The sparrow hawk

How I have missed my little bike: dashing down steep inclines, head first into the wind, or climbing up the slopes, body lent deliciously backwards, the engine roaring like a charging lynx, or leaning gently now this way now that on broad, sweeping turns above steep cliffs. The best are those sections of the road which run along the mountain ridge in the evening: left and right rows of mountains fall off into distance, ever fainter blue, like fish disappearing down the depths of the sea, and the low-slung sun sends her dying reddish rays through the hairy haloes of the russet reed. A sparrow-hawk on her evening hunt first cuts swiftly across my path, then circles, then follows me for a while, as if to see what prey I chase. And for a while we travel together, she and I: together in our element: mountains, evening, speed