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| Long grass at the Tatsfield bus stop... |
After Philadelphia, last Sunday (20th May) was my first ride for a fortnight and in between then and now I did something to my back, putting even Sunday's ride in jeopardy. On Saturday I cleaned and oiled the bike and did a bit of gardening and, as a result, I loosened up a little bit and set myself on the road to recovery. Oddly, there was no real pain. I think I know what I did to myself: I moved a heavy box of magazines with my right foot and must have pulled something. Either way, I keeled over to my right and looked lopsided and I had difficulty walking, although the latter was the result of wearing the wrong shoes to walk miles around the city. When I jumped off the plane at Heathrow, I hobbled through passport control and baggage reclaim and limped my way to the front door of my house about an hour or so later. However, as soon as I took the shoes off, my foot healed immediately, leaving just the lower back issue. That improved slowly and while I still had problems after sitting down for a while (stiffness) all was generally well. I had no problem sleeping, I could sit down without being in pain, it was only the initial five to 10 minutes after having sat down that proved problematic.
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| Summer arrives at the Tatsfield Bus Stop |
So on Sunday, having established that I could still get on and off of a bicycle, I headed for Warlingham Green to met Andy who, unlike me, has been riding quite a bit. We decided to aim for the Tatsfield Bus Stop and ride the slow way, which was great as the weather was amazing and I was surprised at how much things had grown since my last ride. There was cowslip aplenty on either side of the road, the trees were in full bloom and there was a strong feeling that summer had arrived as we headed along Beddlestead Lane, not really worrying about the uphill slog of it all. The monkeys were out in force too and after drinking our tea, munching our biscuits and chewing the fat we headed towards Botley Hill and spotted Phil (now a full Lycra Monkey) whizzing past and heading, we assumed, for Westerham. There was no time to stop, but I later sent a text basically saying hello. Now that the sun is out, we expect to see more of Phil, he's come out of hibernation after all.
We rode down the 269 in the hazy sunshine and stopped at the green to say our goodbyes and arrange next week's ride. Andy can't make Sunday but Saturday and Bank Holiday Monday are game on, so here's hoping for some more decent weather.
The ride along the Limpsfield Road was pretty uneventful, but when I reached Sanderstead Pond it was good to see everything in bloom. I rolled down Church Way, put the bike in the garage on got on with the rest of my day.
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| Our bikes at the bus stop. Pic by Andy Smith |
