Mr SHS addresses the nation…
We actually got this fabulous, Kranich two-seater cycle trailer on an extended loan from a friend and neighbour who’s currently away in Tennessee, considering a move to Memphis or some place similar. If she does decide her future lies in the States, we get to buy the trailer which would be great, though we’d much rather see her and her kids return to Manchester. Either way we get to borrow it for the summer, and as lending and borrowing is another part of our secondhand year, that’s why we’re reporting on it here.
In the meantime our two daughters really love riding around in it – especially in the sunshine when we can ride without the rain cover – and it’s used primarily to ferry them to and from both nursery and local parks (with such a precious cargo on board I avoid main roads). It also comes in useful for trips to the supermarket. And while I’m cycling round with my trailer I get many an excited reaction from kids, and even some admiring glances from the ladies - though I may be guilty of wishful thinking with respect to the latter.
I don’t especially go out of my way to seek the approval of seven-year-olds but when, on the morning nursery run, a little boy felt compelled to voice his opinion that my cycle trailer was ‘well sick’, I was left with a great big stupid grin on my face for the rest of the day. My beaming smile had less to do with any verbal appreciation the trailer itself but more a sense of satisfaction at a short and sweetly successful inter-generational communication made possible through my understanding that ‘well sick’ in the parlance of today’s youth roughly translates as ‘dead good’ or even ‘dead, dead good’. This I know through having teenage cousins. So rather than stopping to quiz the youngster on just what he meant by referring to my vehicle as such, I was able to just give the little fella a nonchalant thumbs up before cycling off into the distance with the rather smug feeling that even at the grand old age of 47, I was still ‘down wiv da kidz’.
