Day 7: 27 May Penrith to Thornhill (78 Miles, relatively flat for once, and only once!)
The day started very badly for me at the B&B in Penrith. When I ask for ketchup with my full english I expect something like this:
Instead I got a rather disgusted look from mein host at even the suggestion that his slave wife in the kitchen was going to have her culinary masterpiece desecrated by the most evil sign of American capitalist imperialism. I could not bring myself to ask for another pot such was my worn down sense of self worth brought on by days of cycling in gaudy inappropriate clothes that not even Coco the clown would wear to appear in front of thousands of baying children. If only Jimmy Savile had taken his lead.
So not a good start to the day as I gulped down my bacon and eggs smeared with a microscopically thin layer of ketchup. I looked out the window and noticed the mayor of Penrith was shining his emergency sign up at the clouds and I dashed from the table, down the bat pole and into the dark cave of my mind I need to be in order to do super human (for a 54 yr old man with a physique and wardrobe more suited to darts than cycling) stuff on a bike. And only a few miles out of Penrith and it was a "holy cows moment batman" for me as a bunch, also known as a herd, of cows were ushered into the road ahead of me on their way to their eating place aka as a field. Things did not go well at this point. In my defence I have to point out that in the New Forest which is in the subtle south cows allow you to cycle, walk, pogo stick, cartwheel by them and they gently move to the side of the road and progress on their way. Not North of bloody Penrith. I am not proud to report that I started a proper stampede as I tried to cycle on passed them. A man dressed in orange is obviously not something they see every day which some might say should be obvious to most men dressed in orange. The young farm hand who did not resemble Blue Boy from the high Chaparral, other than having that haunted what the f*ck is going to happen next type of look, jumped on his quad bike drove along the verge at an incredible speed to head the stampeding cows into a field. On cycling demurely past him trilling some platitude about hungry cows I got a different look which made me wonder about what the f*ck was going to happen next to me. So My Little Rhino picked up speed and we edged closer to 10 mph on our journey oop north.
With grand houses
More crazed pet owners trying to protect black cats and dogs and by the looks of it red squirrels. I always thought it was lucky to run a black cat over?
Stony bleak churches
And gates that are starting to be more in proportion to the properties they lead into.
I took this as someone reading this might know where the river Esk is, I just cycled over it on my dazed and bottoming numbing movement North.
Finally I and My Little Rhino became international cyclists of no repute. Scotland welcomes us, hmm proof will be in the puddin.
Note how the sign is on a slope, that was definitely a sign (no pun intended) of things to come for my unsuspecting little cycling mate.
Not sure this museum bode well in terms what actually was going to be in the porridge.
A pretty sight.
Not a pretty sight. Even My Poor Little Rhino was tired by this time.
You guessed it those mammoths were busy up in this part of the world as well. Decided not to hug this one, too exposed, I had some vestige of pride left by this point of the day.
The churches becoming more austere as we moved North
I snapped this just as I rode into Thornhill at dusk.
I will call this one sunset in Thornhill because that is exactly what it is. Red sky at night just means more cycling the next day. In Peak Tours defence this was clearly billed as a 14 day cycling holiday and it was sure delivering on that. I wish I had maybe gone for a 14 day luxury holiday with as much ketchup as you can guzzle.
And that was the day that was on the Peak Tours Front Line.
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