Sepia Saturday 407: 24 February 2018

This shows Ida Zornig along with her bicycle and - very well behaved - dog (from the State Library of Queensland's Flickr stream). Sepians are well known for being very well behaved and therefore they will undoubtedly come up with something inventive and interesting in response to this prompt. Whatever you come up with, post your post on or around Saturday 24th February 2018 and add a link here.

One could not say that I am a big bike rider.  All right, I'll be honest, I don't possess a bike at all at the moment.  However, I have many pleasant memories of owning a bike or riding a bike at different stages of my life.  As a child, it was a means of freedom and adventure, riding around the suburbs or by the lake in Canberra.  As a young adult, for a while there, I would ride a bike from Taringa to work at Toowong (not a great distance I know) and sometimes at lunchtime, I would ride with my colleagues into town and back again for fun.  Once the kids came along, there were lots of holidays at Noosa or Canberra where we hired and rode bikes again.  Lots of fun.  But no bike riding of late.  Despite all that - photos of bikes are far and few between in my albums.  Here are a couple for your amusement:

This is my father.  On the back of the photo in my grandmother's shaky writing are the words "Jim on his first bike".  Note the koala tucked under his arm, lest there be any doubt that he is an Australian child.  

The next two photos were taken on an overseas holiday when I had just completed my first year of University so I guess we're talking December 1979.  I didn't want to be in Europe at all.  I wanted to be on Sydney's beaches, getting a tan.  But I did love Holland as I insist on calling it.  I was fascinated by the clogs and the canals and the proliferation of bicycles.  And I liked playing with black and white as it turns out.  Thank goodness.

I wish I could remember where this was taken.  Maybe someone out there can have a good guess.

My father taught me how to develop photos.  We would use his workshop or the laundry.  I think this photo has suffered from too many chemicals.  Here is another version of it with a different filter which conceals the damage.

Here is a more artistic shot - taken in Amsterdam.  

I had quite a good eye I think for a teenager.  My parents had a good influence on me one way or another.

Looking for more photos?  Head on over to Sepia Saturday.