It's just a flesh wound

I spent lunchtime yesterday at a fine local Italian restaurant. Fried squid followed by pasta with meatballs all washed down with a little Montepulciano and the perfect espresso (which I chose not to spit out like the man in the film 'Mulholland Drive').

I sauntered home on my bike later that day only to be rudely flattened by a car crossing the cycle path from a hidden driveway.
Luckily I escaped with a few cuts and bruises, but my front wheel was buckled. As it happened the passenger in the car was an ex-bicycle repair man, and putting on his superhero cape he tried to straighten my wheel, to no avail. Dejected, I waited on a wall for a taxi to transport me and my broken steed home.

My beautiful lunch which had been so innocuously digesting was now disturbed, petrified in the pit of my stomach.

This was my second car collision in two weeks, and I am beginning to feel like Monty Python's 'Black Knight', "It's just a flesh wound!". Cycling in and around Cambridge is quite simply dangerous.

While contemplating my close shave, the taxi driver told me that he was run over once and was so incensed that he punched the perpetrator. This was far from comforting. He then went on to talk about his Thai Kickboxing skills. Mistakenly I mentioned that I was learning Kung Fu, at which point he stated that it would be rather fun if I tried 'to do a runner' as we could have an interesting fight to resolve matters.

On arrival home the cash flew out of my wallet and we parted company.