Back to the Way of ol' School

It's funny how life turns out to be... since I've moved to this part of the world, I have then discovered so many little delightful things and these are one of the few: Cycling and cross-stitch. Recently me and my Hubs have discovered the wonders of cycling in our city. I've totally forgotten how fun cycling can be. Bear in mind, I haven't cycled for yonkers (not since back in primary schooldays with pigtails and tomboy lifestyle - used to do all sort of basic stunts on my old bike and going out every evening to cycle)! To discover it all over again is so exciting. We have discovered our city in nooks and corners, appreciating the freedom of going anywhere we wanted within our capabilities (my stamina is definitely not there yet) and I absolutely loved it! The best part is parking is free for bicycles! ;) I'm looking for all kind of excuses to bring my bicycle out for a ride especially now we're blessed with good weather during spring (hmm.. perhaps not the past 2 days however good weather will come back soon enough).

I've a confession to make: it was love at first sight when I saw THE bicycle :) The shopowner really nailed it on the spot when he brought it out. It was perfect...metallic soft green with a few motives on it, 7-gears, enclosed & maintenance-free chainguard. It's a woman's bicycle but yet with my petite size, the frame was a tact lower than the standard frames. It wasn't in our plan to buy me a new bicycle. We were looking for a second hand bicycle. Of course, nice things do come with a 'nice' price. And for us it's EUR500 (after a off-season discount). I was appalled! (coming from a person who had a bike when she was 12 years old, a pressie from her daddy, so a little ignorant when it comes to prices of bicycles these days). We left the shop empty handed as we wanted to shop around first in other bicycle shops. After a few days of window shopping, we've decided that we should invest in THE bike that we saw a few days earlier. And here we are, with my new bike. On top of that, I've bought a nice flower power bicycle bag to go with it. The colours just matched ;) Look at that, ain't she a beauty :)
Cross stitch aaah doesn't this hobby ring a familiar bell? I used to do so many cross stitches when I was in my schooling days. It was definitely a craze then. Every girl do cross stitch and I'm no different than the rest! And now I've picked up this hobby as my new project. After decades of not doing it, it was a disaster my first 'masterpiece' :( So that has to be discarded and restarted a second one. The end product of it looked like this....

The imperfect first 'masterpiece' after decades of retirement from it. It's hard work!