Home Again

We're home - and we got here in the nick of time!  One day later and we probably wouldn't have made it - snow drifts all over the country have brought traffic to a standstill and thousands of people have had journeys disrupted.

But we got home safe and sound, though each of us brought with us the cold and cough with which we had been burdened for our final days in Essex.  As I write this, I'm still suffering badly with mine, though my husband is on the mend.  Not that the colds have kept us indoors - the weather has seen to that!  

I've been using my time indoors to paint and going to finish this very short blog with a small version of my last Essex watercolour (last for now, anyhow).  Beeleigh Lock was very close to our accommodation, and I visited it almost every day.  For ten weeks it was in flood - I'm sure it is navigable by narrowboat in summer (when it would also be much greener) but this picture is my interpretation of how I saw it - in beautiful fury. 

(I'll put a bigger version of the picture on my "Fragile Brush" page).

Barriers Send me New Ways

Sometimes a combination of weather and work commitments keep us from our bikes, and sometimes the weather alone achieves this.  During the weekend just past, it was mainly Paul’s work - not that he had to go, but that being on call he might have to go.  In the event he went three times, one of those times in the dead of Saturday night.  Neither of us felt like riding yesterday.

So from a cycling point of view the weekend was a bit of a waste of opportunity.  But that meant that I had the opportunity to spend time with another hobby, and so that’s what I did. 

In fact, for some weeks now I have been working with my watercolour paints.  I felt rusty having done nothing with them other than to store them for quite a few years, and so I decided that “practice” was needed. I filled a sketchbook with my practice, and I’ve produced a few pieces that I’m proud of.  It’s been great fun but also difficult - and a trifle expensive, as my old paints had dried up and needed to be replaced. 

It’s a great feeling, having my original artistic outlet back. It seems that my time away from home has swept aside a block I had - and given me so many ideas and so much inspiration that I just can’t keep it inside any more.  But then of course I’ve been trying to catch interesting shots with my camera for a long time - and here’s a shot I took (with my phone - some opportunities just need to be snatched) which I just love!

New Roads, New Rivers

With our tandem finally liberated from the snow and ice, and being away from home, my husband Paul and I decided yesterday to take advantage of one of the many benefits of being CTC members by riding with new friends on new roads.  Ride, that is, with friendly complete strangers, on completely strange roads that we knew they would show to us. 

We had a cold and wet start, but the weathermen had assured us that the rain would pass and so with enthusiasm borne of cabin fever we packed waterproofs and set off.  Against a strong headwind we battled our way to Chelmsford, using mainly main roads because we knew no better.  At the bus station there we met up with four other riders, and guided by our leader, Martin, we set off with the wind behind us. 

We didn’t know what to expect.  Essex is decidedly flatter than Shropshire and there’s a lot more traffic, but good company makes up for a great deal and CTC riders always find the best routes (and the best tea stops, obviously).  Our new companions were lovely people and like us, they were riding with sluggish legs due to a lack of winter riding.  So we were well strung out, particularly on the several undulations which the route threw at us. 

Outside the cafe at Heybridge Basin

We stopped for tea at Heybridge Basin.  Though only about two miles as the crow flies from our temporary home, the river and canal crossings make it a very long walk away and so we hadn’t previously been there.  It’s a place to go again though - the cafe overlooked the sea lock where the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation Canal enters the Blackwater Estuary, and it overlooked Northey Island, with its fabulous birdlife, too.  With yachts bobbing against the breakwater in the high tide, it was a fabulous place to see. 

Moving on, we climbed through Maldon, a proper hill climb by anyone’s standards, and a busy road too.  Riding out of Maldon we passed the turning for our temporary home but we held our resolve to continue to the lunch stop, which was at a pub at East Hanningfield. 

The lanes we took were bordered by gullies and often also by narrow wooded strips. Every gully was flooded - in this low lying arable farming land there is much ancient wisdom about drainage, and evidence of it is everywhere.  We saw hardly any flooded fields, the water management seems to be effective enough to avoid the worst.

Two other riders from places other than Chelmsford had joined us at Heybridge.  One of these, a man called Dave, rode with us and guided us back to our temporary home, on his way to his own home.  He was a remarkable man - only five months ago he was in hospital for several weeks recovering from multiple fractures of hip and pelvis, caused by a collision with a car.  I believe this was his first ride since the accident.  I was astonished by the lack of evidence of his injuries.  

We were home by four pm, having had a fabulous day.  In the garden of our temporary home by the river, it was obvious that the high tide had brought the river higher than we had ever seen it, and almost into the garden.  So I went out with my camera at high tide today to take the shots which follow.  I’m not sure I shall ever see such a dramatic river system as this ever again. 

This is the same tree which is in the snowy picture in my previous blog entry. But how different the river looks!

Taken from the far side of the river, the path here is underwater, and the two distant trees stand on a small island which is completely covered.

This is the main weir at high tide and in flood - The point from where I took my "low tide shot" in the previous blog is underwater. 










This is the weir from the other side - I was frightened to cross the bridge, so thunderous was the water!  In the background you can see the overflowing canal lock.

No wonder they shut the canal to pleasure boaters in winter!

Estuary Land

Winter can be monotonous and long, with the weather interrupting plans and throwing in difficulties at every turn.  With most of the country gripped by snow and ice, we thought it would be nice to travel south in winter, with the hope of escaping it all.  Last year we managed to get away to India for a fortnight.  But this year we are not as far south as that - we’re in Essex!  

But Essex has been lucky, having had only a light and picturesque dusting of snow.  It has not escaped the freezing temperatures though and so our bikes have been locked in the van for many days, with no chance of our being able to ride them. 

Garden View

I’ve made good use of my time; learning to paint (again) from scratch.  It’s been easy to be inspired - our temporary home is in the most exquisite spot, with a tidal river bordering our garden and a system of locks and weirs just a few hundred yards from our door.  I have always had a fascination with water, so I am in heaven here, and I walk out each day to see the effect of the tide on the weirs and the wildlife that lives there. 

Yesterday, we managed our first Essex ride.  With many icy patches remaining on the roads we chose to stay on gritted surfaces, and that meant riding B roads.  We rode the tandem down to Burnham on Crouch, over land so flat that we felt like we were flying.  But I saw plenty to interest me, mainly winter thrushes and eastern arable birdlife, finches and partridges, in quantities I simply never see in my Marches home. 

We took a short detour before returning home, along a road leading to a causeway across to a low lying island, Northey, in the Blackwater Estuary.  Well over a thousand Brent Geese were feeding in a field of stubble onshore, and in the muddy riverbank, tens of thousands of wading birds took advantage of the receding tide.  It was simply a breathtaking sight.

I’d done my RSPB “Big Garden Birdwatch” before we’d set out.  I have counted 14 species of birds feeding in and below just the one tree immediately outside of my window.  But as I rested on the sofa following my ride yesterday, I saw the fifteenth - a Goldcrest, flitting around the branches.  

Here, wildlife comes to my window.  But if I ride only a short way, it is there in spectacular and magnificent, wild and windswept abundance.

Low tide, but flooded from melting snow

Little Achievements

I DID IT!  It was as we pulled out of a turning on our tandem.  I said to Paul:  "That's it, I'm not riding any more this year" and he said "ok then you can walk from here".  Then he hugged me and kissed me. 

I'd done it - I'd ridden my 3000th mile of the year.

Besides that little fact, it was a fairly uninspiring ride in dull and damp weather which deteriorated as we pedalled.  It waited until we were home to start raining though, and then it pelted down. 

Some time ago I wrote an entry about challenges and personal challenges, and I mentioned my possibly stupid idea of riding 3000 miles a year.  I came up with this figure some years ago when the British Medical Association gave recommendations about physical activity and I interpreted their recommendations for myself with this challenge.  I lived in a flat part of the UK at that time... but things change.  My home terrain changed, but I couldn’t quite accept a shortening of my desired mileage to compensate.

But thanks to some fabulous holidays, to my husband’s encouragement and to our determination to make the most of every rain-free day (there have been precious few), I’ve managed my first 3000 mile year whilst living in Shropshire.  

I’m not sure I’ll manage it again though!

Floods

The River Severn
stops me in my tracks

No sooner had I uploaded my last piece than I realised that the wet roads I’d been writing about were as nothing as compared to what was to come.  The very next day the rain started, and continued, with devastating results for many unfortunate people.  Let me say right now that I am not one of the people whose homes have been inundated - although many of the roads I have been riding have been wet (and I’ve had to turn back once or twice) I am always privileged to have a warm, dry home to return to at the end of the day.  I’ve no direct experience of being flooded, so I can’t profess to truly understand.

But it’s not by accident that our flood risk is low.  When we moved into this house, I privately lamented its lack of proximity to water.  There’s a little stream by us (some would call it a drain) but it’s very little indeed, and no risk to us or our neighbours.  To stand by a proper river I have to cycle a good few miles, and descend quite a few metres.  It’s not much, but that small descent, and the ten accursed steps between the street and my house (which I struggle to carry my bike up), keep us free from the risk of water ingress.  This is something we considered carefully before we parted with our money, and we will again, if ever we move.

My husband added a comment onto my last blog entry, saying that the Severn had flooded around Welshpool.  I rode there a few days later to see what he meant and it was quite a dramatic sight, in many places a rather beautiful sight. But I can only say it was beautiful because I don’t think any homes were flooded in Welshpool.  The flood plain around the Severn is undeveloped, so it can do its job.  The sheep might find their field size reduced for a while, and doubtless many farmers are being significantly affected, but the water birds are in heaven. 



In other places of course, that's not the case.  Flood plains have been built on, with dreadful consequences.  Winter always brings wet weather and flood defences have been tested in the past.  But our drains and defences seem to be inadequate these days - is this because of particularly adverse and unusual weather, or because we have become complacent in thinking we can always build structures to tame nature?   

I can’t answer that question.  But it’s no secret that I love nature, in all its wild fury.  I like bad weather, with its stormy purple skies and underlit clouds reflecting onto the ripening crops in autumn. And I revel in the sound of trees swaying in breathtaking windiness, when my wheels are stopped in their tracks and I can only gaze in wonder, even as the rain stings my eyes.   

Wind can be very destructive, and rain can be too.  But they were here before us, and they will be here after us.  Whatever the misery they cause, they have my unfettered and humble respect, and I would hope that our city planners have respect for them too. 

Short Days, Short Rides

We were away attending to family commitments last week, and when we returned, it seemed that winter had arrived all of a sudden.  The days are short, the sun is low, the light is dim, and the temperature struggles to reach double figures.  If there were leaves on the trees it would seem darker still, but as the wind has torn most of the leaves from most of the trees, then the weakened sunlight can work its way through.  But it doesn’t stay light for long. 

There’s always a challenge aspect to winter riding.  Cold muscles don’t perform as well as warm ones, so it always seems like hard work.  The sheer quantity of clothes you need to wear feel like a handicap in themselves.  And even if the weather is dry, it doesn’t mean that the roads will be dry too, as water from past rainstorms pools in the roadway and can hang around for days if the fields are too saturated to allow water to drain away.  

To get out in winter, motivation can be key.  Good weather provides its own motivation but if the weather is inclement then I find that the best motivation is the company of good friends.  If I have neither of these encouragements then I have my fallback motivation of my real and desperate need to ride, whatever the conditions, when I have been off my bike for too long.  

That was how I felt yesterday.  One of those pesky winter viruses has had me down (my husband too) and I can’t even say I’m fully over it.  But I set out into a cold and dull day, glad that the morning’s rain had passed.  I found minor lanes to be close to impassable, so much water lay on them, and so I reverted to main roads (which are not busy around here).  

Soon I found myself in an avenue of oak trees, still clinging to their leaves, but dropping enough to leave a bronze edging to both sides of the road and brightening the otherwise straw and grey coloured verges.  The trees themselves, sturdy and magnificent, were swathed in a cloak of rich bronze with shards of red giving form and depth.  My phone camera couldn’t catch a fraction of it. 

The promise of reward is always a good motivation.  And in the absence of any other encouragement, then that promise is the one which gets me out on my bike in all seasons, all temperatures, and even on my own, in inclement weather. 

Gold, Rubies and Pearls

A lane, exquisite in all seasons

Each year I feel a sense of sadness when Summer passes, and Autumn seems to settle like a coldness coming from above. But no sooner has it come then Autumn raises its game with a spectacular show of colours that never ceases to enthral me.

It can be a brief show, and the weather may be so inclement that the desire to go out to see it is almost suppressed.  But normally I find sufficient self-motivation to go out on my bike and to enjoy the best show of the year before winter’s grip takes it from me. And so, in the past month, I’ve had quite a few really fabulous rides. 

Riding along Wenlock Edge, a flock of migrating birds flew over.  As the sun pushed its way through the mist, the mist’s last wisps clung to the clods of earth left by the farmer’s plough, as though the very earth was steaming.  Woodsmoke hung in the air, giving a homely smell of the hearth and a promise of warmth at the end of the day.  Golden leaves on the road made for skidding bicycle wheels, but they also gave an impression of riding over a road paved with gold. 


Money grows on trees - or so it seems, when you look at the golden coins hanging from the silver birch in autumn.  Copper and bronze hang from other trees, and some leaves are so red that they seem to be in flower rather than in the autumn die back.  Nuts and berries drip from branches, though the squirrels make short work of those cobb nuts left by the farmer’s clippers.  From the holly, hawthorn and dog rose hang rubies, from the snowberry, pearls.

One day many years ago a lowlife burglar stole from me, amongst other things, an eternity ring, gold set with rubies, which had belonged to my late mother.  It couldn’t have been of any great value to him but for me, it was priceless.  I missed it sorely, so strong was its association with the mother I had lost.  But gradually, as time passed, I began to see that autumn brings gifts which are also priceless.  

And so I shall always feel my mother’s presence, whenever the wild rose shows to me its bejewelled hand.

Fill that Bucket!

Recently I found myself trying to explain to a new cyclist that fitness doesn’t always come as a free gift, even though it sometimes seems as though it does when you’re young.  In making my point I found myself talking about buckets, and since then, I’ve decided it’s a good metaphor.  So with plentiful mixing of metaphors, here goes.

I have a bucket, and you have one too - we all have one.  I try to keep my particular bucket full of water but I can only use a tablespoon to fill it.  Unfortunately, there’s a hole in the bottom of the bucket and so the water drains away if I don’t keep filling it.  If I want to keep the level the same, I only have to fill it as fast as it leaks.  But if I want to fill it completely, then obviously, I need to work hard with that tablespoon. 

My husband's wee bucket...

Once it’s full, I can keep it full fairly easily by just filling it as fast as it leaks.  The trouble is, it’s hard to get it to that point - especially as the hole gets a little bit bigger each year that I get older.

Winter is just around the corner, and in winter, I tend to get lazy with my tablespoon.  The weather, the dark nights, and the odd virus, conspire to take my attention away from my bucket-filling duties.  At least five pay-per-month public gyms have benefitted from my pathetic attempts to keep my bucket full in past winters, and I’ve had more overturned new leaves than I can list. Not surprisingly then, every year in Spring I find myself with an empty bucket, and feelings of panic as I realise how much work I’m going to have to do to get it full again. 

My little bucket

I’d hate anyone to think that I’m obsessed with fitness - that’s very far from the case.  I can cycle on my own at any speed, walking pace even, and I’m quite happy to do that.  My only problem is that if I cycle with anyone else at all, I want to keep up with them, as lagging behind is no fun at all.  I like cycling with other people, and that, regretfully means having a little bit of fitness on my side - a moderately full bucket, you might say.  

So here we go again, another winter, and another resolution.  I’ve bought running shoes, and they sit on my shoe-rack, taunting me.  Wish me luck, I’ll need it.  And all the best with your buckets too!

Challenges and Personal Challenges

Having written previously about the tendency of young people to like challenges, it now looks like I’m saying that I’m young.  I must be - I tend to set cycling targets for myself, I just can’t help it.  I never intend to, but my love of round numbers gets me doing it every time.  

But challenges are one thing and personal challenges are another.  Let me explain.

I was born without the competetiveness gene.  I was never any good at sport - set me the challenge of beating someone else at something and I’ll give up without trying.  Sport at school was for me a living hell, I was always left on the sidelines - the message my PE teacher hammered into me was that I was useless.  Britain’s phenomenal success at the Olympics could never have inspired me at all - I always knew I’d never, and could never, be the best at anything, and only the best are praised in sport.

So now we have an Olympic legacy on which we must capitalise in order to get people active, and it starts with the youngest members of society.  But how do we inspire those children at school whose lack of sporting prowess leaves them on the sidelines?

Personal challenges are for everyone, even me.  You don’t have to run or cycle as fast as Usain Bolt or Sir Chris Hoy, you just have to run or cycle faster or further than you have before.  As I stated above, I can’t help but set cycling challenges for myself, and though they are quite humble, they motivate me throughout the year.  They can motivate non-sporty kids at school too - I really hope that modern PE teachers appreciate this. 

I used to set myself the challenge of cycling more miles in a year than I drove, but I never achieved it - I relocated away from my home town and found myself driving back regularly to see relatives.  So then I set myself the challenge of riding 40 miles per week for the rest of my life - that was because it equated to the well-publicised recommendation of the BMA, who in 1992 published a report urging people to incorporate exercise into their lives.  They have recently published another report, strengthening their own argument, and I’m pleased to say that I have been meeting that particular challenge since I set it for myself.

Then I set myself the challenge of riding 3,000 miles a year - and promptly moved to an area so hilly that my regular riding distances shrunk by half.  That’s not been so easy, but I’m still trying. 

So my point is this - I’m not really young, and nor am I old.  I carry a minor disability.  But whether you’re young, older, or somewhere in between, setting a physical challenge, whether humble or ambitious, can help motivate you to exercise and to be active, whether you’re sporty or not sporty at all.  

Everyone can be a winner, and feel good for it too.   

Me at Claerwen reservoir - demonstrating my little podge!

An Age for Cycling

I'm a life member of the Cyclists’ Touring Club (CTC) and a big fan, but I have one fairly large concern about it.  Every time I go to a CTC event, whether it’s a local event or a national one, I notice that I am one of the youngest.  If I was 12 that would be ok, but I’m middle aged - almost everyone else I see is well into retirement.  That’s not a bad thing - I hope to enjoy cycling well into my own retirement - but it is a noticeable thing.

On the one hand it’s easy to see why - retired people have the time to pursue their hobbies whilst working people have many competing commitments.  But that doesn’t explain why sportive events are mainly entered by younger, working age people, and why these events tend to sell out their places very quickly, even if they are quite pricey.  In fact, the tougher the event, the more quickly they seem to sell out, even if they are downright expensive.

The CTC is the national charity aiming to represent all cyclists.  Along with British Cycling, which represents sports and competitive cyclists, it offers free 3rd party insurance to all members, and so it is a very good organisation to be a part of.  But increasingly I feel that there is a sector of society which isn’t interested in what the CTC has to offer, and it’s a big sector.  It follows that I feel that the CTC must work to attract and benefit this sector. 

Things you see from a bike No.1 - a Belgian Blue Bull

“Younger people aren’t joiners” the Chief Executive of CTC recently said to me.  That may be true, but there is more than one way to support people who ride bikes, even those that don’t like to join clubs.  The CTC could boost its coffers and its profile by setting up a subsidiary company to run sportives and mountain bike events, the proceeds being paid to charity (ie, the CTC) with the tax advantages that would flow from that.  These proceeds could be spent on stepping up the already good work that the CTC does, particularly those things that are of concern and interest to younger cyclists. 

If the CTC doesn’t attract younger riders to cycling, then British Cycling will (indeed it already does) and it'll be British Cycling that these new riders will join.  Before long, that could mean that the CTC would become a club of mainly retired people, representative only of an aging sector.  I would hate to see that happen. 

That’s of course assuming that British Cycling don’t eventually take over the CTC...

From British Cycling’s website: 

“The breadth of British Cycling’s work is testimony to our status as the only organisation that works across all levels of cycling – from the playground to the podium. Whether people are looking to get on a bike for the first time, wanting to find great places to ride, seeking to enter a sportive or race, or needing tips from the pros on riding safely and keeping their bike in top shape, British Cycling is with them every step of the way.”

Things you see from a bike No.2 - Bridges in Millers Dale

Back from the Birthday Rides 2012

Another "page" added, this time about the CTC Birthday Rides from which I have just returned.  A five day cycling trip, these rides take place every year in celebration of the CTC's anniversary of formation. Close to home for me, this one was, but I picked my rides to avoid my regular roads and I had a great time!  Click here to read more...