For one reason or another, I hadn’t been out on my bike since the beginning of the year. My trusty old tourer stood in the kitchen, gathering dust as the tyres slowly deflated. It didn’t make me feel great, mentally or physically.

So I recently geed myself up and took my bike in for a service at a local bike shop. A few days later, I cycled it home, exhilarated to be back in the saddle, freewheeling down Plough Road and then shifting smoothly through the gears along Battersea Park Road and home.

Since then, I’ve been out early mornings cycling around Battersea Park once or twice a week, building up the stamina I’d lost, but mostly simply enjoying the sense of freedom cycling gives me, and appreciating the beauty of the park as we move from summer into autumn.

Another benefit of cycling is how it seems to lubricate the creative gears in my brain. I’ve wanted to get back to writing fiction for some time, and having written a very short piece recently, I’m now working on a slightly longer story. Cycling round the park, musing on the story, a few phrases came to me, and an idea of how to develop the story further. It may come to nothing, but to feel that creative spark after a fallow period definitely gives me a boost.