I see lots of complaining (rightly) about things that are wrong in Edinburgh with poor infrastructure etc, however if you live on the other side of the water Edinburgh seems like some sort of utopia in comparison to some of the small Fife towns...
The boy started school on Weds (cue tears), and Mrs B was determined to try and cycle to school with him rather than take the car - she has a disability, and walking can be difficult.
On Weds we walked up, and it took us 25 minutes to walk the 8 minute walk. Because of uneven paths, and different cambers Mrs B was in agony by the time we got home. She suffered again in the afternoon, and is still suffering now because of it. On good surfaces she can walk slowly for some distance, but alas the route to school is not good - there are others to try but i'm not confident of a solution there.
Mrs B thought, well lets try cycle, as she can do that easilly with much less pain in her foot/ankle.
On Thurs we all cycled up, which was uneventful, except for having to walk up the hill in our estate because neither the boy, nor Mrs B could cycle up it. We also found the pavements too narrow to cycle with them being busy, and had to walk or cycle behind peds for most of it.
On the road on the way back all I heard was screams from Mrs B every time a car went past, even though they were giving her plenty room.
Apparantly she was terrified trying to cycle home with the boy in the afternoon as she can't control him, and ride her bike at the same time. All of her effort is going into not falling off.
Today I had to really coax Mrs B to try and cycle again, we left 15 mins early so the paths were at least quiet, and that meant a good ride up. The boy didn't mind he just played for the extra time. Although we had to detour to the shops on the way home which resulted in the same nervousness for Mrs B on what are very quiet roads.
Oh, what I would do for a nice wide shared use path like the bike paths of Edinburgh, and what we left behind in Livingston!
It's also apparant that our 4 year old is more competant on a bike than Mrs B is, even on a road he's better than her. We'll need to find some adult lessons for her I think and try and build confidence.
In the mean time, and it's such a shame for the boy, he'll be going to school in the back of the car Mon - Weds.
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