well sort of!

It all started on Thursday, i guess Spring was literally in the air! Even before i set off for my ride there was talk of 'gardening' and 'seeds' and even 'flowers'!

Well i set off for my ride, a variation of my Clevedon burger stop loop, it wasn't freezing but my GPS never got to double figures even with the sun out after my stop. The culprit was an unusually cold westerly, but on the plus side it was on my butt for the long leg east to Bath and its wrath was tempered a bit for the last leg into it. It was only 101km, i had more in my legs but it can be difficult to add distance to this route without adding too much - just the way the roads are.

When i got back, Aunty Bev had bought some flowers for the front 'bed' and plans were made to visit the garden centre Friday morning.

I quite like a mooch around a garden centre, and Friday's target was to get some veg seedlings - we were a bit late last year and we had very mixed results from direct sown seed. We ended up with peas, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, broad beans, beetroot and more along with some seed potatoes and onion sets - someone will be busy over the weekend! There was some mumbling about a 'greenhouse' and tomatoes but i had other stuff to do, vis post the Grandson's Easter eggs - not chocolate but longer lasting Playmobil eggs.

I returned and in a flush of enthusiasm we departed again to see if we could get a small plant shelter thingy. Well we could, we did and i spent the afternoon building said shelter and putting down a 'cobbled' floor. Its not huge but for our needs its enough.

I normally ride on Saturday's but a dodgy forecast meant a 'rain check' on that, instead i spent much of the day planting seeds of one kind and another, seeds in propagators to hopefully give us a later crop of some stuff. Very satisfying, there will be more planting later in the week into the actual beds but thats for another day.

And so to today, the postponed ride. The westerly was still doing its thing but without Saturdays dampness, ideally i'd be going out into it for an assisted return but from Brizz there's a big lump of water in the way which makes such rides a bit impractical. Instead i headed roughly north, in theory i wouldn't get much riding directly into the wind but i'd also not get a great deal of help either. Up through Berkeley Vale to Stroud for the mid ride lunch stop then, a full English refilled the tank ready for a quite tough return via the Cotswolds which pushed the climbing to almost 1000m across the 110km ride.

I write this after consuming a pretty fair multi Indian curry evening meal, not had one for a while, must've been okay, the plates were clear of pattern by the time we were done!

Of course, being Sunday, there is new Gaby, Not the plan continues our secret agents exploits in the Med!

I'll be back mid week if all goes to plan, but for now,
Wiedersehn,
Madeline Anafrid