27th August 2016 No smiles without miles.

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Saturday 27th 60-67F, 16-20C, dead calm and sunny after a misty start. There was heavy dew as I walked my usual forest loop in an anticlockwise direction. I took 34 pictures in about an hour trying to capture the contours of the fields in the aftermath of hay and harvesting. It felt cooler and much more pleasant now.

If this is a forest track then where do I queue for my refund? 

The forest was gorgeous in the crisp sunshine but the overgrown tracks left a wet, high tide mark on my trousers. Crows rose from their foraging in the stubble to chase off a bird of prey. It had the usual markings of a Red Kite but was probably the smaller Marsh harrier. Later I disturbed two buzzards in the pheasant breeding pens contemplating a hearty breakfast. My arrival scattered the pheasants in all directions. The birds of prey lifted off and left their meal, complaining loudly as they soared with fixed wings straight through the forest canopy.

I have to do my familiar Saturday morning shopping run but that won't rescue my derisory mileage for this month. Perhaps I could ride a loop and do most of the shopping on the last leg?  First, I had to clean the trike with ScotchBrite. The sunshine was making it look tired.

A so a loop it was. Collecting a bag of miniature, curly cucumbers from the organic growers before wending my way south through hamlets by empty, winding lanes. Lots of cyclists out training in the warm sunshine. Some of them standing in a queue at the bakers and losing the unofficial race to the poor, old, panting tortoise! My legs were aching again. I must have fallen below the minimum mileage for fitness. Or the minimum fitness for such a poor mileage? Only 27 miles. That means I have just passed 4000km for the year when it really ought to be in miles by now. [Miles = km x1.61]

Sunday 28th, 58-67F, 14-20C, heavy overcast and breezy. Overnight showers with thunder and lightning woke us at 4am. There might be a window of opportunity for a few more miles before later rain arrives. I avoided the roads and walked loops on the stubble fields. Where I came over a brow to see a deer and a fawn or calf standing right out in the middle of the almost bare field. I took a couple of snaps as I drew nearer and they stared back. Taking a sharp left turn to avoid them only spooked the pair into a mad dash away and across the road. The complete opposite of what I had intended. I returned home via the fields on the far side of the same hedges which I have walked and ridden beside for years.

The wind is all over the place. Swapping direction by 180° at short intervals. Another day of closed windows thanks to the neighbour's demolition timber smoke. Anybody who can afford that many cars for one family can damn well afford a solar panel or two and an accumulator, hot water tank. Temperatures in the mid-80s F and they have an indoor, wood burning water heater going all day? Only in Denmark!

Rode off on semi-dry roads into the wind with the promised rain waiting in the wings.[According to the DMI radar] It rained on my Brooks B17 while I was in the second shop. Coming out of the air-conditioned supermarkets was like stepping into a sauna. Then it continued raining during my third stop. Deep sigh of relief as it quickly petered out only to leave the roads saturated. See me. See my tyre spray! Only 7 miles.

Click on any image for an enlargement.

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