Displaced in Mullingar:Back on two wheels after giving up on the gym, Michael Hardingfinds some solace in the philosophy of Dickie Attenborough

I 'm getting iffy about the gym. I like the pool, and 10 minutes in the sauna can be sublime, but I don't think it's doing me any good, physically.

That's why I recovered my old mountain bike from a shed in Leitrim last Saturday. I brought it to The Bike Shop in Mullingar, and asked the man behind the counter what were the chances of restoring it.

He said he was going on his holidays that evening, but he looked at it, and said it didn't need much more than a new chain, and a good scrub. It was a good bike in its day. But bicycles were not cool in Leitrim.

Nobody used them, apart from old men cycling the hills with sliced pans on the rear carrier. So mine rusted away in the shed.

But in Mullingar, it's a wonderful convenience. I can weave around the town with the grace of a swallow, and no worries about parking.

I was woken by binmen on Monday morning. They have a huge lorry and there is a bin collection in my street at around eight o clock. One week, they collect from blue bins, and the next week they collect from black bins. I've no problem remembering the colour. My problem is remembering to put the bin out on the pavement the night before.

Every week, I wake in a heap of emotional distress as I hear the lorry pass the door outside. Last Monday, I rushed downstairs, flapping like a large chicken in fear of its life. I thought there was still time, because the lorry must go to the end of the street, turn around, and come back.

I found a docket, signed it, attached it to the lid and managed to get the bin as far as the pavement just as the lorry flew past. The man swinging off the back of the lorry smiled at me; he had a moustache, and I've a thing about moustaches, so for a few seconds, I was overcome by a completely irrational rage.

I wouldn't mind being seen on the streets in broad daylight in pyjamas, if I wore pyjamas. But I tend to live for years with odd bottoms and tops, and whatever ancient interlock vests are lying around the bottom of the drawer. The sight of me on the pavement, in my night attire, possessed by demons, is not exactly the image I'd wish to project to the public.

I met a man walking a small terrier on the canal, later that morning. A stout little fellow with thick glasses, and a moustache that was obviously the pride of his life.

By then, I was fully clad, and was hoping that a spin along the canal's leafy avenue would brush off the distress of failure, which had overwhelmed me as a result of missing the bin collection for the second consecutive week.

I had to dismount in order to pass him, and because he was as idle as me, we got chatting. Within a few minutes, I felt we were the best of friends.

It was difficult to see a mouth beneath the moustache, and he looked into the bushes on the far side of the canal every time he spoke. But I was wrong about moustaches. They are undoubtedly a sign of an artistic imagination; a sign of poetic feeling hidden deep in the subject's bosom.

"Personally," he said, "I think we're all Spanish under the surface.

"Sure, if it wasn't for the Victorians, we'd be doing Flamenco dances in the Greville Arms, instead of the jiving." From the issue of Spanish blood, he moved to the subject of railroads. "They should have never done that," he said. "Should never have took up them tracks."

I asked him did he ever go to school. "I got me philosophy from Dickie Attenborough," he said. "Watching Gandhi. Everything will pass, Gandhi said, in that film. And it's true. Like the railway tracks." He looked sad.

"Ah, them Indians," he sighed, "in that Gandhi film! Just look at the trains they had, for Jesus sake! In India, if you don't mind! Beautiful!" I said you're fond of India.

He said he admired everything about them. Except the curries. "Couldn't ate a curry," he said "if ye paid me."

"I better go," he said suddenly. "Good luck." He waved his hand high in the air. I watched him waddle down along the canal, after his tiny dog, shouting, "Gandhi! Come back here Gandhi! Come back ye scut ye!"