Well kind of, the weather has broken at least.

Its been a funny few days to be honest, my usual routine has certainly been kicked into touch, not a bad thing per se, but i'm all at sixes and sevens! As i'd been on the bike Tuesday and Wednesday i thought i should rest on Thursday so i ended up just doing a short shop walk instead. Not before a tyre fitting session, thanks to a generous Patron i was able to do a tyre upgrade to something a bit more aggressive and hopefully puncture resistant. I won't name them, they know who they are, but thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Friday when it arrived was set to be the new Thursday, i put together quite the route taking in a bunch of new to me trails and roads with a lunch stop at my usual burger bar in Clevedon. It started well, loads of twiddly bits and arrival at lunch @ one which is where things went awry. Yep, the food stop was shut, what now?

Well now turned into a continuation of my route to an emergency back up stop that i'd not used before. When that turned out to be apparently shut down i was down to option 3, a farm shop a further mile up the road. Well at least it was open, i got tea and food, not what i'd been looking forward to but it was food.

The last leg back into Brizz was quite heavy on new routes, so much that almost a third of the day's 90km were fresh to me. It also turned out a bit damp as a series of showers skipped in from the Bristol Channel, the new tyres certainly got a bit of a workout and came out winning.

Saturday turned into another shopping expedition up the hill to Kingswood, my mission, to source some tinned Pilchards! Can you believe that none of the main supermarkets have a single can of Pilchards, every other variety of tinned fish, tuna, salmon, herring, mackerel, sardines, anchovies but no pilchards, which are my favourite. The walk ended up over 5km, with a quite damp return but on the plus side i did secure a couple of tins of Pilchards, even that store only had half a dozen, is there some shortage that i don't know of? (answers on a postcard please).

And so to today. Some afternoon damp was forecast but it didn't look like too much so i set off to take in more new byways in the Cotswolds as well as visit a long barrow i didn't know of and a quick look at a National Trust property close by. The weather behaved for my outward journey, despite losing the trail for a short way i found my way to the sadly neglected Black Quarries Hill long barrow. After a few pics i turned the wheels towards Newark Park where i found a handy bench to eat my lunch, it seemed a bit steep to spend £14 just to access the cafe!

I had at least finished eating before the first wave of liquid sunshine arrived but it was to be just the first of many. undeterred i set off anew, missed another trail junction after navigating more sheeps than i've seen in a single field ever but did manage to rejoin the trail a bit further on. Now it got even worse as my route turned back towards Brizz, not just rain but a stiff headwind too. It was after four when i got back, tired, bedraggled and a bit muddy, over 980m of up and 100km in the legs, a worthy ride to see out the month.

It's been quite a week, a castle, three burial mounds, passing visits to two country houses, 290km, 3000m of climbing and 79.8km of new roads, certainly not boring.

Being Sunday there is Gaby to read, chapter Thirteen to be exact, more bike riding but its in earnest this time!

I'll be back on Wednesday but for now,
Wiedersehn,
Madeline Anafrid