My suspicion is that I shall reserve the top mechanical gears for when I am venturing along the old railway line toward the Village of Blakeney.
The reward of this latter educational undertaking was instantaneous. Because of our substantial luncheon today we had already determined not to have anything by way of dinner this evening apart from a bowl of berries. At 4:45pm – when there was still time for a daylight drive into the city for a car wash – I was off in a flash! The sky and evening clouds were magnificent. Getting back in the saddle made a difference. It requires the smallest degree of interference in the monotony of my mundane existence to disturb the works. Getting home, regaining the traditional tedium, having the guerdon of moderate accomplishment, all enforced the metaphoric utility and necessity of winding a clock – which by the way I also did.