No sooner had I arrived back in Cambridge after Portugal, than I embarked on a bit of a cycling adventure around the south of the UK to catch up with friends. And why not take the train you ask? Well to be honest, I have thought the same thing when my body, particularly my knees, have been really quite painful. But, hey, it gives me something to do in the day when most people are working.
So where I have cycled and where am I now? Well, I started last Tuesday cycling from Cambridge to London. Not that bad you might think, but it was the first time that I have cycled with heavy panniers, and it was a really windy day and I hadn't quite realised that Wandsworth (where I was staying) is really quite far from Cambridge! Anyways, I made it and had a lovely few days in London, catching up with some friends and being all cultural with visits to the British Museum, the V&A, walks along South Bank and all that. It was a shame that I didn't get to see everyone I wanted, but people are so busy and I hadn't been very organised at contacting people beforehand. Still, I have decided that some people work too hard - bankers in Canary Wharf, for example.
Then after a few days in London, and finishing up some consultancy work I had been doing, it was onto Guildford to see some good friends from uni. My route out of London was a bit convoluted especially going through Richmond Park, but the distance was much shorter and the day was much less windy which really helped.
After a night in Guildford, I headed onto Salisbury. I didn't make it all the way there cycling...I had to get on a train at Winchester because I was really tired. I had a day in Salisbury and then instead of cycling to Reading, as was the plan, I put my bike on the train instead.
Reading was great fun, although we went out far too late and didn't get much sleep...we saw Expendables at the cinema - a very entertaining film with pretty much all the action stars in it and was basically a string of bad one liners (to the point of being hilarious) and ridiculously vicious gun fights. The night probably got away with us a little when we decided that two for one cocktails were a good idea! Still, the next day I still managed to get up and cycle to Swindon which I feel was an achievement! For some reason I had thrown away bits of the map I had photocopied and so without a map, I was totally guessing the route and went a very long route. But it was a glorious day for a cycle, no wind, very warm and sunny, and the scenery across the downs is really amazing.
So I am now in Swindon and have a few days here catching up with people and doing a bit of admin, then I go to Bristol for a few days. The plan was to cycle back from Bristol to Cambridge in 2 days which, to be honest, is so not going to happen. So now I am thinking that I will cycle back to Swindon and then take the train back to Cambridge...Maybe I am copping out of the cycle adventure a little, but I want to have knees that are still able to do sports at the end of all of this and since I have already done over 200 miles in basically 4 days of cycling, I think that that is still ok, right?!
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