"I dunno." I shrugged. "Seemed like a good idea a few hours ago."
"Bloody terrible idea," he said. "From start to finish. You'll get killed, for starters."
"I'm not that clumsy," I retorted with dignity. "I know how to avoid buses you know." (I don't, but it doesn't do for dad to be too right too often: he gets all smug.)
"I'm not talking about the buses," dad said darkly. "So why don't you go somewhere nicer?"
"In Welwyn Garden City? Like where? Round and round the lakes?"
"You could go on the old railway line, you know. That runs all the way to Luton. It's historic, it's a pretty ride, and you'll go through the woods and stuff."
I stared at dad for a few seconds, and I could see the smugness beginning already.
"That," I sighed tiredly, "is a bloody brilliant idea."
"Course it is," he snapped. "That's because I'm bloody brilliant, I am."
So plans - as per all my plans - have been promptly revised. As lovely as the congested roads around Hatfield are at that time of the morning (do I have to say that? I'm worried that somebody from Hatfield will read this and then try and shoot me if I say they're as ugly as hell - even though they are, in fact, possibly even uglier), the romance of an old railway line has won me over. I've geeked up on all my history facts (built in 1860, closed down in 1965: grandma used to ride on it through the woods, with leaves brushing the windows and my aunty in her lap), I've got my camera all charged up and I shall spend tomorrow night trying to fix my bike's puncture. I'm now actually ridiculously excited. It's not exercise that bothers me, you see. It's the ugliness and the pointlessness of most of it. Put me somewhere pretty and historic, and I'll go purple and sweaty very happily.
"And," dad pointed out as we examined the bike which has what looks like a small armchair attached to the frame, "it'll be a nice comfy ride, because you made me put that big old bloody seat on it. When I ride it, all the lads call me all sorts you know."
"It's for speed," I said pointedly, frowning at him.
"Speed and fat bums," he said, and then he went inside before I could call mum and tell her that he called me fat again.
So there's another reason for a woods-based adventure. Trees don't knock you into ditches, they don't run you off the road, and they sure as hell don't tell you that you've got a podgy bottom.
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