'A year has passed since I lost my home...'

and to be honest, what with world events and other stuff, I'm no closer now than I was then to getting my life sorted out. Thanks to Bev I have a roof over my head for which I'll be eternally grateful but its not 'my' place. For most of my adult life I lived in the same place and for longer than that within five miles of there so being 200 miles away has been a big adjustment to make on every level. I'll make no bones about it, I'm suffering from depression and self doubt, I can't see a way out and the thin veneer of 'normality' is wearing a bit thin. I'm not gonna hang trendy titles on it and whilst outside agencies have contributed, I have to put my hand up and accept some of the blame - it doesn't help but at least it keeps me honest.

Okay, so that's that off my chest, lets catch up on things starting on Thursday.

The forecast looked pretty good, not too hot with a light south westerly so I decided to heads down into Somerset and to the north facing coast beyond Bridgwater. Its a goodly ride so I set off on a fairly direct route towards the Mendip past the airport however, by the time the road started its climb across the saddle of hills it started to drizzle. I pushed on in the hope it would clear up which it did then started again several times before I transited Bridgwater where it finally gave up.

I headed west then north to reach the bird sanctuary at Steart Point, just a mile across the River Parrett from Burnham but @ twenty by road! I ate my sandwiches and started the long ride back, with a little wind assistance, taking a more coastal route back north. Not much climbing for the day but 180+km added to the total.

I'm afraid my mental health got the better of me on Friday so I only got as far as the shops and succeeded in doing nothing else whatsoever.

And so to Saturday, the wind had turned 180 degrees from Friday and the forecast was for warm, okay then, a short run up into the Cotswolds seemed like a good answer. I made steady progress up to Stroud where I started the main climb of the day, several miles up to Birdlip. In theory, looking at the map, my loop east past Cirencester was rolling, but even before my lunch stop I'd encountered a couple of quite testing climbs.

It didn't improve after lunch, whichever road I took seemed to have a black ^ on the map and with the temp in the high 20's and the humidity in the high% too I was suffering a bit! When I found a spring, cool, clear and with some adjacent shade, I was more than a little happy to spend a while cooling off. It seemed to do the trick, shortly after my route turned to the south, the climbs all but disappeared and I started to recover some of the time spent hiding from the heat. A quick stop in Barnsley, not the Yorkshire one, and through the Cotswold water park to Tetbury where I found the only petrol station not selling ice cream!

I did get some cold drinks and fruit which set me up for the last forty kilometres back to Bristol, another Imperial century but 'only' five miles over. However, those Cotswold climbs put over 1400m of vertical into the picture so I was quite pleased to average over 25kph (or 15.5mph) for the day. Checking the numbers, it reached 31c during the afternoon and maybe the ride was a little ambitious for the weather conditions, I might just have to delay my proposed route for Tuesday if its still as warm then!

And to today. Another warm one so apart from a bit of womanhandling some building materials for Bev, the poor ol' dear (lol) all I've managed is a short, 7.5km walk which was enough to give me sore feet! I've posted Summer Lovin', the next chapter of Gaby book 2 for you to enjoy and next up is trying to cool down!

More on Wednesday
Tschussie and I'll see you next time!

Madeline Anafrid