Similar distance to last week’s ride, same destination, but today felt far easier. Funny how exercise works out like that.
This green and pleasant land is turning yellow (except my lawn). I credit the daily bowl of washing up water for that- and the length of the grasses.

Very heavy rain as I write. Good, let’s see whether the gutters feed the newly installed water butt properly.

England is a dirty place: With the vegetation at its annual lowest point right now, you can easily see through sparse hedgerows, grassy banks and ditches, and in all of it; on every lane, however far from towns, is rubbish. At its thinnest, you only see beer cans and McDonald’s wrappers every yard or so. I suppose, being generous, that some must be wind-blown litter, perhaps blown from uncapped bins. Riding along you can see some lanes have extra gatherings in places where there is some shelter- ditches, or maybe under a big tree. But, in openings, such as gateways, there can sometimes be seen a television set here, a flat-pack and old mattress there. Fly tipping. What is the motive for dumping this stuff- it’s not money: the car is loaded with junk, the council tip is paid-for in advance and the effort to drive to a gateway is the same as driving to a tip. So, it’s not laziness then, but what is it? Why do it?

I can see I need to work on commas in that passage.

At last; a decent, satisfying ride. The last ten felt like I was on the 100th mile ( and yes I do know what that feels like). took some photos on the phone, but can’t unload them for a few days yet. You’ll have to just wait.
Another long day, this one started at 5am.

Slow journey to work today, it was very dry so I decided to ride. There were a few stretches where I had to get off and run it where the ice was sprayed over the road from broken manhole covers.

Rab tells me her story, well my story but my memory eludes me of those fifteen minutes on the 10th that I can’t account for. I was indeed out cold, I had blankets put over me, maybe over my head (this bit I struggle to believe). I must have been out for a while rather than staggering about with amnesia. Then I got up, or tried to. After falling back to the tarmac, I got up enough to be assisted to the opposite footpath where I sat myself.
Strange, strange memorys. The thought of losing that time is quite unsettling, I’ve not had anything to compare in my life before.

The Kite Runner: tonight’s excellent film.