even if it is getting prematurely dark!

So lets start with catch up time.

Running on Monday, well I was well chuffed, a complete 7.5km circuit without a rest period and my fastest time for the loop to boot! Now, if I can just ramp up the pace a little then I can think about increasing the distance a bit.

Yesterday, Tuesday was bike day of course and spurred on by my recent historic / sightseeing rides, I had a destination in Somerset in mind, Nunney Castle. TBH the description gave the impression of an overgrown bit of wall and not much else but its somewhere new to me so I set off, maybe a bit later than ideal, to cross the eastern Mendip tailings. They might not be very high but on a bike the ups and downs make for some hard work and use of low gears was required on several occasions!

Nunney, it turns out, is a very picture skew place, tiny market place, roses around the doors, mown greens and sat right in the middle, the castle. There were a few other visitors and I could see the attraction, a compact site, water filled moat, the 50ft high towers all intact, yup much better than the interweb suggested. I parked my steed, grabbed the camera and did my David Bailey bit before returning to sit in the sun to eat my sandwiches just like all the other grockles.

It was still quite early, it had been less than a two hour ride to get here so I decided that my route part two - a visit to nearby Westbury White Horse, was doable. And so I set off, through Frome, out past Longleat to Warminster then along the base of the Downs to Westbury. The White Horse is well signed and I was soon climbing steadily up onto the Down's, catching glimpses of the chalk figure before, with a last gasp reaching the top, Horse and the much earlier hillfort clearly a popular attraction. It was quite warm and spotting an ice cream van in the car park, decided to treat myself to a 99 - vanilla cone with a chocolate 'Flake' bar stuck in it, £2 felt a bit steep but I guess that's about normal outside of the M25 these days.

Hillforts are never easy to photograph and I didn't really have an hour to do the job properly so after a couple of snaps I set off, pausing briefly at the stone erected to commemorate Alfred's defeat of the Danes here in 834. Back off the hillside I followed the road east which took me most of the way to Devizes before I picked up some road I recognized and realised I had come further than I'd planned. Oh well, it wasn't late exactly but I still had something like three hours riding to get back to Brizzle so I found myself riding a bit harder in to the breeze than I might otherwise have done.

Up to Melksham, then across to Bath where I picked up the 'easy' bike route back to base, arriving with 6 hours of saddle time and just over 140km covered, not made easier by the 1400m of ascent thrown in. Girl, was I bgrd!

And so to today. It's become habit to do a long hike on Wednesdays but it was looking a bit changeable and earlier rain deterred me from a field walking route so instead I thought I'd revisit the River Frome. Of course, having made that decision and dressing to suit, it got progressively nicer as the afternoon wore on. A mere 10km but I quite enjoyed it, there not being the usual 'commute' element of the longer walks.

The forecast for the rest of the week looks a bit poor, less flaming June, more floating June, so my ride/walk/run programme may be a bit disrupted, we'll have to see what turns up.

That brings us to todays Gaby posting, Party Frocked see's Bond jnr in a reflective mood ahead of the Apollinaris celebrations.

I had hoped to include the Amazon links today but they are playing about this week, i'll get the detail up as soon as I have it.

tschussie
Madeline Anafrid