I have the kind of pride about my bike the way I imagine other people do a particularly cute pet, or baby: that it is a thing to admire, and that I am vaguely responsible but not really, which means I can also indulge in admiring it too. It is not a fancy bike; it is a 1980s Puch that I bought for £100 on Gumtree in 2013. It rattled and snagged and the paint chipped off it, but whenever I would take it into bike shops the pleasingly gruff men who worked there (why are they so often gruff, and why is it so often pleasing?) would melt a little and coo, as if I had just brought in a very small fluffy dog, or a baby with long eyelashes.

A couple of summers ago I spent more money than the bike is actually worth having it completely refurbished and now it gleams and shines and the man in the bike shop over the road recognises it and then remembers me afterwards, like spotting someone by their coat before you see their face. He says he knows it “because it is shiny”. He always admires the refurb job. I went in the other day to get it serviced and said I worry that it will get stolen, as so many of its predecessors have in London; I am so fond of it, and it is really quite irreplaceable now. He shrugged, said: “If you don’t lose the old things, you can’t make way for the new. Life’s too short to worry about what has gone.”

Such unexpected philosophy of a morning! I would like to ascribe to it more easily, be one of those happy-go-lucky types, like Sally Hawkins character in Happy Go Lucky who returns to an empty space and a severed bike lock and says, “Oh!” But I am a sentimentalist who cherishes old tut, which is probably why I have such an old bike, which is referred to by those who know as “Pookie”, and is admired in bike shops and by passing elderly men.

More good things this week:...