From a cow to a bicycle

My grandparents lived on the farm next to ours, together with my uncle, aunt and cousins.  It was exactly three miles from our house to theirs, and in modern day terms, that would be approximately four and a half kilometers.  My grandfather gave both of my sisters and my one cousin a cow.  My other cousin and I were not yet on the scene, so we lost out on that one.  My big sister named her cow Buttercup, while my middle sister named hers Eggcup.  It was all very well owning a cow, but my middle sister really wanted a bicycle, so my father sold her cow and when she turned six she was given a fairy-cycle.  In hindsight, I can now see that she actually paid for her own present that year.

My middle sister who was a very determined character, spent two days riding around the tennis court until she mastered the art of riding a bicycle, then she promptly proceeded to ride to the next farm, to proudly show my grandparents what she had achieved.  I'm not sure whether she rode back or not, but suspect that my father drove up to fetch her.

The bicycle proved to be a great success with all of us, and even when I grew out of it, I still scrunched up and rode for hours on my own in great looping figures of eight, daydreaming all the while, as my sisters endured the rigors of boarding school.

I always wanted my own bicycle, but never owned one until an uncle of mine died when I was in my thirties and living in a big city, and left me a small inheritance.  The first thing I did, was buy that bicycle.  Unfortunately the satisfaction of eventually owning a bicycle, was not forthcoming.  My needs had changed.  What I wanted then was quite different from what I wanted now.  I had forgotten to do a reality check.  In any event, someone jumped over our wall and stole my bike a few years later, so that was the end of that.  Very much later I bought an exercise bike, which turned out to be about useful as a leg of lamb at a vegetarian dinner party!