I peered out of the car window to the left and gazed up at the faded wooden sign. In peeling red and green paint, it advertised a long defunct fishmonger. Just here, where we were now queuing in traffic, there must have been a market of some kind in the past. “That would make a nice photograph”, I thought.

I turned to the face the traffic lights and noticed that they were back on green, and that there were no cars ahead of us. We’d been waiting here for over ten minutes, yet TPR made no move to accelerate. “You’re missing something”, he said, “And I’ll set off again once you notice”.

I then remembered that it was my birthday. Perhaps this was something to do with a special treat? I turned to look for clues in the back of the car, and there I found one: Ged, the man who had sold us our first tandem, was grinning at me from behind the driver’s seat. This was interesting: could a tandem upgrade be imminent?

“Follow that cab!” shouted Ged, and TPR put his foot down. I could just about make out the passengers in the vehicle in front as it zoomed through a red light over Dundas Street. I couldn’t quite understand how this odd mix of vague work acquaintances was travelling in the cab with the friends of a long-dead work colleague. What had they to do with my birthday treat and a bicycle seller?

At our eventual destination the birthday present was on display: a green tandem frame made from the lightest of materials. Once we had selected the rest of the components, this would become our transport of choice.

In the meantime I had to rush off to a lecture attended by blonde eight year old pea-in-a-pod twin girls who bored everyone senseless by insisting that they were not identical, and my parents who had to be specially rounded up because they were 15 minutes late wandering the corridors of campus. The cab passengers made up the rest of the audience, keen to hear what I had to say. It was a great pity that I had nothing prepared.