to Beverley and (almost) back

I know we said we’d go to the flatlands of Holderness yesterday, but as the Beverley Festival was on, we thought we’d ride over there and take a look. National Cycling Route 66 goes through Hull and Beverley, so it seemed a sensible way to go. Round here might be flat, but my word, the wind blows, and coming out of Cottingham was like being in top gear (no, not Top Gear).

Hmmm … the cycle track crosses a railway line. Behind barred gates. Barred locked gates. We’d already gone a couple of miles out of our way by missing signposts, so “I’ll climb over it”, I said to Pete. He looked a little taken aback, as this time last year, I had difficulty climbing a footpath stile, but I did it, and we lifted the bikes over. Twice (once each side of the line). After that the route became very rough, which did my knee in a bit, and a bit further on, almost at Beverley, the road was so narrow that I didn’t feel comfortable riding at all, so I pushed the bike for a mile or so. By the time we arrived in Bev, we’d done 11.7 miles, and I was bushed.

There wasn’t a lot going on in the town, or if there was we missed it. We saw some Morris Dancers, followed by Appalachian ones, and there was an open mike in the Sun (where we stopped for a (half pint of) beer and a sandwich), then we set off for home again. This time, we used the main roads most of the way, and that was a bit scary too, as I’m not used to traffic, so I rode on the pavement.

By the time we got back to the city I was absolutely knackered, and my knee was hurting, and somehow I actually fell off the bloody bike – still don’t know how. I didn’t do any harm to myself apart from some bruises, and the bike is fine apart from a bit of plastic trim from the front gears, which Pete has glued back on. I was pretty shaken though, and we were only a mile or so from home, so he pedalled off and fetched the car and bike rack, and picked me up.

I decanted myself into a hot bath, then had a lazy evening in my dressing gown, with tea and toast and Marmite. Bit battered this morning, but not too bad – glad I was wearing jeans and cycling gloves, though!

Mirrored from kestrel.org.

Angel

Lilith sitting on my Swiss Ball chair

Originally uploaded by ramtops

A bunch of the local children have really taken to the Tribe; they assemble outside the house to visit the cats, who spend a fair amount of time in the street because that’s where the sun falls during the day.

I went out to talk to a couple of the kids this morning, who were making a huge fuss of Lilith (who was enjoying every minute of it), and told the boys her name.

“Oh”, they said. “We call her “Angel”".

Dear lord …

Mirrored from the Tribe.