Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix,

the Science of Happiness Podcast.

For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want

to share that science with you.

And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley.

I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that

calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds.

This is a Thinking Loud Podcast from the BBC and for more details in our terms of use and much, much more about thinking aloud, go to our website at BBC.co. UK.

Hello. I always knew when as a 15 year old I set off on my rally

kestrel for a youth hustling tour of North Wales that I had rather different hopes for the

trip than my companion, Fat Vinny. You see the back of my mind was the idea that

somewhere on our cycling circuit between Rithin and Snowden Ranger and Clan Berris, I'd come across at least

one of the thousands of the robust but still beautiful young Welsh women who, according to all

my schoolmates, were after a lifetime spent walking the barren mountains of their homeland,

simply desperate to get together with spotty over-sex young oaks from Liverpool. My bike was a means to an end. Big Vinny, by contrast, was an

essentialist on two wheels in much the same way that Lawrence only became himself once a strider desert camel so fat

Vinny only came into his own when he peddled down country roads and simply took in

the gentle scenes around him. They are astonishingly, extraordinarily,

come around a bend.

There's a sort of brown thing,

about nine inches tall and sitting by the side of the road and I suddenly

become aware that it's an animal, it's a bird, it's an owl and it looks at me and I look at it.

...