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Now retired but busy still living..

Sunday 11 December 2011

A CAUTIONARY TALE.....

COUNTRY LANES
Here is a little tale that had me in fits of laughter when I first heard it.

A couple of weeks ago JD and I had planned on going for a fifty mile ride over the Purbeck hills on the Monday morning.
On the appointed day I woke up to really wet and gloomy conditions and it became obvious that the planned ride was probably going to be doomed.....

The phone rang early and it was JD , "What do you think" he said.  I told him that our best bet was to wait a couple of hours and see if there was any improvement.
Two hours later my phone rang again and JD said  "it's now even worse". And it was....

Since our earlier conversation the weather had deteriorated even further and we made the decision not to bother and I resigned myself to a session on the turbo.

Well....a few days later JD told me that a couple of hours after our second call he had got so frustrated having a day off work and not being able to get out for a decent ride, that he decided that he would brave the terrible weather and go out anyway.
He decided to use his touring bike because it has fenders and would help to minimize some of the muck that would obviously be thrown up off the road on such an awful day.
Now as he was setting out much later than he had originally intended getting out with me on the bike, he decided not to head to the Purbecks but to save time by using one of our summer loops north/west of where he lives. The route in question is mainly along country lanes.
FARMYARD
TRACTOR
These country lanes pass by lots of farms and one of the reasons we normally only use this loop during the summer months is because during the winter the lanes can become covered in mud and muck from the farm traffic....tractors to you and I.
Anyway because JD only had a few hours of daylight left he decided to throw caution to the wind and use our summer loop because it was closer to home.....

Oh dear!
Have you ever made a decision and afterwards wished you hadn't?
Well JD has!

Apparently about ten miles into the ride he realized that somehow he had taken a wrong turn and was lost.....not only that, he was soaking wet and also freezing cold.
JD was thinking to himself what a mistake it had been to decide to go out for a ride....after all he could have been nice and warm back at home...things couldn't really be any worse.....or so he thought.

So what happened next?

Still trying to find his way back on to the correct route he took a left turn just as a farmer in his tractor with muck spreader attached was pulling off his field with the muck spreader in full flow.
JD was covered  in....well....muck.
He really was covered from head to toe in slurry. Fenders didn't exactly help with this.
The thing to remember about the slurry that farmers spray over their fields, is that it is not only filthy, it also stinks and not only that it's also pretty sticky and it stuck to JD pretty much like super glue.

He did find his way home ......eventually..... and the first thing he did was to hose the bike and himself down with the garden hose. His wife wouldn't let him in the house until he had cleaned himself up and it took ages apparently to hose it all off.

So let that be a lesson to us all.....If you have a route that is designated a summer route then there is a reason we don't ride it in the winter.........  

18 comments:

jeff said...

Message received!

Big Oak said...

Funny the stuff we take for granted, isn't it? I imagine he had to wear extra cologne, too!?

limom said...

I'm trying very hard not to visualize this.

Alan Sloman said...

What happened to the farmer driving the tractor?

TrevorW�� said...

*jeff*
I think that JD has got the message too.

*Big Oak*
Rumour has it that he stank for days afterwards.

*limom*
Oooooh I would loved to have seen it.

*Alan Sloman*
Apparently JD swore at him.....the farmer apologized and then drove off on his tractor. I reckon he did it on purpose Alan.

Steve A said...

I never thought of "slurry" as a euphemism before...

TrevorW�� said...

*Steve A*
Ah yes Steve...but it does begin with the letter S.

rlove2bike said...

Good story.

My in-laws were farmers. I remember many times going there and being invited to stay for dinner. My father in-law would come in from working the farm and the "muck...slurry" odor would be strong and sometimes visible. For a non-farmer, it took some getting used to.

TrevorW�� said...

*rlove2bike*
I must admit it is a smell that takes a bit of getting used to....

Anonymous said...

lols. That made me chuckle. :-)

Ahh - yes, it's good to be back Trevor! Missed the old blogsphere.

ZyVU xox

TrevorW�� said...

*ZyVu*
Glad you are back....

Anonymous said...

I like that old tractor! :)

Jim said...

Cycling in the winter! It's not always pretty, but this is one story I'm glad I'm reading instead of experiencing!

TrevorW�� said...

*Mr Paparazzo*
Lot's of those around these parts....

*Jim*
Yes...I'm glad that I wasn't riding with him that day...

Anonymous said...

Trevor - you know though that JD will come up smelling of roses, even if he has landed in the proverbial!

Jason

TrevorW�� said...

*Jason*
Not this time Jason....The smell hung around for days....

J_on_tour said...

... & then JD patented the much larger Fender !!
... looking forward to seeing him on Dragon's Den !

TrevorW�� said...

*J_on_tour*
I will let him know that you will be watching J........

Six weeks off.

 The visit to see the Consultant went quite well really ...   My ' numbers' have started to creep up again so I am going to be given...