In July 2017 I attempted to cycle to Worcestershire and back. And by the modern understanding of the term “Worcestershire” I did do this, but it later transpired that, by the geography of the “historic” or “ceremonial” counties, I hadn’t. I hadn’t quite managed to leave Historic Warwickshire.
I much prefer the traditional, historic county definitions to the modern notion, which includes the likes of “West Midlands” and “Greater Manchester” and seems to me to be more administrative than geographical.
So this morning, I set off in the direction of Historic Worcestershire. This was actually quite a bit easier than I expected, because the historic version of the county has a sort of pointy peninsula that extends north-eastwards, to the east of Birmingham. The nearest part of this is only a 12 or 13 mile ride from the southernmost point of one of my regular Twycross routes. I took a slightly longer way round though, to avoid a hill climb south of Atherstone – and to help bump the distance up over 62 miles, to accomplish the September Fondo. I also started off by going up to Packington then across, to increase the distance.
So the ride I ended up doing was actually a fairly standard Twycrosser circuit, with a 30 mile linear detour to the south-east tacked on.
Some of the new roads I experienced today were really quite pleasant, making me wonder why I’d never bothered exploring over that way before. However I also had to contend with a busy (but short) stretch of dual carriageway A5 and some stony single-track lanes. I passed a big oil terminal at Kingsbury, apparently operated by Shell and BP, though I noticed some Asda petrol tankers parked up there as well. The last mile or so to the (historic) county border are pretty dismally urban, characterised by run-down looking council flats and awful-looking pubs. Nothing to suggest a boundary between two counties.
I’d been thinking of listening to old Dad’s Army radio broadcasts on my MP3 player. You can buy them in CD format from Amazon and elsewhere, though they’re quite expensive. BBC Sounds doesn’t have any of the old episodes per se. But it does have a three hour programme called Permission To Speak, in which Harold Snoad and Michael Knowles, who adapted the TV series for radio, introduce six episodes. So I listened to that. really quite a joy, I must say. Michael Knowles was an actor as well as a scriptwriter and may be remembered by some as the posh Captain Ashwood in It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum.
Arthur Lowe and John Le Mesurier were still in their 50s when they recorded the first few series of Dad’s Army. But at least I’m not as old as Privates Frazer or Godfrey, yet.
Later in the day I listened to an interview with Ken Dodd on Radio 4 Extra. Don’t know when it was recorded. Very good, though. Very funny.
Cloudy and cold in the morning. Warm and sunny in the afternoon, but I didn’t get round to removing outer layers until I stopped at the Gibbet Post, a few miles from home.
Anyway – back on 63.42 miles so that’s the September Fondo done. 116 done in September so far.