Easter doings

Stymied by the weather, in that we planned for it to be awful and it wasn’t, the Fincher family spent a lot more time outside than in over the Easter break.
With a country fair just up the road, the oldest daughter just a few wobbles away from unassisted cycling and the allotment needing a dig, it was a careful balancing act to keep all the plates spinning.
First up was a trial of a passed-down cycling attachment. I wisely figured that getting the bike hooked up to the back of another bike using a Trail-Gator would ease the passage into two-wheeled transport for Amelie. Our friends had used this successfully around Yorkshire, so the rolling Northamptonshire countryside should be a doddle. Fitting the connecting bar is a bit of a faff - nowhere near as quick as getting our trailer connected from scratch.

Once I’d fitted it, fiddled and fitted it again with old bits of inner tube to protect the paint where the clamps touch the frames, it was an hour-and-a-half later and the girls were getting fractious. Aged five, three and one they expect plans to come together reasonably rapidly once they been revealed, so watching me klutz about with nuts didn’t seem to be getting the job done. By the time the unwieldy contraption was unveiled I had misgivings which Amelie picked up; getting her to board the alarming looking contraption created such bad feeling that we disconnected the Trail Gator and packed her off indoors to calm down, promising she wouldn’t have to try it again that day…

Back on with the trailer, in with the youngest sibling and off up to the local Country Park with middle daughter on her stabilised bike… For about fifty yards, when the hill became too steep for her brakeless technique. So Florence pops into the trailer, the bike hangs off the back and I grind my way the mile up the road. Man, that was hard work. It’s a lot easier on the way back when I pump up the tyres…

So,

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