After another big breakfast, and the wonders of google proving that Thorsten Brose was indeed in Quality Drivel, obscure Abingdon school band of the early 1980s. Giovanni waved us off. From a sunny morning at breakfast, it was already grey and gloomy and soon it started lashing down. Couldn't see a thing, and drenched within minutes. Is there a waterproof cycling shoe? It was like cycling with two buckets of water on the end of our legs. JR fell over again for no obvious reason, and JP over in a Jungle Book elephant halt style incident, as NN stopped rather abruptly causing a pile-up behind. Good long climb out of Ambleside, then onto the backways and cycle ways north of the lakes. Cold and wet, with no strength in fingers to mend sticking brakes. Finally the rain stopped, and on through lovely countryside reminiscent of Connemara, through Carlisle which was deemed not a nice place to have lunch, and on to a roadside hostelry in pretty bleak surrounds, Kannybles, run by Mr Misery. Uppity about SM moving tables around to accommodate us all, generally miserable, warning us against the Scots in Langholm - 'be careful, they're funny folk there', and not rating our chances on the A7 - 'you'll be lucky to make it'.
Set off after lunch down the A7, only to be shortly marshalled off by JR down an extremely hilly diversion; NN deprived of a white line to follow, JC and JP subjected to unnecessary hill climbing with bad knees. JP nearly catapulted into a river, ignoring the warning cries of 'bridge!'
Adding an extra 6 or 7 miles to the day's distance, but lovely rolling hills and the River Esk, taking us down to the Eskdale Hotel in Langholm, birthplace of Hugh MacDiarmid, Scotland's finest twentieth-century poet. Unfortunately, the hotel didn't have a copy of his poems, so SM was unable to recite the 'Second Hymn to Lenin', ironically showing the truth of the lines
Are my poems spoken in the factories and fields, In the streets o' the toon? Gin they're no', then I'm failin' to dae What I ocht to ha' dune. 71 miles in total for the day, and pretty slow. Heeding Mr Misery's warning, didn't dare venture out of the hotel in the evening, particularly given NN's dayglo orange top and crocs 21st century casualwear. Drank lots of beer in preparation for the final onslaught. After 4 pints of McEwans, SM explained to anyone who would listen how under communism all hills would be downhill. Everyone started to think we might actually all make it, even PH. Human legs and bicycles, aren't they great? Scott's photos of Day 4: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=143715&l=1adce&id=855585369 Hugh MacDiarmid reading 'A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle': http://mediamogul.seas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/MacDiarmid/MacDiarmid-Hugh_A-Drunk-Man-Looks-at-the-Thistle_part1.mp3 |