Tuesday 11 September 2012

Bear Wrestling!

Hello Blog lovers!

It's been a while since I had written anything, which can only mean one thing, I have not been doing any exercise lately! Tut, tut, lazy mare.

But there is good reason. There is always good reason, no excuses, just proper, real reasons! And right now........ I can only think of one, for the Saturday just gone! My eldest daughter and her man are moving to Australia! So of course we had to have a celebration to commemorate this huge step in the lives! And what better way than a BBQ, So that is what I was doing on Saturday morning, preparing, and cleaning, and  buying and getting ready to host a great BBQ.  The Old Boy went out for a spin, I think he managed to get 35 miles on his Garmin while I was 'putting my feet up' as my middle daughter said later that day!

So this evening, feeling very fat, bloated and lazy, (especially as I had a rather pleasant lunch with my bestie this afternoon as well) we set off on a new route. We were only going to do a very short bike ride, to a place that me and the Old boy rocked up to on one of our Friday nights out. A place called Fickleshole.

Now this place is not that far from us, but some how on the Friday we found this place, we made it quite a trek, driving through country lane, adding miles on the clock. The OB decided that this Saturday mornings ride out, he will track it down again, and find out if this will be a do-able ride for me. He knows that I moan like anything if there is a hill anything higher than a nursing homes driveway to ride up.

We set off from home, and made our way, he tried hard to keep it as flat as possible. I made things a little more difficult by suggesting that we took a wooded path I saw as we 'cut' the corner of a road and used the footpath. It's always quite exciting trying new ways, but only when you are with someone of course, I couldn't think of anything worse than getting lost when you are by yourself!

But the path that I chose was very difficult to ride on, it was a bridle path. We both ended up walking to the end, which didn't bring us any closer to the place that he wanted us to be anyway! Still, it was an adventure.

We arrived at Keston and turned right, just before The Fox pub, down a road called Fox hill, he kept saying to me "You will be surprised how near you are to the pub that we went to on Friday" Quite frankly I couldn't see it. We seemed to be in the car for ages, it was a long time from leaving house to getting first pint! The journey home seemed even longer, said first pint was wanting to make an exit now!

Anyway, I digress as usual. We rode of down hill, until we came to a T junction. "Well, I know that way definitely takes us to the road I want, but this way could be it as well" Now this is where it got interesting. "Let's just turn left and see where it goes"

We rode for a while, and the Old Boy was beginning to think we should have turned right instead. We popped out of the road on to Leaves Green!  Ah! This can only mean that we still had to head on up to Biggin Hill!  And then turn right to ride on the 15% hills, the first of which is fine.....it's down hill! I walked up it's 'sister' hill! The OB slowly rode on behind me. "Can't you walk any faster" he taunted me, "No" I said, "Can't you ride any faster?" and with that he rode past me, smiling as he did and disappeared up the hill!

At the top I spotted the OB waiting for me, and we carried on to the destination that he was planning on. "You will be surprised where were are going, and how far it is" he kept saying. If we had turned right instead of left on Friday, well, you will see" he said.

After getting slightly lost, heading down a road, which meant heading back up  to take the right road, it wasn't that long before we came upon the pub that we were in on Friday night! The white bear!  White bears are virtually extinct now, from this part of the country, but when I came face to face with the last remaining bear, the OB saved me. I took a picture of this heroic act, like any good damsel in distress would do here it is.

We enjoyed a lovely refreshing pint of ozzie stuff, and, well you know me and my olives, I just had to try out what company they get theirs from. Let me tell you, they are very nice. A packet of crisps for the OB and we were happy!

Now for the Journey home.

Like we should have done on Friday, we came out of the pub and turned right. We rode on for a very short while and then we saw Layems road! This is not that far from us at all. I would say from door to door it is about 7 miles, making this a very do-able ride in the winter months. But we are going to find out where a couple of the other roads lead to, hoping that they will take us through to Keston, instead of heading off to Hayes.

A great little ride out, just what I needed after a very boozy, face filling weekend!

Geeky stats from the Old Boys Garmin.




No comments:

Post a Comment