I take the bike to the shop to get the bottom bracket tightened.

A man and his daughter are there in the thin aisle, with a pram.  They’ve picked out a helmet for the girl.

‘Would you like a bag for that?  She does, pleased as punch to have it.

The pram starts making noises, a baby gurgling and moaning.  The father is paying for the helmet, the daughter turns to the pram.

‘No,’ she says, ‘ you can’t have a helmet!  It’s my helmet.’

The baby is still making noises, spurting as if about to cry.  The girl rocks the pram slightly.

‘Nope.  You’re only two years old!  You’re too young for a helmet.  And besides, it’s mine.’

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Later, I am riding down Mare Street.  A bus slows down and pulls over, but before I can get around I have the additional obstacle of an extremely slow cyclist.  I pull around both and speed up, to find a truck pulled halfway onto the road, waiting for an open spot to go the opposite direction.  I slow down, and drift to the left a bit.

‘Excuse me,’ I hear, followed by an unintelligible sentence.  I turn, and it is the cyclist I just passed.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘I said, it is customary to pull in AFTER you pass someone, not whilst you are passing them.’  Her pronunciation is crisp, exact.

‘I was stopping for the truck.’

‘Yes, but you pulled in whilst you were doing so.’

‘I didn’t realise.’  I give her my most heavily sardonic ‘I apoligise’ and cycle off.

Minutes later, I am practicing my usual habit of coming up with silent comebacks after the fact.  I’m sorry, you were so slow I thought I had passed you already.  Oh really, I really didn’t know I had to pass you and THEN pull over.

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Pulling out from the light coming off London Bridge, a wave of cyclists spill forward.  A bendy bus is not quite in the way, having started out into the intersection as our light changed.  We are having no real obstruction, but this doesn’t stop the cyclist to my right going up on his feet, opening his mouth wide and sticking his tongue out at the bus driver.  Seems unnecessary to me, but he’s fast and assured so I imagine he’s had an earlier encounter.

At the next light, he’s in front.  The light changes, and his chain slips.  We all head on, while he’s still fiddling with gears.  In a new light, he is young, adolescent, misplaced and awkward.