There and back again

I stopped doing the daily blog because I was never quite in the right frame of mind at the end/beginning of each day. I was either knackered or bleary-eyed and grumpy and didn’t want my record of what was an amazing trip to be recorded in that frame of mind.

I’ll do a proper round up with photos n that asap

Day 4: kinross to annan

The morning was possibly the least fun I’ve ever had on a bike. My knees were screaming at me, I had no energy and everything seemed to be taking ages. Add to that the dreary towns and weather, the shit roads, traffic and the fact I fell off again and it was no fun at all.

Things picked up a lot after lunch, my knees shut up and started to do what I asked and the sun came.out which makes such a difference. We also had a huge downhill run of about 15 miles. The last few miles were hard but the countryside was beautiful.

Back into England today.

Dashing Santas

I know I’ve been fairly crap at posting anything recently (or at least anything of interest) so here is my attempt to rectify that.
Yesterday I was a marshal at the Santa Dash in Harrogate (being held by Henshaws and St Michael’s Hospice). Unfortunately the weather didn’t quite match the Festive premise and instead of a winter wonderland, the Valley Gardens were saturated into submission by pouring rain. Admirably however there was an incredibly good turnout of participants, each dressed in the regulation Santa suit (there was even a dog dressed up, which was brilliant). The weather, if anything, got worse while they were ‘dashing’ and every single one of them finished the race absolutely soaked. Despite this there wasn’t a grumpy word to be heard and everyone seemed to have a brilliant time raising money for two very worthy causes.
Added to that the spectacle of several hundred Santas running through the rain was unbeatable.

Idiot drivers at rush hour

I am beyond furious, I was cycling back from Hyde Park after picking some things up from a friend’s house and was nearly taken out by some complete moron in a Punto. Luckily I managed to get out of the way but I fail to see how that kind of behaviour is acceptable, it was my right of way, I had my lights on and a high-vis jacket and the driver let the two cars in front of me through before trying to nip across in front of me so I don’t think there is any realistic excuse of ‘not seeing me’. I had to brake hard and took a pretty heavy tumble onto the road, the bike is a bit bashed up but nothing serious I don’t think.
Ridiculous.
I am fuming.

ey up it’s snowin up eccup

original plan; go walk up one of the 3 peaks.

then the brilliantly unpredictable leeds winter struck with much snow and sleet and hail and rain, seemingly all at the same time.

plan b; go walk round eccup reservoir which was, according to the internet, “constructed in 1830 and is the largest area of water in West Yorkshire.”

unfortunately plan b still involved being outside and none of the rain/hail/air-born misery had really stopped so the first mile of the walk consisted of the right side of my face going completely numb with cold (note to self, buy a coat with a hood).

according to, well, fact “The reservoir is now home to a growing population of red kites. These were introduced into the area as part of a national programme in 1999 and now number over 100” however we didn’t see any of the big, red bastards. we did manage to encounter the worst smell known to man, some kind of mega-compost-manure-peat-tar awfulness was being spread on the fields.

there was something immensely satisfying about being outside despite the cold and rain and smell and lack of big raptors.

then we went to the pub.

Kernow and green fingers

Cornwall was brilliant, the perfect break. Luckily we managed to time it just before half-term holidays. It was so good to be away from busy things.

I’ve been harbouring ambitions for a garden for ages, unfortunately I own a house that is completely lacking in any sort of gardeny capacity. However over the weekend I went to an ace garden shop in Settle and the nice man sold me things so that I can grow all sorts inside. This did result in me getting soil all over my front room, but this is a small price to pay. Messing around with dirt is fun, fact.