More LEJOG Riders...

One of the great things about travelling around to all the various campsites that we do is that we get to meet lots of interesting people...
I don't mention them all on this blog.....indeed the last time I think I mentioned a cyclist who I had just met was way back at the end of August/ beginning of September last year when we were down in Devon at the Tavistock C&CC site....

Anyway.. the other evening a couple of touring cyclists arrived at our current site in Herefordshire and after they had set up their tent and sorted themselves out I went across for a natter.... 
I had the feeling that they were doing the Lands End to John O'Groats (LEJOG) route and
I was proved right as they had set off from Lands End four days earlier....

Back in 2008 when I did LEJOG we had stayed not far down the road at Hereford and these guy's were doing almost the same route that I and the rest of the Rev Pro Team had taken.

They told me that they were father and son and their names were Duncan and Chris Marfell..
Duncan is an engineer and they live in Andover in Hampshire.
From what they said the weather had not been too kind for them up to their arrival here and although the following day's forecast didn't appear too bad it looked like they were going to hit some more bad weather as they headed north....

This all sounded a very familiar tale as my LEJOG experience was one of wet and windy weather and chatting to Duncan and Chris brought back all my memories of that ride....

Their bike's were quite heavily loaded as they appeared to be carrying a lot more kit than I like to when on the touring bike and as Chris is just sixteen years of age I had to admire his determination to complete the ride.....

As with most people who do this ride they were raising money for charity...in this case for Sport Relief....
I was impressed by this likeable pair and offered a small amount of support for their efforts as well as a couple of bottles of Italian beer (which they obviously deserved) which seemed to go down well with their evening meal.....

I have included a picture of Duncan and Chris below as well as their charity page address....
If any of you out there can give a small token of support for this pair I know that it would be welcomed...

It's great to see youngsters taking up riding bikes and doing LEJOG at sixteen years of age has to be worthy of a token of support in my book especially as it is all for a good cause...

Just lift their address and use it to go to their charity page.... Thanks..


my.sportrelief.com/sponsor/chrisandduncan

Duncan (on the right) and Chris Marfell

More Sculptures

Regular readers of this blog will know that I do like the slightly unusual when it comes to sculptures...
The other day Anne and I visited Hampton Court Castle and in the wonderful gardens they had some very interesting sculptures dotted around....

Now this is not the Hampton Court that is situated close London....that is a Palace and is about one hundred years younger than the Hampton Court Castle that we visited which is set in the lovely Herefordshire countryside...

Like the Palace gardens near London this Hampton Court also has a maze...this one is made up of a thousand yews and has a gothic tower at it's centre.
From the top of the tower you have wonderful views over the gardens...you can then descend beneath the tower to a secret tunnel that leads out to a sunken garden from behind a waterfall.

The gardens of the castle are lovely and I might share some images of the very colourful flowers and other plants in another post.... until than I have shared a few of the scultures we saw in the gardens below.....

Another New Site.......

Here we are in Herefordshire and another new touring site.....
The drive up from Devizes went well enough with no hitches and we even managed to put up the awning the same afternoon that we arrived...
This is the second time that we have done that this year...usually we don't do it until the following day.

As it was it was a good thing that we completed the awning upon our arrival because the next day back came the rain and it was torrential....
It has continued to rain on and off for almost the entire first week that we have been here.
I have not managed to get out on the Felt until today when the sun came out and we had a really beautiful day...ideal riding weather.

The site we are now pitched up on is a small private site and it is well positioned for both cycling and walking as long as the weather is kind to us....
Looking at the forecast for the next few days we might just be lucky...

Our current pitch

Another Three Weeks......

Another three weeks have now passed so we are currently preparing to head out of here on Monday morning and move about one hundred and twenty miles north....

This current site near Melksham is well placed for walks along the canal as well as some wonderful areas for some serious cycling....

Since we have been here we have had one of Anne's sons and his wife come up from Devon and spend a weekend camping with us and the other afternoon I met up with Colin Haynes... one of the guys from my working days who I have only seen once since retiring.

Apart from one or two days of heavy rain most of our stay here has been dry and sunny which has been ideal for getting out on the bike and putting the miles in........ It has also been good for walks along the towpath to the pub..! 

This is one of our favourite sites so we will probably return at sometime in the future.... 
Below are just a few images from our stay here....

A couple of boats along the canal from the campsite.

My Narrow Boat?  Well it has my name on it..

Entrance to one of the many locks on this section of the canal

Out on a ride...A village lock-up- possibly a good place to keep the Felt safe.

Do you know your fruit..?

Just a short post today but I just had to share this with you......
Anne and I were in Melksham this morning and we noticed this pub sign...

Pub sign in Melksham- The grapes or not..!!

Now I wouldn't say that I can recognise and name every fruit that exists on the planet..but until today I did think that I could tell the difference between grapes and a banana.... maybe I was wrong..

Fuel not needed.....

The drive up from the Verwood site to our new one here near Melksham was nice and quick and straight forward...after all it was only about fifty miles....
After arriving on site we were allocated a very nice large corner pitch with a hedge on a couple of sides and with the benefit of the sun all day.....

Talking of the sun...since we have been here the weather has been great and very very warm, in fact I find it ideal cycling weather.....once on the bike and up to a nice steady speed it's amazing how cool you can remain as long as you don't stop. 
If you do stop that's when you realize how warm it actually is.....without the benefit of the breeze created by your forward momentum the heat starts to take over.... 

The cure? 
Get back on the bike and start moving again...a careful balance between effort used and speed of your forward movement..... then you start to feel cool again......

Fiona on today's ride.....Fuel not needed!!

I am still working my way around my favourite blogs following the three weeks that we were without a good broadband signal as explained in my last post.....

The weather forecast tells me that we could expect some heavy and thundery downfalls of rain over the Friday and the weekend but with a bit of luck and some forecast watching I should be able to get some more rides in around the downpours.....

No I-Net.....No Posts.....

Yes I know....no posts on this blog since 18th May...... but I have got a good reason...
The site that we have been camping on has had a serious problem with their broadband connection. 
Some sort of argument with the supplier apparently.
They then changed internet provider and then that took time to arrange etc...etc.....

Anyway the upshot of it all was that I was unable to make any blog posts and even more importantly I have not been able to visit all my favourite blogs. 
I will try and catch up with you all over the next few weeks. If I haven't visited your blog recently I promise that I will catch up with you as soon as possible.....

I won't try and post all the posts that I missed.....But......
Although this site was nice and quiet when we arrived it was heaving over the recent bank holiday and also over this past week....
Kids everywhere (half term holidays)...Dogs everywhere woof woof woof..... Noise everywhere..... 
A decision made...the next and future bank holidays we will be on an adult only site....
I can live with a few dogs barking...most of those on sites seem to be pretty well behaved with only the odd one or two being a bit noisy anyway....
But unruly kids on mass and the parents who don't keep them in check........ I will take a swerve on that in future..... 

Busy...Busy...Heaving Campsite over the Bank Holiday.....

Since we have been here we have taken Eva the Eriba to the dealers for her annual service........ I have had four various catch-up medical appointments...... My mate Jason has visited a couple of times for a cycle ride...... Peter Calcutt has visited for a lazy day of chatting.... My Daughter and family have come out for a nice day in the sun and a picnic...
I also visited 'my shed' at my daughters and swapped my Tifosi over for my best bike..the Felt Z1 and even managed to get a puncture on it on only my second ride......

In short the 28 days that we have been here have flown by because we have had something going on everyday....

On Monday we head off again to our next site......hopefully their internet will be working ok and I will be able to resume normal blogging service.......