Another lovely day was forecast, with the wind coming from the east again. But I didn’t really want to do the eastbound route again so soon. I thought I’d do the southbound, but a bit further than usual – maybe not all the way down to Northampton, but at least 10km south of Welford.
While poring over a route planner last night I had the idea of going down to Sibbertoft as usual, but from there to keep going east until I came to the A508 – then to take the A508 down toward Northampton. Usually I go down Welford Road.
So I did that. I wasn’t really impressed with the stretch between Sibbertoft and the A508 – a bit bumpy and ill-surfaced. But the A road was fine, quieter than I expected. The thing that worried me most was that I seemed to be descending perpetually, and I really didn’t fancy coming back the same way.
I came to a roundabout after 71km, with a right turn to Spratton – which I knew to be on the Welford Road route. I kept on, though. But the road was faster and busier after the roundabout so after maybe 200m I performed a reverse ferret and took the Spratton turn. I’d decided to return homeward the usual way, up Welford Road.
Initially this took me through a village called Brixworth where I bought some food at a Co-op and had an impromptu lunch at a bench.
At Spratton, as I swapped between my DAB and my phone by the roadside, a young woman came up to me slightly nervously. She was of South Asian descent, off-the-scale pretty, with shoulder-length hair, hypnotic eyes, very well-spoken. She was wearing a leather tunic over a long, flowing, colourful ankle-length dress and Doc Marten style boots. She wanted to know if I knew how to get to Guilsborough. I’d never heard of it but I invoked Google Maps and planned the route for her. It was 5.8km away, or, as I told her, about three and a half miles.
Must admit I felt a bit of disquiet afterwards .. she wasn’t exactly dressed in walking clothes. Should I have asked if everything was OK? Did she have a bottle of water on her? It was a warm day.
So anyway I came up the usual way after Spratton. Stopped for an ice cream at the petrol station at Welford. Back on 141.61km.
That was a very satisfying run out. Mostly warm and sunny and I’ve caught the sun a bit. Did feel slightly uncomfortably cool when the sun disappeared behind clouds, but that wasn’t often or for long.
Mostly listened to LBC and footy on 5 Live. But I also started the next Reacher novel, Never Go Back. The one the second Tom Cruise film was based on, but although I don’t remember the plot of that one very well the book doesn’t appear to bear a lot of similarity to it. Decent so far, though.