On and on and on it goes

Cooking with granny!

 The past nine months have been a emotional jumble box and consequently I'm sure you will have noticed that I have neglected this blog. Yes life matters have been scattered on my planetary journey, and they have appeared as figurative de-railing tin tacks.

Losing my beautiful mother last October opened up a pantry of emotions and piled them all into a life-time mixing bowl.

There was bereavement and happiness and gratitude and hilarity and a tonne of memories swirling around, and I suppose really I just feel so immensely grateful that I was (am) her daughter and equally so contented that today I see her all around me, in myself and my sister, and my children and my nieces. She has left an indelible stamp on all of us who were lucky enough to know her, and no kidding a pile of funny, loving, cranky, outspoken women with opinions who pipe up continuously and see themselves as life advisors for everyone, politicians and all.

Darling Mum, thank you! Xx

But you lose one beautiful person, and another comes into your life who then prodigiously proceeds to turn everything upside down in the most magical and wondrous way.

Meet Harriet the most wonderful baby ever, my beautiful gorgeous fabulous granddaughter.

Oh boy, the fight in me just got a whole lot bigger and fiercer!

And so back to all things bicycle - I mean that fight is just not over yet, is it!!!

Thus having had a bit of a hiatus in relation to riding my bicycle around Scone what with unbearable 'heatwave weather' conditions and unbearable 'heatwave police' enthusiasm for issuing me with helmet infringement notices, the actual weather now in Scone is utterly glorious and autumnal and perfect for using my bicycle for popping into town.

So two weekends ago, my husband and I cycled the 8½ kms into town to have dinner with two of our friends at one of the local pubs, the fabulous Thoroughbred Hotel.

Then at around 10:30pm we said our fond farewells, and off we went to our respective homes. Scone on a typical Saturday night is .... shhhhhhhhh very quiet, yes we're talking country town here ... very very quiet!!!! ... a cat, a fox, a wombat, a mopoke ... nothing else!

But no kidding within minutes  of us un-padlocking our bikes and setting off for home those familiar blue and red lights that I have come to know and not love were lighting up the valley and I was being pulled over for ... yup you guessed it "AUSTRALIAN BICYCLE HELMET CRIME" ...

"Oh Sue" (policeman to me)

"Oh Dave" (me to policeman)

And after languishing for so long, having been kicked into touch some time ago, my Groundhog-Day-Australian-bicycle-helmet-saga" was tossed back into the line-up.

Sigh.

And so it came to pass that I sat myself down this week and wrote to Minister Andrew Constance, head pooh-bah of the Department of Transport, which since the recent NSW elections has subsumed the former stand-alone Roads and Maritime Services, setting out why I should be exempt to rule 256 in the NSW Road Rules by virtue of s19 Sales of Goods Act 1923 (NSW).

In my letter, I copied in my local member, the Hon. Michael Johnsen MP, Chief Inspector Guy Guiana of the Hunter Valley Local Area Command, Mr Mike Pritchard of ABC Upper Hunter Rural radio, Ms Liz Flaherty of the "scone.com.au" blog and Ms Kathy Francis of Freestyle Cyclists, and now I wait to see what if anything will come out of this latest episode, including even an actual ticket, which as I type this blogpost, still hasn't eventuated! - and maybe it won't!!!

Oh funtimes indeed - here we go again.