It's funny, but ever since the UK voted to leave the European Union, 'closet racists' have felt that it's sort of 'okay' to test the water with fellow Englishmen, just to see, perhaps, if we're all like-minded when it comes to the 'darkies' or, as I recently experienced while in the back of a minicab, those Muslim 'pieces of stool'. People are prepared to lay their cards on the table, 'get it out there', put their hands on their heart – whatever. I can't say I expected it in, of all places, a churchyard, but it's alive and well there too, mark my words. It started innocently enough with an exchange of pleasantries along the lines of 'come far?' but then subtely moved forward. "We get a lot of cycling clubs going through the village." Fine. "And it's amazing how many blacks are taking up the sport." In itself you could argue there was nothing racist about the remark, but it was kind of unnecessary and it sort of marked the guy's card a bit: he was clearly concerned, intrigued, surprised that black people enjoy riding bikes and I got the feeling that he wanted a response from us along the lines of
'not content to nick our jobs, they're taking over our sport too'. We said nothing. I think we both knew that it was wrong to lend credence to whatever the guy had in mind. But there was more: he moved to this relatively rural part of Surrey because of (ahem) too many foreigners in the street in Streatham where he lived – again, he expected some kind of response from us, but we smiled politely as we sipped our tea. Well, look, again, it's not racist in the true sense of the word. In fact this guy was, I suppose, your typical Brexiteer and I kind of wished I'd asked him how he voted, but I couldn't be bothered as I think I knew the answer.
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| Looking south across Surrey and the distant south downs, Sunday 31 July |
The weather was amazing as we sat there in the churchyard drinking tea and munching on Belvita biscuits looking out across the fields, beyond the distant rumble of the M25 to the depths of darkest Surrey and Northern Kent. It's been so hot that the grass has turned brown. The skies have been cloudless for weeks and it's ideal cycling weather.
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| The churchyard – scorched grass and silent headstones |
I'd missed Saturday's ride, but Andy went out and tackled White Lane. We're into riding up steep hills at the moment. Over the past few weeks we've tackled Hesiers Hill on most rides as well as Beddlestead Lane, and it's done us some good, given us strength we never knew we had and made 'normal' riding a little easier. We've resolved to do more and keep up the good work.
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| Heading home. Andy leaves the churchyard |
I've been re-reading
One Man and His Bike by Mike Carter, it's still absolutely brilliant and never fails to transport me into Mike's world of rural country lanes and campsites and B&Bs and the open road. I turn to the book for many reasons, one being that I'm between books; another is to lift my spirits, it never fails. For me it's pure escapism and I love it.
As I write this it's 0640hrs on Wednesday 4th July, Independence Day in the USA. Last night England won through to the quarter finals of the World Cup (in Russia). The match, against Columbia, was fairly tough, although England had the upper hand in the first half. Things got a little tougher in the second half, leading to Columbia equalising having prompted a penalty earlier on, which had given England a 1-0 lead. What can I say about Columbia? A bunch of cheating bastards would seem fair. They played appalling football in my opinion and England certainly deserved to win the match. There was no winner after extra time so it went to penalties (not England's strongpoint). Amazingly we won through, much to the cuntry's relief and now we face Sweden, that'll be tough and perhaps this weekend we'll hear those dreaded seven words: England is out of the World Cup. Some say we'll go all the way to the final, it's not out of the question, that's for sure, but let's not count our chickens.
