Ride later: but perhaps I need a rest-day. Various muscles ache, need stretching or steadily burn a bit: hamstrings, quads and trapezoids. Another muscle is giving trouble too; the one that beats against the wall causes so much damned trouble.

Leonard Cohen, "Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye"

Is this how it works?
On Youtube, Solimorphus wrote:

Beautifully put; there are writers making gracious contributions on YouTube.

Feels like the last day of summer; the air is warm, smells sweet and the sunlight warm. Any passing clouds reminded us that the autumn is only so far away and there is little growth in farmland apart from those rich velvety berries glimpsed within hedgerows.
Feels like I could go for ever on that bike, just like last Sunday, no tiredness, no lapsing into poor cadence, just rolling mile after mile, comfortable, unstoppable.

I’ve got work to do, I’m relishing it because I feel more alive than years have seen.
The fronts of my arms have picked up an unfamiliar scent. It’s not mine, but a startling and welcome surprise.

Only 32 miles but I must be careful. Last year I was bugged by a persistent chest infection that cut so many miles off cycling. This summer’s rides total 1,000 miles on the bike. So I have answered my home-life-falling-apart with exercise to keep myself sane and sleep through the night. The result is that is I am as fit as I can remember.
Enough of me, let’s talk of something interesting.

Cycling, last weeks’ rides tott up to 208 miles, I feel like I can go all day. When I get back from Amsterdam, weather permitting, I will do a 100.

Very strong Westerlies all day, though warm & dry. It must be tough in the northern apporaches, sinkings happen on days like this.
Oh what now- another picture of Mugwort. It’s becoming more obvious which are mugwort and which are wormwood. As the mugworts mature, the top surfaces are getting darker, while the workwood keeps that silvery green on both sides. they will flower soon, one is white the other yellow.
/unramble.

Absinthium: after stopping by the road for a bike adjustment, there it was – a clump of Wormwood. It really does like sandy soil, by the roadside away from other plants; or is it stiffling the others with that Thujone? I brought a piece home to make sure of the identity. You know what it’s like, after spotting one, seeing them everywhere is easy. I want a sample in the garden.

Willington Power Station: only has 5 cooling towers, and nothing else, no generator hall, no chimneys no other buildings. No wonder it looked so ugly last time I passed it- it’s being demolished. It looks like there are plans to put housing on there (as there is everywhere in the UK).

Beautiful day; 79 miles but not very fast.