Not leaving Rio

There's a story I've been thinking about quite a lot over the last few months. I think the version I read first was set in the early years of the 20th Century but I've found references that go back a lot further and is set in China. It goes something like this:

"A poor farmer had all of his meagre wealth in one magnificent stallion, but one stormy night the horse escaped from its corral.  The next day, all the neighbours came around to commiserate with the farmer’s terrible misfortune.“Let’s wait and see,” is all he said.

Two days later, the stallion returned with four heathy mares in tow.  Now the neighbours were loud in their rejoicing.  “Let’s wait and see,” said the farmer.

The next day, the farmer’s adolescent son was trying to ride one of the new horses, and he fell and broke his leg.  The neighbours were desolate, but again the farmer said, “Let’s wait and see.”

And the following day, the army came through the village to draft all the young men to fight in a vicious war, but the farmer’s son was spared because of his leg."

In some respects the last few months have followed a similar pattern.

• My flight was delayed, but this meant that I was able to have a last pint in the UK and do some shopping at the airport.
• I just made my flight's connection in Lisbon, but I think the tightness of the time between flights may well have been a contributory factor in the fact that my pannier was damaged en route.
• The airline took nine weeks to admit responsibility and agree to pay for it, but it meant that I was in Rio for Carnaval.
• The delay in my pannier arriving meant that I was able to spend a last weekend in Rio and go to the first concert of the year at the Teatro Municipal, but the same delay also resulted in some of my cooking stuff being "liberated" from my bag in the kitchen.
• Then taking longer to post a package home meant that I ended up staying in Rio a few days longer than expected, but this was enough time for me to be reunited with the most important bits that I'd lost from my cooking kit.

Some people have said that I've had my share of bad luck in Rio - and then some. But maybe that's only if you look at it from a certain direction or a certain distance.

Last Friday I managed to break my oil filler cap and am now having problems fitting my new panniers to the bike. Is this necessarily a bad thing? I don't know. I think I'll take the advice of the farmer and wait and see.