It rained today – not heavily, but enough to get me wet. The route was more or less a straight line to Marlborough, where I went to school. What I had expected was a nice progression through sedimentary landscapes from the Blue Lias of Somerset, through the limestones and then onto the chalk of Wiltshire.

What I had not realised was that the route took me through the abandoned village of Imber. Imber is located in the middle of an Army firing range…… so I arrive at the signs having just crossed a busy main road that I did not really want to go back to, and had to make a decision… forward or back…what do you think it was?

So I figured that they would man the check-point if they really meant NO… and carried on. I waved to some nice men in Army uniforms, who took no notice; I sped past a couple of very mean looking Army trucks and was interested to hear small arms fire to my left and very heavy shell fire to my right (both out of sight) and after about 9 km emerged on the other side just fine. The chalk downland in the ranges looked brilliant and some was being grazed by cattle held in by electric fences. It was sad that the weather was so wet (and cold) as there were no butterflies out – I was really hoping to see a few of chalk specialities today.

My first 100 km run on this trip today – 103 km, 1023 m ascent and 2 tubs! New birds for trip: red kite and green woodpecker. Running totals: 564 km, 7411 m ascent, 41 tubs, 68 bird species.

My aunt Pam and her son Michael (John) and daughter Hilary and their better halves Jan and Steve, all live in Somerton, so I had to call by and see them. I’m not sure when we all last met, but it was a long time ago. All of the older houses here are constructed of local stone and are beautiful. It is a shame the cost of stone is too high for the construction of the new outlying estates.

It was though really for my family that I came here – my cousins Michael and Hilary have known me for all of my life – they featured in the picture of the picnic on Praa Sands earlier in this blog.

Before the cream tea (anyone notice a theme developing here?), Michael and Jan were kind enough to take me to Glastonbury and its Tor. Glastonbury is a very distinct throwback to the mid 1960s – I am not sure that I have seen as many hippies in one place (with all associated shops) since the early 1970s. The Tor though needed to be climbed, so we did that.

Today was (as they say) one of two halves. It was a relatively short ride to my cousin’s house in Somerton (the ancient capital of Wessex – learned from the town sign on the way in). The route took me through some fine rural agricultural landscape, and onto a section of road closed for repairs. Not knowing what the diversion looked like, I negotiated to walk past the road-menders who had ripped up all the tarmac for about 1 km and were also replacing the manhole covers etc in the road. This was excellent as I had about 3 km of B road completely to myself. Towards the end I came to the village of Long Load (I imagine there are many jokes) where most front gardens had some sort of scarecrow/guy in attendance. Here are just a few of those.

I was happy to see a village all working together to have a bit of fun – and to enjoy it without traffic. I’m told that Long Load is one of those on the Somerset Levels that is prone to flooding – I hope a sustainable fix to that has been implemented.

Todays totals: 48.9 km, 682 m ascent, 2 tubs. (Yesterday because I forgot again: 67.5 km, 1100 m ascent, 9 tubs)

Running totals: 461 km, 6288 m ascent, 39 tubs

My nice cycle navigation system (combination of a Garmin 1030 and the website cycle.travel (highly recommended)) does a great job of keeping me away from traffic and people in general. Yesterday I traversed the outskirts of Plymouth and hardly saw anyone, today was the same with Exeter. The routes often go through 1960s housing estates that have seen better days. Some municipalities have done a good job on cycle routes, others less so.

Today though I deliberately have come to a place full of Bank Holiday crowds – Charmouth – to see my friend Anne whom I have known since 1969. The route had a few ridges to get over but was broadly very enjoyable.

In order to keep up with my sister Jo’s suggestion of having cream teas everywhere, Anne and I had a look at a couple of very crowded and noisy cafes before discovering the local craft baker did take away cream teas – so we had our cream teas on a bench in the local park.

Onto my third county (including the London ride). A short ride from cousin Judy and her husband Harry’s house to a tiny ferry across Plymouth Sound, with good but brief views of old Naval buildings (now converted to flats). The ferry was free to me as a fellow passenger decided to be charitable and paid my fare using his multi-crossing ticket. I failed to ask his name, but if you read this – thank you very much.

I had arranged to meet with my nephew Sam for a quick coffee on the way past… so we did that. He was off fishing in his (now) delicate shade of green van. Always good to see family thriving and happy.

Most of the rest of the day was mostly a slog beside the A38 – here called the Devon Expressway. The route was often on a pavement right beside the busy dual carriageway, but other times was on the old A38, now much less used and therefore a pleasure to ride on. I was not sure about the pavement sections – often these are overhung with vegetation, meaning continual ducking, and although not in the traffic, very much with the traffic, so not so enjoyable. On the other hand the gradients are not steep. I stopped for lunch in Ashburton to meet one of my favourite ex-colleagues, Sophy, who has moved to nearby Totnes. It was great to see her and she was kind enough to delay a family holiday to Cornwall to see me. I can recommend the Rafikis café – delicious lunch and great tea too. I stupidly forgot to take a photograph.

Todays climb was greater than yesterday’s – I forgot to post yesterday’s statistics which were: 82.6 km, 1172 m ascent and 7 tubs. Totals today were 80 km, 1204 m ascent and no tubs (calamity!). Running totals are 344.2 km, 4506 m ascent and 29 tubs.

This was my last full day in Kernow – Cornwall in the Cornish language. I am sorry that it has come out a bit late – I am struggling with WordPress, which being web-based seems not to like the slightly flaky internet coverage that typifies Cornwall. I have actually written this blog 3 times now. If anyone has a better suggestion for software that is more reliable, let me know!

Anyway, yesterday was a day that I had not looked forward to due to the number of hills on my route – see below. These are sharp and brutish – I only found one sign indicating gradient and that was on one of the easier hills. I did a fair bit of pushing! Going downhill was not that easy either as I had to be gripping my brakes all the way, with a fair bit of squealing (the centre of most lanes is loose gravel on tarmac, anmd I was not keen to go there)

I am also getting a slight (unfair) dislike to bridges over rivers – mostly because they signify the start of a nasty hill going up….There are some pretty scenes though.

The route for the first part of the day was intertwined with the A30 – the main road artery into Cornwall. Being a Bank Holiday weekend it was rather busy – I think my quiet back roads were much nicer. Even though the A30 was often out of sight, it could usually still be heard.

One bit of the bike route was on the A30 though, but the old carriageway. This would have been the road on which we left Cornwall all those years ago. It passes through a rather fine bit of habitat, now a nature reserve and is slowly being overgrown from both sides. Only pedestrians and bicycles are allowed. A very fine place and I was pleased to hear a grasshopper warbler reeling away.

Another striking feature of Cornwall are the number of places named after Cornish saints. Many of these have obscure origins but date back to the 500 and 600s when Cornwall was one of the more prosperous places, trading metal with much of Europe. One church I particularly admired was at St Enoder – covered from top to bottom in lichen.

Cornwall’s industrial history is very evident – the metal mines tend to be further west (where I started today) and the china clay pits are more central. The hills tend to have squared off edges with the mining tails. My route took me north of those and I did not get any pictures.

So today, I cross into Devon and onwards…

I have always been proud to be Cornish by birth, even though my allegiance these days belongs much more to Scotland. Today was a special day with the opportunity to visit my place of birth and the house we lived in for the first few months of my life. Of course I remember very little of this since we left just short of six months after my birth. The residual memory that I have relates to the dog that joined us in Redruth – Friday – but more of him in a later post.

I also got a chance to visit Carn View, the house that we lived in while in Cornwall. It is now lived in by Helen and Alan, who have been there for 16 years. The earliest pictures of me are less than a month after I was born and were taken in the back garden of Carn View. The garden (and hedges) have now gone to be replaced by some aviaries and concrete. Helen and Alan were kind enough to host me for an hour or so and provide Sweaty) me with a cup of tea and a water refill. Some details of the house have not changed.

After these visits, I went “backwards” to Camborne to get an annoying clicking noise on my bike looked at. I thoroughly recommend Aldridge Cycles who looked at, tightened a couple of bolts, but considered it likely that the bottom bracket was giving way. This apparently is not catastrophic, but I might work on getting the bike booked in for a replacement later in the trip. This service was free.

Then it was onwards. I had missed lunch, but decided to stop off for an early Cornish Cream Tea – a must when in the county. Todays total 60.1 km, running total: 181 km. 21 bathtubs in fields – running total: 23.

Today the riding started in earnest. The sleeper pulled into Penzance just before 0800. I did not sleep particularly well and the breakfast provided consisted one an 80g packet of muesli and lots of tea. Luckily I have other supplies with to top up on! My route took me from Penzance to Lands End (it had to be done) – this is part of national cycle route 3 that was on god quiet roads. All fine except for an enthusiastic young farm worker who had obviously decided to celebrate European election day by spraying pig shit from his machine over about 5 km of road. The whiff was not good. Obligatory pictures (costing £10) were taken at Lands End and the photographer and I spent a bit of time discussing and remembering the Torrey Canyon. I’m glad to say that I could see quite a few guillemots and razorbills about, so things do recover.

I also had a chat with a Dutch father and daughter who were cycling back to a small town near Utrecht – we were all impressed as to how quiet Lands End was. Then off to the Lizard, partly down that smelly road, but then a shorter but steeper downhill into Newlyn – where the port looked busy. I did wonder as to whether to try to find industry friends from my JNCC days, but decided not to. I ate a Cornish Pasty instead.

The Cornish roads are spectacular just now -steep banks covered in flowers and as I moved onto the Lizard peninsula, some old mine pump/engine houses came into the landscape. Some have been re-purposed into houses, others are still derelict.

One thing that I was wanting to do on this trip was to revisit sites of old photographs. Well I failed today – I could not find the site of this picture on Praa Sands – probably because like most dune systems, it has changed in the intervening 63 years. It is of a family picnic that I think must have been Easter 1956. I am in the centre, but out of sight. My father and mother flank me, with three of my four grand-parents on view (the fourth took the picture). My aunt and two cousins, who I will see in a few day’s time are on the right.

I dropped off my panniers at Mullion where I am staying at the comfortable Old Inn and pedalled to the Lizard where I had one bird to catch up with (as well as visiting the southern-most point of the UK. The chough had far fewer admirers than the southernmost point! Total for the day 97.6 km, running total 120.9 km. Two bathtubs in fields.

After a short visit with my brother-in-law Michael, I set off for Paddington, and guess what? I got hit by a car at the end of Michael’s road. Some ned who was just not looking where he was going. I had stopped at the junction and luckily had both feet on the ground and was able to push backwards as I could see what was happening. My bike was well lit as was my helmet, he was just on the wrong side of the road as he had turned in far too early. No damage was caused, but really!

The nice Garmin navigation machine took me across London past a few notable highlights. These included the old with the new (Tower of London with the Shard), a completely boarded up Big Ben – a metaphor for our current political system if there ever was one – in dire need of rejuvenation and repair. I cannot help feeling that our ancestor, Oliver Cromwell, might well have had a few words to say…. Then past Buck House – good to see that Madge was in residence. Eventually I ended up at Paddington station where I had to wait a bit before being allowed to take my berth on the sleeper. Total distance on this ride: 13.4 km, running total: 23.3 km. One accident.

Today consisted of getting up very early to finish a few things off. Bike was then loaded onto the back of the car – I’m always nervous about that as the rack seems very flimsy – however we made it to Aberdeen station in the rain.

Then a short negotiation to get the bike into the guard’s van – I am not sure if he was having 40 winks when I knocked on his door but he looked startled! Bikes hang vertically next to the water!

And then settle into seat for 7 hour trip to London Kings Cross – is this the first of many bacon butties?

Then it was a slow peddle around to brother-in-law Michael’s house in Poplar. This is stop 1 on the route to visit everywhere by bike – this is where I stayed on nearly all work trips to London, very comfortable, very hospitable and definitely off London’s beaten tracks (though remarkably close to Canary Wharf). Total today so far: 9.9 km, got lost twice….