Hail to the weather, for you make me look like a tit!

I shall have to start this post with a word of warning. Always wear glasses when cycling! This was probably the only good choice I made yesterday, preparing for a mystery shop in Selby.

Something that may have come apparent through other posts, I do a lot of cycling to cover my shops. It’s an excuse to feel like I’m getting fit when really I’m freewheeling downhill most of the time. It’s like when you buy a gym membership but never actually go to the gym; yet you feel like it’s working for you anyway.

Unfortunately, being outdoors most of the time leaves me fairly susceptible to the weather. And, seeing as it’s springtime and the sky is more unpredictable than England’s fast-pace bowling attack (sorry I’m watching the cricket at the moment), I encountered a delightful spot of hail whilst biking in my t-shirt.

Hail is pretty cool when you’re inside. You can watch it bounce off the cars and roads and laugh at all the silly pedestrians running for cover, hiding under their laptop cases and lever arch files.

But, what happens when you’re the one on the outside? When you’re the one stuck on a bike in the middle of the road? When you’re hands are burning with ice-cold needle pains? What happens when the holes of your helmet start filling up with hail, brimming over the side? I felt like some shitty bicarbonate of soda volcano for a school science project.

I had to stop off at the uni (still in the hail) to drop some books off at the library. Of course, the bike park with a roof over was full, so I had to park up outside in the storm, which is good for the rust to metal ratio currently accelerating on my bike as it is.

As I got up and began to walk to the library, a strange sensation tickled me. Ice that had been collecting in the gap between my belt and my lower back as I had sat on my bike had just found the space to slip down into my boxers. Delightful. So I was now soaking wet both inside as well as out. You have no idea how uncomfortable it is to try and defrost hailstones down your pants whilst attempting to walk in a vaguely reputable manner.

So, I walk up to the library with my buttocks clenched, drop off my books, and then go look for some others. I find the English section, found the genre I was looking for (poetry if you must know), and delved into the arse pocket of my jeans to find my pen and paper.

Shit.

My paper was a lot more moist than it was when I wrote down the books I wanted. I felt the back of my jeans to realise I had a huge wet streak right up the middle of my trousers. The water must have been sprayed onto my backside from the back wheel of my bike.

Great, so I had looked like a volcano and a waterfall at the same time, pedalling away. Plus the paper was ruined and so I didn’t know which books I needed.

It was still raining when I got out of the library, and so I decided to walk down to the station in order to avoid further wet streak development. Thankfully, the weather had dried up by the time I was on the platform waiting for the Selby train (if I had biked down I would have just made an earlier one). So, devised a little scheme to sort my trousers out, unnoticed.

By standing with my back to the wind on the open platform, I let the weather do its job. There’s a scene on Mr. Bean’s movie, when he spills water on his crotch and so wafts it in front of a hand drier in a public toilets in order to dry himself. I felt like Mr. Bean. Ever so slightly bent forwards, legs wide apart, letting the back of my jeans waft in the wind. To be honest, most of my dignity had gone by that point anyway.

The train arrived and I boarded nice and dry. I was happy. I had food awaiting me in Tesco in Selby, my bum was dry, and the Sun was out. This happiness lasted all through the train journey, all through walking around Selby, all through the mystery shop itself, and all the way back to the station.

I was still happy when the train arrived to take me back to Leeds. I was happy getting up off my seat and packing away my stuff. I was happy slinging my bag over my shoulder. What I was not happy about was the very dark stain, like gritty mud, that was left on my seat. ‘That wasn’t there before’ I thought. Oh dear. Feverishly scrambling and twisting my jeans I saw the remnants of the bike ride in the hailstorm. A great streak of mud, now dried, creeping up my legs. I’m guessing the road water that flecked onto my arse earlier was the source, full of mucky shite from car engines and dogs and post-grads.

I got on the train, threw my bag on the seat beside me, and slumped down on the seat. My happiness had left me somewhat, for I had just walked around a whole town with dark streaks of mud up my trousers, after having dried them out discretely on a station platform, after having walked round the university library with a thawing backside, after having collected the majority of produce from a brief but heavy hailstorm in my bicycle helmet!

I was slightly disheartened. But then again, a Mars Bar easter egg for 99p including two bars? My day was a success after all.