Olga was cycling along with a chum last week, two abreast, when the driver of a passing car called out, “You shouldn’t ride like that. It’s dangerous.”

“Fuck off!” bellowed Olga, as usual. But this time she’d made a big mistake. The motorist was a policewoman. Olga had to stop and be told off by two officers who looked very young indeed, which she found galling, but didn’t dare be rude, and for once had to grovel and apologise.

Good. Olga deserved a drubbing. I am sick of kamikaze cyclists. Now that the clocks have gone back and night starts before tea, the barely visible, death-defying cyclists such as Olga are out earlier, weaving among the cars, zipping along pavements, up one-way streets and through red lights. Olivia, Rosemary, the dog and I have nearly been sliced through as we stepped out of our front doors in the gloom, by cyclists in dark clothes on dark bikes, with no lights, who can’t be bothered to ring a bell. I am in a cold sweat on every drive, with them winging up in my blind spot, doing wheelies or hands-free swirls, coming at me from all sides.

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I point them out to Olga when she’s in my car, but she is not chastened. Even though the last motorist she swore at pursued her on to a pavement and tried to squash her. Then she cycled through the park late at night, got shut in, hauled her bike over a 6ft fence and almost impaled herself climbing after it. But will she cycle more cautiously? No. She’s just rather proud of herself, for being so fit at 71.

She has a point. Most of us are much weedier. After several close shaves, poor Fielding suddenly bottled it years ago in the middle of a five-lane roundabout. He got off his bike and doddered to the kerb, never to cycle again.

Daughter insists that I be pleasant to cyclists, because they are saving the planet. Quite right. I never, ever, want to accidentally crash into one. Some of them are just making that aim very difficult.