… a robin hopping through the blackberries (aren’t they supposed to lose all of their leaves in winter? – these certainly hadn’t), sparrows fluttering around a farmhouse roof, an appropriately wonky sign pointing along a single-lane road to the hamlet of Tilty.
It was once a great Cistercian monastery, the legacy of which is a very oddly shaped church, made of remnants of the abbey.
And the beams of the 16th-century coaching inn, The Saracen’s Inn, in Great Dunmow. (Although the modern town is a traffic horror – why would you want such a lovely historic town in which it is almost impossible to cross the high street because of cars screaming through?)
All of this without the need of navigation, thanks to Ian leading the Lewisham Cyclists and LCC ride – and thanks for their patience. I was a struggling tail-end Charlie for a lot of the day – I kept waiting for the second wind to arrive, but it failed to oblige, and my knees really weren’t getting with the programme.
Edward (a real cyclist) asks in a comment below if I’m going to do the Dunwich Dynamo this year, as I keep threatening every year….
On this evidence I’ve got an awful lot of work to do, and I’m not sure that employment and elections are going to make that possible, but I do have it on the radar and we’ll see. I don’t make new year’s resolutions, but I have decided that I need to get the best part of a day a week off most weeks, which is likely to often be devoted to cycling…
And landing in my inbox this evening is a challenge that I know I’ll never do, but it is a nice thought:
The North Sea Cycle Route is the longest signposted coastal path in the whole WORLD. A 6,000 kilometre loop of sand dunes, white beaches, country lanes, pine plantations, rugged mountains, ice cold fjords, free wandering wildlife and quirky villages, circling England, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Shetland, Orkney and Scotland (plus a new extra bit in Belgium).
Over to you Edward…
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