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.

The Rip:
 As she walks in the room
Scented and tall
Hesitating once more
And as I take on myself
And the bitterness I felt
I realise that love flows

 

Wild, white horses
They will take me away
And the tenderness I feel
Will send the dark underneath
Will I follow?

 

Through the glory of life
I will scatter on the floor
Disappointed and sore
And in my thoughts I have bled
For the riddles I’ve been fed
Another lie moves over

 

Wild, white horses
They will take me away
And the tenderness I feel
Will send the dark underneath
Will I follow?

 

Wild, white horses
They will take me away
And the tenderness I feel
Will send the dark underneath
Will I follow? 

Well wild horses they will take me away
and the tenderness I feel
will send the dark underneath
will I follow?

Climbing a sunken lane, there was a crow perched in the left embankment. Strange place for a crow so I stopped. He looks injured but didn’t fly away when I approached. See the photo. Poor creature seems to have a head injury, perhaps he was concussed. The other worry is that he has a disease, West Nile virus affects crows in the USA.
He stood there for a while, looking around and blinking but otherwise quite still. So I picked him up and took him over to a nearby field. Like other biords, he was quite calm once covered in a raincoat, even wild animals seem sedated by darkness. On letting go, he flew a short distance but crash landed in the undergrowth. I left hime there, at least he couldn’t get run over there. I wished him well and continued my journey, there really is nothing I could have done.
Good luck…

An excellent way to start Spring, warm sunshine, clear skies and England has got its colour back. Finally, I have cleared the remnants of that dreadful virus from the end of last term.