Fat Gritty Bradley
Some men call their wives “darling”.
To my beloved I am, variously, Cannon Girl and Fat Gritty Bradley.
Cannon Girl was my winter
nom de plume. It came about as I swaddled myself in multiple layers of ‘technical
performance wear’ (pants), thermals and folded newspapers, topping the whole
lot off with a pair of black, bib leggings. I looked like an overstuffed
sausage or, as my husband guffawed, as though I were about to be fired from a
cannon.
Incidentally, newspaper is a
jolly effective insulating material for cycling, unless it rains. I even
fashioned myself some little ear-warmers out of the local paper and wore them,
elf-style, very successfully until I got caught in a downpour. I was picking
papier mache out of my ears for the rest of the day.
In my head, I am Bradley. I
asked for a pair of stick-on sideburns for Christmas but was disappointed to
find nothing fuzzy in my festive stocking.
At first, I was Other
Bradley. Then, the day I finally completed the eight-mile circuit from our
house without having a lie down at the top of the hill, I became Bradley.
Henceforth, Sir Wiggo can only be referred to as Other Bradley.
To be honest, I have been a
bit disappointed in my alter ego of late. I fear the knighthood might have
softened him up. Perhaps he has been spending too much time at the round table
and not enough in the saddle. I explained as much to my permanently bemused
other half: “I’m not the Bradley after the Olympics, I’m the bolshie,
determined, winning Wiggo. I want to be that gritty Bradley.”
“You want to be Fat Gritty
Bradley?” he queried, very little about his wife puzzling him now.
So that is how I came to be
known, despite my best efforts, as Fat Gritty Bradley.
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