Earlier this week saw a sequence of events which meant I lay looking upwards in a dentist’s chair, thinking each breath I took would be my last.

It started with my discovery of one of those nails that holds the telephone cable in place. But, in my case, it was holding its own in one of my tyres. That’s what happens when you cycle too close to an overflowing skip I guess.

As I was pulling it out of the tyre I was thinking ‘now a really stupid thing would be to pull this nail out of my tyre right now, as I won’t be able to find the hole’.

Brain not connected, I pulled the thing out.

I’m lazy, so as I was near a bike shop, I took it in and took advantage of the occasion to get a couple of other things repaired, which had needed fixing for a while.

Later on I realised how much I needed my bike.

My babysitter hadn’t turned up in time for me to walk to my dentist’s appointment (which usually takes 10 minutes to cycle) and I was left with just three minutes to get there.

I loath jogging (it even looks like too much effort), so that was out. But I then realised that I could borrow my son’s bike – he’s 12 so I thought I’d barely notice the difference in bike size.

Oh my... how wrong I was!

After setting off, I realised I’d have to cycle standing up the entire way as I hadn’t raised the saddle.

If I had been younger this would have been fine. I used to regularly speed up hills by standing up and giving the pedals some welly. But this was very different.

I became increasingly demoralised, realising there was no way I could make the bike go – let alone make it to my appointment on time.

The tyres weren’t totally pumped up, the back brake was totally seized up, and the grips were so loose I realised that if I had leaned too much on them I’d have slid off the bike.

Why on earth hadn’t my son told me his bike was in such a state?

I made the hill and kept going at the same rate with my lungs rapidly objecting.

I made it, and was only three minutes late.

As I lay in the dentist’s chair I felt the cholesterol, butter, waffles, chocolate – and all the other bad stuff I really shouldn’t have eaten – being pumped out of my arteries.

It was like a sluice to the heart valves.

I might not have appreciated it at the time, but I now think that testing your kids’ bikes occasionally can achieve more than that just making a fool of yourself.

I discovered that I needed to do some work on my son’s bike. But, more importantly, I also realised I needed to do some work on myself.

Note taken...