‘It was only a matter of time’
‘Enjoy the pain’. Malcolm has been spouting this mantra for days, borrowed from the former English Rugby Union captain, Martin Johnson. No, no I will not enjoy it but I will certainly have to endure it. On his rest-day, Malcolm passed me in the car and bellowed “Enjoy the pain” and I felt like making serious contact with his face and asking if he was enjoying it.
To be honest, what we are experiencing is certainly not acute pain, more like a chronic ache in a minor key in our legs. Although an inertia in the muscles and the mind-set often sets in the middle third of most rides and the last few miles can be painful, as the legs complain and grumble. Malcolm feels his right calf muscle is tight; I sometimes get a comes-and-goes pain just on the side and behind my right knee.
Thank you to all those people who donated yesterday. I think I was spiraling a little when I wrote the last blog post… These are tough financial times for many and we are grateful for anything donated.
We expected a day beside the A1(M) but Komoot excelled herself today and led us off it or beside it as much as she could. This was the last day shadowing the Roman road of Ermine Street but the B roads south were narrow and full of traffic with cars and lorries coming in waves. I cannot remember one incident of a lorry driver having a go at us throughout our travels and we try to stop for them whenever there is a safe place. I cannot say the same of van drivers. There is huge amount of building work here of roads and estates and, even though they are needed, it is slightly heartbreaking to see how much these construction projects scar the landscape. It is also heartbreaking to see the amount of roadkill on the surfaces, especially on fast roads when other animals cannot feed on the carrion without being killed themselves. Yesterday, we road through dead squirrel road – such carnage in only a few hundred yards.
We travelled to St Neots where we stopped so Malcolm could try to find a cable that worked with charging his phone. Our equipment, to a lesser extent our bikes and ourselves gradually feel like we are falling apart in slow motion… but I’m sure it’s all a matter of perception and, on the bikes, you have time to dwell on what does not seem right or working quite as well as it should, rather than actually acknowledging it is breaking.
I stopped at a cycle shop for new cleats – they didn’t have any. We tried to stop for a coffee break at a cafe – we couldn’t find one (well, not on the road we were traveling). Malcolm muttered “dark times”. We were in a mid-ride slump with loads of mileage still to go but that feeling we were getting nowhere. Everything wrong, no matter how inconsequential, is exacerbated in such moments.
We stopped at a garden centre. Surely we’d find a cafe? Nope. But they did have a couple of mighty fine buns. Again, it is astonishing how basic, chemical creatures we are – a bit of nourishment, a bit of sugar, some carbohydrates and we were back in the game.
We arrived in Hitchen to some excellent town planning. Over the journey we have found loads of towns with many of their central shops boarded up and the centre of the town seeming to be dying a slow sclerotic death. Not Hitchen. Cars are allowed around the outskirts of the large town square but just for drop-offs. However, in the town square are lots of cafes but also an immense sand-pit for young children, as well as some other attractions. Give something for the little kids to do and the adults will come. I’m no town planner but the place was busy and thriving.
I wasn’t hungry but Malcolm must have a metabolism in over-drive, as he constantly eats but never seems to gain weight. I. AM. SO. HAPPY. FOR. HIM. So we roasted n the sun on one side of the street, whilst I gazed longingly at the cafe in the shade on the opposite side of the road and wondered why we hadn’t chosen that one instead!
We had put in some good mileage but there was a good way to go and my friend, Kieron, had given us a feasible time to meet him in London. So through Welwyn Garden City and then Hatfield, which has a great, but almost-over-engineered spiral cycle path bridge.
Nine miles from our destination and we were still surrounded by green fields. Surely London had to be here somewhere? It wasn’t going to creep up on us like York and Lincoln, was it?
A long incline upwards and a turn to the right, and suddenly we were out of the countryside and in busy north London. I took the front and pelted down the roads. Car horns for the rest of journey have signaled irritation or caused alarm in us. Not so in London. Like all European cities, they are simply the background muzak of the road and drivers seem to use them liberally just for others to acknowledge their own existence. Legs on the edge of seizing up we made good time down to Finchley, passed some expensive housing, climbed and climbed hills and avoided the free-form improv driving practiced by some north Londoners. There are some excellent bollarded-off cycle lanes in the city that make driving so much more pleasant and safe.
At the top of a hill near Kenwood House was The Spaniards Inn, which clearly used to be a tollhouse, as the road narrowed significantly and drivers had to take turns going through the narrow aperture in the road. Not us. A path to the side and we were through and heading down into Hampstead and beyond.
We arrived at the hotel just as someone called out my name. Malcolm and I have a good friend called Mark Ashley (in fact, I can’t remember not knowing Mark and he is one of the best people I have ever known). This man had driven in from Hertfordshire just to see us in. Not only that he came bearing food and drink. He was only with us for about half-an-hour but it was such a welcome surprise.
Then we were out to meet my friend, Kieron, and his lovely wife, Isy. Kieron treated us to the full Roman experience: too much red wine and great Mediterranean food… I’m glad he didn’t lay on a vomitorium and an orgy. Thankfully, we didn’t need the first and would have fallen asleep in the second.
Friends – Malcolm, Emma, Mark, Kieron and Isy – have kept me going and sustained me these last few days and I’m so grateful to them.
But we’re homeward bound now. The last leg. Home and family and rest.
‘Homeward Bound, I wish I was…’ and know I am.
Rogues of the Roman Roads 