The last post

... On this battery charge. Man Utd won, I met my MP and then my buddies in
the pub. Easy ride into London. More tomorrow when I can recharge my and
the BlackBerry's batteries at home in Horningsea.

Brothers

Break from blogging yesterday. After the rigours of Dorset's coast (90
miles total that day) yesterday was a gentle 65 or so, partly across the
Isle of Wight, with a long and agreeable break at the University of
Portsmouth being shown around the Brain Tumour Research Lab by Prof Geoff
Pilkington. Geoff loves his kit, like any scientist. It was very striking
how little of it had been provided by government funds, though: much if not
most was from private individuals and chariries like BTUK. Met up with my
brother Drew in the evening, so for a few hours the three of us have been
together. Drew and I head off for the Smoke (London) this morning.

Where am I?

Burton Bradstock, Dorset coast. This is the Jurassic coast, named after the
fossilized remains of knackered pre-stone-age cyclists who lost hope on the
hills, lay down, died and were preserved in limestone. No blog post last
night: we were in the bottom of one of those Devon valleys that block
mobile reception. Then this morning's ride was characterized by several
extra miles while we looked for the right road. Eventually we found it: up
the side of a 1 in 4 hill. At least the weather's nice.

Floods, flowers and food

Just so that you don't think I was exaggerating about the weather: the pub
I went to for dinner tonight was flooded! I squelched around on their
carpet in my Tevas. The flowers here are more advanced than at home:
foxgloves everywhere, in mid-May. And I saw the first poppy of the summer
this morning. Talking of pubs, as I was... I aim to eat and drink local
produce to the extent possible on this ride. Along with my pasties today, I
was introduced to the fruity charms of the 'tea treat', an oversized
saffron bun. And for dinner, Cornish cider (6 percent, hic) and chiken
tikka masala, which is local fare throughout England.

Dodgy knee

I'd have loved to make an upbeat entry, but two Ibuprofen haven't helped.
My left knee - the one that caused me to give up running - hurts. We'll see
how it goes overnight. I know its patterns of misbehaviour, and it might
just be a touch stiff rather than agonising. At the moment, though, it's
making me very twitchy. The cycling went OK today: I didn't notice my knee
was bad until I got off the bike. There were a lot of cyclists at Land's
End, all of them planning to go a lot faster than me, albeit in company.
Four lads from London with a target of eight days. I hope they had a good
day's riding. We (I) had a couple of hours of 'torrential downpours' (Met
Office's words, not mine) but negligible wind, at least, and clouds all day
so low you felt you could grab them. A nice lady outside the pasty bakery
gave me a fiver, and a man on the spectacular bridge at Wadebridge (built
1468!) stopped his Dawes Super Galaxy, took my photo and did the same. Soon
I'll learn to post photos so you can see.

Arrived at Lands End

(On the train through Somerset) Modern man cannot switch off straight away.
Yesterday - intended as a quiet day at home, gardening and packing panniers
- turned into a minor media circus. A TV crew even filmed me packing my
panniers. Today I was making last-minute appointments to pop in at a
research lab (Portsmouth) and a hospital (Edinburgh). The ride from Kings
Cross to Paddington was, unsurprisingly, horrible. And when I should have
relaxed on the train I started doing a Sudoku instead. Aagh. (Dawlish,
South Devon) Palm trees in the town square, strangely eroded red sandstone
cliffs. I'm far from Cambridge. Have I changed time-zone? (Land's End) low
cloudn but mercifully neither wind nor rain, yet.

Different folks

I hope you all had as lovely a weekend as I did. Three visitors descended on Horningsea for a national cycling conference that was held in Cambridge. I think they were a bit worried to begin with, 'cos we're not that close to the middle of the city. But when they found they were eating eggs from our very own hens and drinking water from our very own well, they soon got reconciled to the slightly longer than expected ride into town.

What different folks they are. A cycle politician, one of the geniuses behind the magnificent Facility of the Month website http://www.warringtoncyclecampaign.co.uk/ and a fundamentalist: don't give us crap cycle lanes, just enforce road rules, apply sensible road design and cyclists, drivers and pedestrians will rub along just fine. A man who has devoted a significant proportion of his life to training youngsters to cycle safely. And one whose idea of a good time is to cycle 1200 km in 90 hours (including sleeping time). They were all very supportive of my LE->JOG ambitions.

On Sunday we went for a long and slow ride. 50 miles including a cafe and two pubs, in glorious sunshine, chatting our way through the countryside. Just what I needed to reinforce my growing confidence that the physical strain of my forthcoming ride will not be the hard bit (except maybe that daily confrontation with my hard new saddle).