LEJOG - The Royal Wedding

I woke up this morning surrounded by dead flies.  Seems the cream works.

Audrey II was kicking up a right storm whirling the pots and pans around her basement kitchen like an over agitated poltergeist shouting 'FEED ME SEYMOUR, FEED MEEE!".  Nonetheless, she seems to have got into the swing of things.  As soon as I started to throw the bacon at her she gracefully caught it with her right hand and choffed it, and with her left was skillfully loading the remains of the day onto the back door conveyor.  Oooohhhh!  Shit!!!  She might be OK now but for God's sake we need to get into sync as she had me running for the dining room door gritting my teeth....

Bude is a lovely place.  It's at the bottom end of a county mile of Baby Garrowby's so do avoid cycling there if you can.  But do go.  It's light years further up the 'I wanna go there again' pecking order compared to Wadebridge which is swimming in the detritus of other crap overnight stays at the wrong end of a Camel.

My legs felt rock hard and strong this morning.  It's as though, sometime during the night, the HULK smashed a cowering and now fully deflated balloon dog into a corner of my shreddies and thrust his massively muscled legs into the leg holes in place of mine.   It feels like I'm growing Popeye biceps on my thighs!   For sure the last 5 days has been a SAS training camp for legs... but without the dynamite.

The first leg of today's ride took me back out the way I arrived into a 1 in 1 hill climb.  Well it bloody felt like it with me retching for breath and bouncing off the rev limiter as though being driven up the hill by Pat (1).  The hills grade abated slightly and whilst now low and not quite as slow a lovely lady chased me and magnetically brought me to a halt.  Turns out that her husband is a Sustrans Ranger responsible for putting out the Sustrans road signs.  Oh heck.  I tentatively asked her if he had any crayons(?) but the good news was that his responsibilities were only for the significantly better thought out Sustrans routes in the Bude area.  Phew!

Neil Hutson is his name.  A smashing golden oldie who loves riding in these parts (eh?) and calls himself and his crinkly peloton mates 'lanies' rather than 'roadies'.  And I thought I was doing good.  He told me of a route with fewer baby Garrowbys and a long long long downhill stretch to the end of the ride.  He was just so helpful with maps and directions and ideas for a next holiday along the coast of France.  Here's the gent...

The new route took me through beautiful rolling countryside dotted with Massey Fergusons roaming majestically like wildebeests with worms, dragging their arses across the veldt.  A sudden speeding white van man moment, as though he had not enough time to complete his deliveries, made me sit up sharp.  Unusually, the van had four white ears, one on each corner, and a tall spinney thing in the middle of its roof.  Before I could turn the video camera on, and as he wizzed past, I read 'Apple Maps' on the side of the van.  There you go.  I burst out laughing.  What were the chances of that?  Look for a sweaty fat bloke in a couple of months time heading east out of Marhamchurch on Hobbacott lane.

Sounds and sights everywhere.  A cacophony of bird cries on my right sounded like my now limp Balloon Dog had escaped and was loudly chewing on a couple of squeaky toys in the hedge.  And another that sounded like a big lung'd bird blowing on a toy trumpet!  And finally, whilst messing with the video camera to see if this mug could get a mug shot of himself riding a back lane, a huge eagley eagle of a thing with a wingspan as wide as my outstretched arms gracefully floated into the lane not more than 10 yards in front of me but before I could get the camera pointing in the right direction with my finger on the right button, it had gently wafted away.  Bum!!!  What WERE the chances of that!!!

There hasn't been a sound from either of the twins for the last 36 hrs.  I had hoped that Ma Boy had frogged off with My Bits on a fly-drive holiday to Florida, being that Ma Boy was probably fed up of going round and round and round and could not get my attention; and, Ma Bits had probably had enough of the close smell of Brooks leather and the taste of bum cream.  But no, the gripe water pizza I pushed under the door last night had been eaten.

Crazily, after all the baby Garrowby climbs earlier in the day, and only when I was on the flat Tarka Trail did Ma Boy stick his pursed lips under the bedroom door and mutter "...Dud?... Duddy?..." to see if I was still there.  I was.  I had hoped that the Ibuprofen padlock I'd stuck on his bedroom door would keep him constrained.  Sadly not.

Whilst the ride has so far been without a major issue, my arse is now friction welded to my Brooks saddle.  I now just need the minister Michael Curry to say "do you, Bum, take Brooks Saddle...etc..". With a "bless you my children..", a fanfare of trumpets and a "..praise the Lord!", they've been Royally Wedded.

Cornwall is done and Devon awaits. Louis Armstrong's 'We've got all the time in the world' song wafts through my mind.  I am on schedule.  I've taken Ma Boy out for a walk tonight to see if I can settle him down and have just put Audrey II to bed with an electrolytic dummy and a ham and cheese sandwich. Tomorrow is a long leg into Taunton with 2500ft of climbs so I'm now off to bed too.

Married life is so different.  I'm in bed, but strangely, can no longer cross my legs...

Goodnight Brooks...

Goodnight Hairy Melon...

(1) Pat.  Patricia.  Kathryn's insperational 80, ahem, something mother.  She's mostly deaf and drives her Suzuki Jimny everywhere in first gear...