A beautiful dry day, and we haven’t had many of those this year. Since I got up earlier than I expected I thought I’d do Buckminster and back, about 80 miles.
I went the “old” way through Rempstone since it’s a bit shorter and I wanted to make sure I arrived at Buckminster’s village shop before it closed at 1300. I got there at 1235, good timing. Had a bit of a feast on the bench outside – a cheese & onion slice, a packet of crisps and a Magnum ice-cream lolly.
On the way back just to make it more interesting I took a right turn at the crossroads at Waltham – to give myself an orienteering task. But I very soon found myself back on the usual path. Basically a three mile detour, partly consisting of a single-track lane.
Came back along Narrow Lane and through Wymeswold (where I took the pic) and Hoton on the way back, for a change. I have quite a few variations of the eastbound route now. Noticed a number of tiny fish in the stream (the River Mantle apparently) at Wymeswold. Minnows?
Listened to the first couple of hours of the next Reacher novel, Worth Dying For. Very good so far, classic Reacher. Flowing along nicely and so far not tripping over its own plot, as they sometimes tend to do. Reuses plot elements from Killing Floor and Echo Burning. Then I listened to football, including a highly entertaining FA Cup competition between Man United and Coventry at Wembley. As I was putting the bike away in the garage Coventry scored what I thought was a consolation goal to make it 3-1 to United, but later I discovered they’d pulled it back to 3-3!
Conditions seemed warmer than the advertised 11C in the afternoon. Mostly sunny, as well. I took off my overtrousers with about 13 miles to go. I was definitely too hot with about 4 to go but didn’t bother to stop and part-unclothe.
Back on 80.69. Very enjoyable run out.