Onwards!

 

 

A strange dream.

I am cycling into a village and ride past a turning I have never bothered with as the lane appears to meander back to the road I am already on. But I change my mind. I turn around to experiment and immediately find that following me are a large peloton of amateur cyclists who get in my way, forcing me to brake and swerve as I struggle to get into the lane.

I do succeed, having fought hard against the crowd, but the metalled surface soon turns to sand and mud and I still have to fight and heave and push to move forward – I am somehow simultaneously cycling, but grabbing handfuls of earth to haul myself on to make any sort of progress.

But I make it. I arrive back to the road I was on, but now unencumbered by the others who were swamping me, feeling empowered by my choice.

 

I think about what this unsettling dream means as I cycle for real up the sharp rise out of Coddenham – having just taken the alternate lane that goes through the north of the village towards the old Roman road to Pettaugh.

Writers deal with metaphor on a daily basis, and so the meaning of dreams – as my subconscious works through the problems of art and marketing – do not need much thought.

The sun illuminates the landscape and I breathe in deep and long.

That sharp rise is a bugger to cycle up.