Ring my bell.

So I have bought a new bicycle. She is an absolutely wonderful Raleigh Twenty shopper, complete with bag, bell and basket, and in my excitement to see her I have returned to my motherland to collect her and profess my undying bicycle love. I've decided to call her Annie, after my dear mother, and Annie Lennox, who, if I had to choose a third (or possibly fourth, the Queen would be third) grandmother, it would be her.
The bike is fab, and I spent most of last night trying to make her sparkling. My grandfather was supposed to help me polish the chrome, but this activity has yet to occur as he told me I couldn't be bending over and cleaning a bike in a miniskirt (slash what was actually a pair of vintage levi cut-off's, but I suppose in the eyes of the pensioner it's all relative)... However as much as Annie is the ultimate babe, I think I'm more excited about the fact I can actually sit on her seat and touch the floor. You see I'm 5'3" high, with legs on the shorter side (it's a bitter revelation), and so my last bike, Celia, was practically a health hazard. With good intentions, my father told me last summer that he had bought me a vintage cycle. Obv I was dead excited, but this excitement lasted only until I got there and attempted to sit on it, which made it impossible for me to touch the floor. This later involved much dismounting at traffic lights and generally just being a bit of a shit cyclist (my grandmother actually had the cheek to tell me I was crap at cycling the other day - er, she can't even swim for a start, and would probably need stabilisers was she to take to the road on two wheels). I think I can safely say that I have more chance of staying alive on my new bike, which is definitely a positive...
And despite being greatly excited about my impending sunny cycle with my dearest friend Emma on Saturday (weather permitting in this wintery 'summer'), I am beginning to greatly anticipate winter; partly because I have spied a divine fur coat on ebay that I could add to my collection (it comes with a matching hat - need I say more), and partly because me and another friend of mine had a frantic status-commenting session about the joys of winter coats and 12o denier tights, so I got pretty excited about the prospect of cycling on my bike in a fur. As a result, I'm feeling pretty festive at the minute, in the middle of July. However it will probably snow next week and all my rose-tinted sentiments will go straight out of the window. But until then...