What goes around - Emily Chappell

Emily Chappell never meant to be a cycle courier. She planned to
earn her living using her mind rather than her legs. She thought it'd be
a useful stopgap while searching for a 'real' job. Today, six years on,
she's still pedalling. 'It's my most enduring love affair; the career
that's shaped my life, made me what I am, and entirely derailed any hope
of a normal existence.'

As she flies through the streets of the
capital, dancing with the traffic, Chappell records the pain and
pleasure-both mental and physical-of life on wheels: the hurtling,
dangerous missions; the ebb and flow of seasonal work; the moments of
fear and freedom, anger and exhaustion; the camaraderie of the courier
tribe and its idiosyncratic characters; the conflict and harmony between
bicycle and road, body and mind.

At the same time it is a hymn
to London;
its changing skyline, its chaos and interconnectedness: 'the
unlikeliest street corners will have some tattered threads of memory
fluttering from them like a flag...It's almost as if the memories have
overflowed from my head and scattered themselves about the city. Some
parts of my life I can recall simply by thinking of them; others I think
I'd remember better if I went back to a certain part of London and
plucked them up from the tree I'd hung them from, or retraced them from
the park bench I'd scratched them on, or snatched them up as they blew
around in circles in an alleyway like a discarded carrier bag'. This is a
book about discovery and belonging, connection and memory, choosing
life's uncharted course and the delicious sensation of just riding.