8.07.2023 95km.

 ~o~

 Saturday 8th 63F [at 7.15] Bright sunshine all day. Light winds too. Making a perfect day for another ride. I ought to go and collect my cupboard in the car trailer first. That would leave enough time for a slightly later ride. I will just need to take some lunch on the ride. Which is usually [always] bread rolls anyway. So easily managed.

10.00 75F. It took me about 1.5 hours to reach the site of the cupboard and bring it back in the trailer. With a stop for petrol and check the tire pressures. 72km round trip. Much of it on main roads but through villages. With 30 or 40km/hr 20 or 24mph speed limits. The road in the countryside was limited to 60km/hr or 40mph for long stretches in many places. As the only vehicle traveling at the speed limit. I used bus pull-ins to let the impatient traffic behind me pass and disappear into the distance.

 Yet again there were lots of touring cyclists braving the traffic. I saw a fully enclosed, short wheel base trike. My first ever sighting in the flesh.

 The chemically stripped cupboard was rather amusingly "a kit of parts." Helpfully so. Despite being built of pine it was too heavy for me to manage alone. So I dismantled the T&G backboards and took the doors and shelves off. After that I could walk it to the trailer and lift it onto its back. 

 The bottom was riddled with worm. So I will have to treat that. A nice piece but it needs some work to make it attractive. It was much larger than I had guessed. 95w x 97cm high. I wanted no more than 85cm. Too wide for the intended spot in the kitchen. I shall find somewhere useful to place it. The posed picture shows the top has not been pushed fully back down. Just enough to hold the doors in place. Simple, pin hinges. It has some nice qualities and I like it. 

 Now I really ought to get ready for another ride. There is an area on the NW coast to the northeast of Middelfart which we rarely ever visited. Perhaps once, many years ago. It is a bulge on the coast which looks across at Fredericia. Mostly agricultural with few villages. About 40km away. The route is very familiar until the last bit.

 16.00 26C/78F. Returning from another 95km ride. I reached my target area and explored it thoroughly. Including riding gravel tracks to forests and beaches. Returning via Strib and then Middelfart. Which are both on the water. 

 The last 20km were quite hard work. I was using Turbo mode on a fresh battery to speed things up. To get it over with. I was tired and saddle sore. Grateful to get off the main road and into the near, empty lanes. I had taken plenty of Corny bars. For lunch at 1.00 if had a raspberry jam roll. Followed by a honey roll. Washed down with more apple juice. There was a picnic table in the shade of an overgrown hedge in a lay-by.  I ensured I kept my energy levels topped up on each hour with a Corny bar and a small carton of organic apple juice. After two long rides in two days I think I was simply tired out. Rather than hungry. I had a cup of tea, shower and then a nap. 

19.00 No ill effects now I am up and about again. I did a load of washing up while ants died in their hundreds on the window sill. They seemed to be coming out of a crack between the window frame and the sill. So must be inside the wall. I sprinkled pyrethrum ant powder and it worked almost instantly. Then I used a paintbrush to gather the corpses together for disposal. The instructions say to avoid contact with the skin. So I was very careful. However tempting, I must not brush the ants out of the window. This might affect other wildlife if they are tempted by a free snack.

 I'll make a simple dinner of chips and fish fingers. It doesn't need to be supervised.

 ~o~