Let them eat cake.

It was my duty during the week to provide morning tea for my work colleagues. Fortunately, the Goddess in charge of the house is always willing to help out. I have long given up suggesting that I could simply grab something from the local supermarket. “It’s ok”, I say. “Most do it that way”. Few households I know, have someone at home to do ‘luxury’ things like home baking. It’s a busy world we live in. Who has time to prepare a morning tea for work colleagues? It’s hard enough just taking care of ones own family needs.

For our household, having a someone at home is a positive lifestyle choice. Much like, choosing to use a bicycle rather than having to run a second car. And rather than feeling that this is a ‘constraint’, I find it rather liberating. (Especially when you are aware of the high cost of running a car). We have to negotiate over the use of the car. We have to ask friends/colleagues/sports team members to car pool. These are good things, socially, environmentally and economically. Sometimes we have to choose not to do things because they simply can’t be done, logistically. Limiting choices is what’s needed sometimes. Naturally, this attempt at slowing down of life brings the benefits of having more quality interaction time with the children and for us adults. And even though we know that there are real benefits to doing it the slow way, and it’s easy to say it, its much harder to commit to it.

Choosing a place to live is important. Being close to local ammenities such as shops, a library or sports clubs for the children, makes a huge difference in the amount of time you have to spend travelling. Unfortunately, personal mobility choices still feel very poor in New Zealand. Antropologist will tell you that good personal mobility is one of the key factors that accounts for longevity amongst citizens.

So as my darling was icing the two cakes that I was to take to work, I had to think of my options for transporting them the 8km distance to my place of employment. There were plenty of options really and none of them involved having to take the car. I have a BOB trailer (a topic for a future posting, perhaps) that would have worked but that would have rather over-indulged the cakes. My trusty panniers would probably take one, if I loaded it up the top end and if the cake was resting on a solid base to keep it upright. The second one was just going to have to hang over my handle bars in a plastic shopping bag. And that’s how it worked. I just tied the plastic bag in a way that stopped the cake slopping about inside the bag.

The journey was uneventful, I rode a little slower and more cautiously than usual and everyone I spoke to loved the cakes. Success all round.

P.S: They were carrot cakes.

Cycling-the non-vehicular way.