Excitement and anticipation were at fever pitch, it was Christmas Eve and of course I couldn't sleep. Tossing and turning hoping Santa Claus would not catch me awake and perhaps penalise me for being naughty!
Eventually sleep came but not before I thought I heard the reindeer on the roof of our house. I must have been around seven or eight years old and although I had submitted my annual list to Santa, I had been wisely taught that Santa could not always bring me what was on my list.
My hope though was for a bicycle. I must have been the only kid on the street without a bike at this point and although I knew not to grumble or be ungrateful, my heart longed for a bicycle so I could race up and down the streets with my friends.
Christmas morning arrived, which meant about 5am for me! I scrambled to the bottom of the bed to find my pillow case stuffed full of perfectly wrapped gifts. We were not permitted to open them at this point, as that was traditionally a family event for a little later in the morning. I had to make do with feeling all the gifts through the wrapping, frantically trying to guess what each one was!
"Oh that must be an annual, perhaps Beano or a soccer book, and this one has to be a Star Wars figure, it might be Boba Fett!" My excitement levels did not diminish one bit but I bean to realise that of course none of these gifts could possibly be a bike. Perhaps that would be outside my room on the landing I thought.
It wasn't.
A little later, we headed downstairs for breakfast. I opened the kitchen door and there it was! A huge red bow fastened around it, as it stood there, the most magnificent thing I had ever seen.
It was black and somehow managed to be the most shiny, new thing I had ever laid eyes on, a small racing bicycle, five gears, with the curved handle bars that were the hallmark of racing bikes at the time.
I almost didn't want to touch it, I didn't want to ruin the perfection of the moment. Its not ridiculous to say that I was probably the happiest child on the planet right then.
To cut a much longer story short, that bicycle and me became best friends. For the next few years we were inseparable and many adventures were had and many miles covered. (Although most of them probably on the same stretch of sidewalk in front of our house)
I found out many years later that my parents couldn't afford a new bike and that my dad had actually found it at a scrap yard and spent many, many hours repairing, painting and generally making it look amazing.
A gift that had been my favourite as child suddenly became even more special. To realise the time and the effort that my dad (sadly no longer with us) had put in to make this gift the most precious of all, brings a lump to my throat still to this day.
That gift is still giving even now. The bike has long since gone and my dad too but the joy I still get each Christmas when I think of my brand new, old bicycle. A treasure indeed!
