the forecast for this bit of the world is a bit 'Northern'!

Yep, i know its not exactly Arctic but temperatures hovering around 0c are not that common in Brizzleshire and its forecast to continue for at least a few more days. On the plus side, its stayed dry so far so mostly ice free, we've even seen Mr Blue Sky most days even if the Suns rays have done little to raise the c's.

Let's catch up on the week. I thought i'd take the Ebike north on Thursday, into the wind towards Stroud, which seemed to be a bit thirsty of the available watts. I knew i had the spare battery to fall back on but it was a concern to have to plug that in with barely 60km on the clock. I needn't have worried, with the wind and the worst climbs behind me it brought me back to Brizz with bars to spare for a second 100km ride of the year.

I'll come back to Friday shortly so we'll jump to Saturdays frigid ride. With an average 0c for the day and a ride more directly into the prevailing north easterly, it felt several degrees cooler and my lunch stop at Chippenham was correspondingly brief. I had intended a fairly direct route back and in reality it was but i chose a lane which after a mile or so turned into a byway that i hadn't intended using. Now a byway in the UK can be anything from a surfaced lane to a couple of tracks across a field, in effect they are usually a bridleway open to motorised traffic which is where the problem comes in.

So called 'Green laners' using 4wd's and dirt bikes love testing their skills out on these low grade roadways but they cause huge damage in the form of ripped up surfaces and sometimes huge ruts which often fill with water. In some places there is serious conflict between the 'laners and other users, routes have been closed, others gain restrictions but rarely is the damage put right. Yesterdays example is actually sort of surfaced for most of its length but for @ 400m its deeply rutted and currently very wet and muddy, which i didn't know when i committed to using it.

I emerged with a very muddy bike although i'd avoided collecting too much on myself. A byway stretch of the Fosse Way Roman road failed to shake much off, the Cotswold clag grips like a limpet to any surface! The battery lasted better on this ride, i only plugged in the auxillary unit at @ 75km which allowed me to 'waste' a bit of that reserve with more E use on the final stretch as i completed a third 100km ride in a week. The rides might be E assisted but they've been far from easy, I'm putting in at least as much effort as without, the bike is twice the weight of Foxy and as soon as you hit 15mph its all you moving it.

Sunday, today, the 'day of rest', maybe for some but i headed out for a longer walk. Okay not huge but at almost 10km it was a goodly stroll broken only by a lunch stop for a bacon and egg sarnie. Once back it wastime to sort out 'dinner', roast lamb today with all the trimmings followed by freshly baked apple strudel. The plates were cleared so it must have been okay.

Lets go back to Friday now. I've had my 'vacation' from writing now so i sat down to sort out Balancing Trick, the 28th Gaby book, for single volume publication. Collation, formatting, editing, grammar checking - eventually i had @ 450 pages ready to go. I did all the stuff and hit publish, Amazon broke all records, in under 2 hours it was live on their site! Saturday i started the process on a dead tree version, that went live overnight. Tomorrow i'll prepare and upload digital and paperback Lulu versions, they need different file types and some formatting adjustment.

So here they are, click on the left image for digital and the right for dead tree, i'll post links for Lulu on Wednesday.

I know, like me, many of you are not cash rich so i continue to set the pricing well below what the 'publishers' suggest and compared to almost any other publication i think these volumes offer extremely good value. If you do make a purchase (for which i'm eternally grateful) please pop back and leave a review, more reviews mean more sales so do it for any Doppler titles you buy too!

Well that's it for now or is it? Not quite, being Sunday i have of course put up the next chapter of Book 26, read chapter 20, The Meaning of Life now. There is a bit of mild 'language' from one of the 'real life' visitors to the Saga, Mal (Me Eyes) Elliott, a chap i knew slightly forty years ago and a member of the Brits abroad pro peloton in the 80's & 90's long before Sky/Ineos. He's as Sheffield as it gets and the language i've used is erm, mild compared to the real thing!

Anyhoo, that realy is the end of this missive,
Ta ra,
Maddy Anafrid