Roberta Writes – Best Day Writing Prompt by Esther Chilton #poetry #bicycle

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Last week Sunday, I attended a watercolour painting workshop with son #2. I painted a red bicycle with a basket full of flowers.

Picture caption: My watercolour painting of a red bicycle with a basket of flowers

This painting reminded me of the two years of my childhood I spent in George in the Western Cape. I had so much freedom and they were fabulous days. When I saw Esther’s writing prompt of Best Days, I wrote these two poetry prose pieces. You can join in Esther’s prompt here: https://estherchilton.co.uk/2024/07/24/writing-prompts-24/

The Red BMX (Tanka Prose)

When I was a tween, I wanted a red bicycle. Not just any bicycle. I wanted a red BMX bicycle. BMXs were hugely popular at the time and the boys who rode them participated in all sorts of exciting events at the BMX racetrack on the outskirts of the town where we lived. One of my classmates, Craig, had a BMX and he did all sorts of brave tricks on it. I admired Craig who was thirteen and seemed very much older and more sophisticated than eleven-year-old me. I was the youngest in my class by more than a year. I was accepted into school early because I could read and had started writing. In the small and sleepy town of George in the Western Cape, most of the children started school a year late. This was the reason for the two-year age gap between me and many of my peer group.

My father agreed to purchase me a bicycle. When he brought it home, it wasn’t a red BMX. It was a silver ladies bicycle imported from France. It had a basket on the front. I never expressed my disappointment and in time, I grew to love this bicycle. The basket turned out to be useful as I could fit seven books into it when I visited the local library.

Ladies bicycle

Provided independence

Basket full of books

Four plus three equaled seven

Sister’s card put to good use

Lucky Fall (shadorma prose)

When I was a tween and my sister, Catherine, was a little girl, we used to cycle to school. I was a rather reckless girl, and I would go as fast as possible down the slopping, main road that passed the busy Afrikaans school. At the bottom, I would stop and wait for my little sister to catch up.

One day, I was cycling like a maniac down the road with my school satchel on my back. I hadn’t notice that my shoelace had come undone, and it caught in the gears of my fancy French ladies bicycle. Crash! Over went the bicycle. I was flung out into the road right in front of a car.

Screech! The car jammed on breaks and stopped just in front of me. The driver, a mother who had just dropped off her children at the school, was livid. She shouted at me in Afrikaans. I jumped up, remounted my bicycle, and tore off down the hill away from the angry woman.

I’m flying

Mischievous shoelace

Plays a trick

I wobble

Fall sideways in front of car

Driver jams on breaks

Review of Lion Scream by Dawn Pisturino

Thank you to talented poet, Dawn Pisturino, for her lovely review of my poetry collection Lion Scream. This is the book closest to my heart as it is all about the Sixth’s Mass Extinction and saving our wildlife.

Poetry Book Review: “Lion Scream” by Robbie Cheadle
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Published by robertawrites235681907

I am a writer of young adult fiction and poetry

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87 thoughts on “Roberta Writes – Best Day Writing Prompt by Esther Chilton #poetry #bicycle”

  5. What a lovely painting, Robbie!

    I love the first poem-prose for the sharing of what you want and coming to love what you got.

    The second one had my heart in my throat! How lucky you were that the lady was able to stop in time.

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  16. A lovely watercolor, and two bright memories. I like how your initial disappointment about not getting a BMX bike shifted to enjoying your bike and seeing the benefit of it. Seven books is a good haul from the library! 🙂

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  23. You little minx, you! It’s great visiting childish memories, I now have plenty of time to revisit mine. Playing the tambourine and triangle was fun, until an evil little man with a moustache decided to wage war on the world…Thank goodness we now live in a democracy! Cheers. xx

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    1. Hi Joy, that little man destroyed a lot of childhoods. My mom has very negative memories of him and thought of him as a sort of black witch. I’m glad you enjoyed this snippets from my childhood. I was naughty.

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  27. I have difficulty with water colors but you seem to have a knack – good job! I don’t think I ever had a bike growing up. We walked to school through an old cow pasture and it would have been impossible on a bike!

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    1. Hi Jan, can you ride a bike? I was lucky because my father wanted all his girls to be able to do certain things like ride a bike so we were all taught (with a lot of scrapped knees) and we all had one. Watercolours are good for me because they are very loose.

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  30. Great stories, Robbie! I love how you shared what a wild girl reader you were. 🙂 It makes me think of Anne of Green Gables. You were so lucky that woman was able to stop her car in time.

    I was also young in my grade. My mom sent me and my little sister to a private school for first grade because she thought we were ready and shouldn’t wait another year

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    1. HI Merril, it is great that your mother didn’t hold you back. Lots of parents here in SA hold their children back from school. I think my mum was happy to get rid of me because I was a bit of a menace. I never meant to be, but I was always up to my ears in ‘things’.

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      1. I guess not all parents have the option here, and each state and locality has its own rules on schools. I know some parents for a variety of reasons here hold their kids back even when they don’t have to.
        You seem so focused and organized. It’s funny –and fun–to think of you as a child. 🥰

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