I realised as i lay in bed @ midnight that i hadn't done my usual Wednesday post, i was a bit befuddled yesterday but i think i'm back with it today!

Why was i befuddled? Well i'll try to explain. It started on Monday, I went down to IKEA for some lunch (i had schnitzel rather than the traditional meatballs) and to purchase a quite specific cooking slice, a pan friendly silicon job with a plate wide enough to lift a whole egg or pasty or whatever. By the time i got back to the house it was late afternoon, i'd walked almost 7km and got some food shopping in too. I had intended to spend the afternoon writing but it was almost tea time by the time i hit the keyboard so i got much less done than i'd hoped.

Usually i would've gone for some sort of bike ride on Tuesday but, as i mentioned on Sunday, I joined Aunty Bev for a trip down to Dorset to visit Angharad who, i'm pleased to say, was in excellent form! It was heading towards 21.00 when we got back to Brizzle but i had to have a walk, my DVT issues invariably flare up if i'm sat for too long, even a short walk eases the symptoms and discomfort.

And so to Wednesday, the forecast looked quite pleasant, plans were made to meet down in Bath for a bacon sarnie, so, after fitting new brake pads (a return to semi metallic rather than sintered which have been terrible), i set off. My rides have contracted somewhat of late and predictable so i thought i'd mix things up a bit by going via Lansdown, site of Bath racecourse, high above the city. It sits on a finger of the Cotswold massif over 200m above the city centre, all routes up are steep with gradients well into double % figures, the route i used from the north entailed climbing for several kilometres with gradients of up to 12% towards the top after a couple of km hovering @ 9%. There are longer climbs, there are steeper climbs but this route was fifteen minutes of hard graft with little let up and a less than great surface.

Anyway, we had our 'lunch', rode back along the bike path, sadly all the walnuts that were about a few weeks ago have disappeared, where did they go? The trees were literally laden with fruit but there's not even fallen husks now. In total i clocked just over 50km which, with a mere 300m of climbing, barely qualifies as a proper ride, better than now't but at best just about maintaining fitness. It was only about 14.30 when we got back, i thought i'd make this post after a warming cuppa but somehow i got distracted and side tracked by other stuff, well you know how it goes.

The plan today is to finish the chapter i started on Monday, I have a few chores for this morning then i can crack on. The weather is looking quite mixed into the weekend, hopefully i can fit in at least one more bike ride before i post again!

That's it for now, so until next time,
Tak,
Madeline Anafrid