Day 1,292
Happy New Year
The up-side of having to pause our trip is being home with family and friends, especially over Christmas. Tom has temporarily retired as my hairdresser and I now have Ben@Seckingtons looking after my hair. I even got glammed up for Christmas wearing a £9 charity shop outfit finished off with a pair of tights donated by my niece, not worn a pair of those for many a year!
On the trip front Tom has been busy. He's designed a logo. I helped with ideas but drawing is not my strong point, the result is spot on. Do you agree? Over the years his bike frame has been in the wars, literally! So the artist in him decided to give it a new paint job. It took only £5 in paint but hours of work, and the reward is a stunning and unique look.
We've even found time to fit in a bike ride or two. For New Year we cycled to and from Amersham, spending the holiday with my sister-in-law Mel. Fortunately there's no photographic evidence, but take it from me, we had a brilliant party, stayed up until well past midnight and slept in long enough to leave Tom enough time to clear up the mess, perfect.
I do love cycling in the UK. It gets bad press due to poor drivers but if you choose your route carefully it’s easy to avoid the trouble spots. The majority of the cars on the road were super considerate and even the couple of impatient drivers we encountered didn't actually try to kill us. Probably due to the holiday time of year we had near deserted roads most of the time, through endless woods, canal paths, small villages with an array of beautiful houses and churches. We love to stop and see some quirky bits of history, stocks and a whipping post on a village green, a fire hook to help save thatched roofs burning away, and man trap. Fortunately none of the above, apart from maybe the fire hook are in use any longer. We made a diversion to the railway bridge where the Great Train Robbery took place, saw Britain's oldest windmill, rode up the aptly named Tom's Hill Road, took a very muddy bridleway to Thunderdell Wood and finished off with a visit to Devil's Bridge on an old Roman Road called Spooky Lane. That's the great thing about cycling in our small but pleasant land, there's so much to see, we barely scratched the surface.
We have only a few more weeks to go before we set off again. More details to follow, soon!
