The friend was not immediately available, but phoned me later. She had cycled over to an appointment but had had a puncture on the way. It was the second puncture she’d had in two consecutive outings and she had walked about five miles to reach the house. Now she wondered whether I could pick her up. Since I really wanted some sort of company I was only too happy to oblige.

The council has closed most of the roads through the city with Bus Gates leaving only two peripheral routes available to private cars, so getting across town to where my friend was was not easy. In fact, after taking the only available route out of the area in which I live I realised I was heading for the wrong side of the city and had to turn across to reach the right way. Eventually I did reach the destination. The only problem was getting the bike in my car, which is not really long enough to accommodate a bicycle. This involved removing both wheels. It was at that moment the heavy rain arrived and the two of us struggled to remove them. They were supposed to be quick-release but had been put on so tight that wasn’t quick at all. In fact one lever was so stiff I had to resort to a tyre lever to free it. The other wheel wouldn’t come off even when the lever was released until we had unscrewed the nut as well. All this as we got wetter and wetter. In the end we just managed to squeeze the awkward thing into the car and set off home. On the way home, along a dual-carriageway stretch of road, I missed a junction in the rain at which the primary route gives way to a side road. A yelp from my passenger alerted me to it and at that point the give way lines came into the area lit by my dipped headlights. I narrowly avoided another vehicle turning in front of us. I was shaken for the rest of the trip. Then I realised I was heading for the wrong house; my own instead of the friend’s. I could have avoided that stretch of road altogether. Once again, I had to alter course.

I was glad to get in and I was graciously rewarded with a large bag of chips while we chatted and exchanged news. It was a pleasant evening.

My friend was nervous about telling her boyfriend who had mended the previous puncture she’d got another one already, so I offered to take the wheel home with me and repair it. I examined the tube and the cover. I dug two largish lumps of broken glass out of that and then located the hole in the tube and prepared it for the rubber solution which, of course, turned out to have evaporated since I last used it some years ago. That was the end of that. However, I did check the old repaired tube against the hole in the new one. The patch was exactly the same distnce from the valve, so now we know. The cause of the first puncture had also caused the second, having been left in the tyre.

The only cycle shop I thought likely to be open on a Bank Holiday Monday was Halfords, whose local branch is near the junction where I had yesterday’s incident, so I resolved to go there and take the opportunity to study the approach to the junction to see why I had not spotted it when driving the previous evening.

Halfords proved as useless as I had remembered it. I had to ask the sales assistant three times for rubber solution and three times he failed to understand what I meant. Eventually I had to address him like a simpleton, “the glue used to repair punctures,” I said as clearly and slowly as I could. “Oh,” he replied, “We don’t sell it!” “Don’t sell it?” I repeated, confused. What kind of cycle shop doesn’t sell that most basic cycling consumable? There was nothing more to do.

Now for the junction – what was wrong with that? I studied the approach. It had proper road markings and Give Way signs, although they were mounted very high. A driver looks at the road ahead, and at the surrounds on either side, seeking out potential hazards. A driver does not look up in the air, especially when driving at night on dipped lights. Yes, the signs were present, but so high the driver of a normal-height car would tend to look beneath them and not notice them. That had evidently happened to me the previous night. It would improve safety to mount them lower down or duplicate them at the lower level. The situation was exacerbated by a large rectangular signpost obscuring the view of the one on the left, the side drivers normally look for signs and the fact that just beyond the junction was a light-controlled pedestrian crossing giving approaching drivers the impression they have a green light and at night dazzling them making the signs even harder to spot. I have made suggested improvements to the Council. I expect they will ignore them or make excuses.

Oh well, I’ll have to get the rubber solution somewhere else.