Episode 01.02 of You Say Toma(h)to has been out for a little over a week now. I’m really happy with how it turned out. I’m getting much more comfortable using Audacity and adding in some transition music and cleaning up the audio really helped me to raise the quality of this latest installment. I hope all you audiophiles are as pleased as I am.

I really struggled with the content for this episode. With all that is going on in the world at the moment, I wasn’t sure an upbeat episode about cycling was necessarily the way to go. We had also recorded parts of the show fairly early in January and the context of when we recorded versus when the episode was released definitely impacted a few parts. Jeremy and I went back and forth several times before we decided to go ahead with our plans for the episode and we made a pact that episode 01.03 would deal with more of the political climates of both our countries. So do please stay tuned for that.

Getting back to this month’s episode, I must confess that I’ve grown to genuinely enjoy commuting by bike. Well, let’s put that in perspective. I’m not sure commuting is something that is enjoyable in and of itself. My best commute is on days when I work from home. Roll out of bed, crawl a few meters to the sofa, open my laptop, begin work. But on days when I need to go into town or go to the library, I much prefer to hop on my bike than to drive or get a bus. While I still get frustrated at cars that pass too closely and pedestrians that carelessly walk out into my path, on a sunny day the route can be quite beautiful.

I’m even starting to ride for pleasure. I’ve been out twice in the past seven days just for the joy of riding. The first time I went along the river and boy was it muddy. We’d had a few rainy days and I’m afraid at the end of my ride, my new bike looked a mess. Yesterday Jeremy and I went out along the guided busway. So there is this sort of railway (minus the rails) for buses going between Cambridge and St. Ives. It’s a long, straight, paved stretch of road with very wide pedestrian and cycle paths on either side. It’s a really great route to ride on and the scenery is absolutely breathtaking.

This is me riding along the busway. See the paved bits with the grassy areas in between? That’s where the buses drive.

The busway is especially beautiful once you get out of the city and into the countryside.

We were lucky because we had such a nice day when we went out.

That’s me pretending I can go fast.

I’m also very grateful to Sara for being part of the second episode of You Say Toma(h)to. I had known that she had been to a lot of different places but I hadn’t known a lot of the details of her travels and her volunteering. I’m finding that when I sit down with my friends to do these interviews, I am lucky enough to get to learn some amazing things about them and the way they see the world. I hope that these are things that come through in the episodes as well.

So I think that’s it for the recap. Remember that new episodes are released on the first Tuesday of every month. On 7 March episode 01.03 will be out. This is going to be an extended episode and will feature a segment on UK and US politics where Jeremy and I will discuss how much say we should have in each other’s politics in a globalised world. I’m also going to be sitting down with my friend Mizah to discuss her experiences living in a bunch of different countries and what it is like to travel abroad as a Muslim. And of course there will be another Word of the Month to delight and entertain you as well.

Thanks for listening (and reading, too)!