A day of unintended consequences

As I walked the 🐕 to daycare I realised I had everything I needed with me. Not in a profound way, but in a literal way. So after I dropped her off I continued walking to work. The canal was beautiful in sunrise. Nature abounded. Songthrush, long tailed tits, greenfinch. I saw a man cross the Tinsley lock and decided to investigate the route on foot. I knew it reached the inner roundabout at J34 of the M1 but I did not realise it was such an oasis. Flimsy downy webs of frosted petals, long dead, glowed pink in the sunrise while Holly and rowan berries gleamed like tiny fruit against the white dust. I started hunting for bivi spots a la @Verena and as I stepped over a fallen tree my mind slid back to another time of sleeping out under frosts. A beautiful weeping willow offered up the best option for tree cover with flat ground. And still the trucks rolled by. I took a seat to write a few times, captivated by what had made the trails through the 1960s tarmac paths covered in dead leaves. Animals? Rough sleepers? Poor commuters? People like me? My questions were answered by a gaggle of children on their way to school. I pressed on. The M1 cut a ribbon like a river up the hill into Nottinghamshire. More new routes opened up to me from this new perspective of being on foot, watching the world unfold at a slower pace. Another duck under the underpass and I emerged next to a high fence, the motorway slip road on the other side. I broke into a wry grin. Someone had a lot of fun here on bonfire night! Tens of rocket carcasses libed the path. I should be scathing horrified but secretly I admired their daring. My new route cut out 2/3 of the uncomfortable road crossings and glass-splattered piss-ridden underpasses. I emerged on the road to work on the side I never ever use. It would be the right hand side for the direction of travel, so why would I have used it? But with the scooter it becomes legit. A tall grassy bank segregates it beautifully from the road. UntilI got to the shopping arcade where I buy my lunch. The pharmacy didn't have my drugs but the detour to try for them took my past this amazing maple holding onto a few nuts and the last of its leaves. I bought myself second breakfast to sustain my energies and revelled in eating it warm as I finished my hike up the hill. By now I was missing my scooter for the flat bits. My office day was nice and quiet. A few meetings came and went but I was gearing up for an afternoon session with the boss and some news about a project. The meeting happened and as I made to leave I got good news and approval for a new team mate. I was over the moon and left in a hurry to celebrate with the gift of daylight. The last of it made for a dramatically orange end which had Forgemasters swathed in inky blue and these thistles outlined with gold. I watched the last of the sun disappearing behind the locks again and bouncing light off successive levels of water. @cycling tiger wanted to drive out to a country pub and was walking to meet me from.doggy daycare. This turned into a catastrophic decision as we got ensnared in successive rounds of congestion. Low on diesel we eventually parked and took the dog for a walk. We wandered through town trying to come up with a dog friendly eatery but before we could, the Christmas Market dragged us in and we ate bratwurst and drank mulled wine on a stone bench behind the wooden trailers. It wasthe most Christmassy we've ever been on 1st December. We walked a different way back to the van and stumbled upon the bracket for my scooter light that I'd dropped yesterday. I was about to tear the house down thus weekend looking for that so, saved me a job. Thankfully the van was in the precarious parking spot we'd left it and the traffic had receded enough for us to pull back into traffic and resume with some progress. The adventure of getting home on fumes only brought us closer together as we ran the engine through successive light changes just to warm everyone up following our routemarch through town. It wa all made more exciting by Tescos being out of diesel, leaving us holding our breath until the next one. Did our dog walk mean that we missed the spectacular crash the parked someone's BMW on the traffic light bollards in the central reservation? We'll never know. 13 hours after originally leaving home without my scooter I arrived home with no visit to a country pub completed and absolutely no desire to drive anywhere tomorrow. There's irony that I didn't drive to work because I was tired, yet now I'm fecking exhausted but man, was it every a day worth completing! I might actually look forwards to next week now.