Four Parks and a Woods!

Hi bloggers.

Today was not a nice day outside. It was gray and overcast. I knew I was going to do a ride with the Old Boy so decided not to run today, and only just do the ride.

We set off, it was dark and drizzly. We decided that it was only going to be a very short ride, close to home, no more that 5 to 10 minutes ride to get back. A what a route it was. Lots of turns and twists. We set off to go one way only to find that he had changed his mind and went down some other road.

It was a bit different though. Because we went riding in the pitch black through the local parks! The first one was about 10 minutes into our ride, its on one of my running routes, I normally run pass the road where the park is. I couldn't understand where he was going, but I followed along. The head light on my head is such a handy light, I just switched to full beam and pull down the diffuser and look at the path, brilliant. We rode around the park, with a little bit of skirting into the woods, well that is where the path goes. It was quite exhilarating really, and the Old Boy mentioned again to me about doing a night time ride through the night in the woods!!

After we came out of the park, we decided to just go through the woods, just to see. We headed off towards Petts wood. The path that we first looked at we decided to not go, and so did a couple of ladies walking a dog. We think it just would have been too muddy. We headed off to the other side of this path, using the roads, and then went up another path. This path though took us to two bridges, which we had to carry our bikes up and over the bridges. Thank goodness I have a light bike!

On through the country park, in the dark! It was quite a ride. Down another path, straight through a muddy puddle. The Old Boy by now had his suspension up and running, I was still bouncing around, but it was good run. We got through the park safely, and without anyone falling into any muddy piles!

Park number three was just up the road from here. But even in this park the Old Boy threw me, instead of following the path all the way round, he decided to take the path through the middle. Always expect the unexpected, that's what I should be thinking! When we got through this park, it was a quick pitstop at a shop for a bit of chocolate munch stuff. Sometimes you just got to treat yourselves!!

I knew where we were, on Chatterton road! So when the he said that we are going to head on home now, via the new supermarket on the fairway, of course I am thinking of a direct route! But as I have come to know by now, nothing is direct. We went back through park number three and then up a long, long walkway! He told me to not ride in the middle as the gaps between the pavement slaps were quite big, and it will be like running like a tram, through the grooves. But just as he said this, I hit one of the grooves and nearly came off my bike. I was quite pleased when we got to the concrete part of the path, but again, I nearly came off my bike when I fell off the edge of the concrete bit!! I was giggling all the way to the end of the path.

After we got a bit of shopping, just a few extra bits for our dinner for when we got home, then it was park number 4! And no, we didn't go the way I expected to go, we went a slight different way, pass the pastors house. And as you will probably notice on the Garmin geeky stats, we had a bit of stop, the pastor was outside his house, and we all had a chat for a few minutes.

Then it was through our local park and then head on home.

Geeky stats