"He started it!"

It is "school holidays" here. We have the usual cohort of grandparents providing a free child minding service. They are dealing with the arguments, fights, sulks and poor behaviour of "bored" children. The local cinema complex is showing some films deemed "suitable" for younger chilren. 

And the older children, those in their early teens, are trying to escape from supervision. I can hardly blame them but please, behave!

A favourite activity around here is to load your "mountain" bike on to the train and head into the hills behind us. There you can "muck about" on the tracks in the park and, when it is time to leave, you can do the hair raising trip down the winding road to the plains again. 

The boys, and this is almost entirely a male activity, have assured me more than once that this is "fun". I am sure it is. Boys have not changed their behaviour much (if at all) since I did the research into their on road behaviour. I am well aware, perhaps better aware than their parents, of the dangers in what they are doing. They perform crazy manouvres in the park. It is a wonder there are not more accidents there, more sprains and broken bones. Follow that up with a ride that may well be downhill most of the way but is done at speeds which may actually break the speed limit some of the way. Yes, it can be done. It's exhilarating.  

Middle Cat, being Middle Cat and needing to show she was just as good as the boys, did it once. She did it without parental permission and lived to tell the tale. This may have been because Mum did not find out until much later.

In school holidays and at weekends there are now so many boys doing this the train service puts on a "bike" carriage. The boys are supposed to use that one. Most of them do. I have the privilege of sneaking into the first carriage rather than the second one. Yesterday one of the boys humped his bike into the first carriage. He was looking furious. He glared at me and the other passengers, validated his ticket and parked his bike next to my trike.

I told him where I was getting off because I suspected, rightly, I would need to get off long before he did. He looked at me. I smiled. It was difficult because he was not looking too friendly. Then his expression changed. We swapped places so I would be able to exit easily. I told him how Middle Cat had done the ride from the top at about his age. She had beaten a string of boys doing their best to keep up with her. He stared at me and I thought he probably would not believe me but he whipped out his phone and I heard him asking, "Hey Granddad remember telling me about the girl who beat you down the hill? Yeah, the one you still see sometimes. What was her name, can you remember?"

Yes, it was Middle Cat. She still sees his grandfather around the district from time to time. The "boys" back then are old enough to be grandparents now, grandparents of teenage boys who still like to do the same thing. The boy and I chatted quite amicably until I reached my station. He helped me get the trike off under the watchful eye of a rarely seen "transit officer". 

"I was going to kick you off for fighting," the transit officer told him, "But I'll leave you there for that."

The boy muttered an apology and I heard the words, "He started it." Yes, his grandfather started it. It is crazy and dangerous but it is "fun" and he started it for yet another generation.