It might seem a little premature to start saying that summer is about to leave the building as quickly as it came in, but for some reason I think it will. Today, for example, is Sunday 1st September and while I know everybody likes to cling to the sunshine by talking up a possible Indian summer (which means a bit of sunshine here and there, but cooler temperatures) I think we're on the roll into winter and, dare I say it, the countdown to Christmas, which will happen within weeks. How depressing. Add to that the prospect of Brexit and a General Election, and it's not looking good.
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| The beginning of Ridge Langley - a magical place... |
I haven't said too much about it, but for the past fortnight I've been cycling daily: my usual NVL rides at the weekends and then 36-minute rides around the leafy suburbs where I live, normally at around 0645hrs. The extra week-day rides are doing me good (or at least I think they are) and the temperature has hovered around 56 degrees Fahrenheit, warm enough to fend off the introduction of a fleece, although I feel that's coming, and the big question on my lips is how long will I keep this up? How long will I feel motivated to leave the house early and ride around the block. I had one day last week when I stayed indoors, having noticed that it was raining, but that evening I went out and then again the following morning, giving me an incredibly energised feeling that morning at work. I think it was last Thursday. I'm hoping I can keep things together as the temperatures fall and the skies darken and that I'll still be riding daily when Christmas trees begin to appear in the bay windows of the houses of Norfolk Avenue and the surrounding area.
The ride I've worked out for myself involves as many hills as possible: there's the slight hill of Ellenbrige, the steeper hill of Elmfield and the steady, but equally punishing hill of Norfolk Avenue, which I repeat on the latter half of the ride. The best place to cycle through, however, is Ridge Langley, especially if the sun in shining. I was going to buy a house here at around the time I bought the house I live in, but my offer wasn't accepted. What I like about Ridge Langley is its peace and quiet. In a way it's cut off from the hubbub of the surrounding area; there are no shops close-by and not much traffic either because it's a kind of large cul-de-sac or no through road, it can't be used as a short-cut to anywhere and basically loops round and deposits me back on Arundel Avenue, a road that links with Norfolk Avenue, looks very similar in terms of the appearance of the houses and can get very confusing as, at times, it's easy to feel lost. Both roads have similar sharp bends and there's no way of differentiating Norfolk from Arundel and the two roads, I'm guessing, are named after the Duke of Norfolk and Arundel Castle where I think he is based (or was, I'm not sure). Perhaps Arundel Castle is his ancestral home.
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| Riding the off-road track from mum's to my place... |
But there's more to Ridge Langley than solitude and birdsong and peace and quiet, it has a kind of retro feel about it and takes me back to my childhood and the sunny days and the long summers of the 1970s on the south coast, the weirdness of Mike Oldfield's
Tubular Bells and the hazy, cornfields and cows evoked by Pink Floyd's
Dark Side of the Moon. It reminds me of sitting on the beach, aged 15, with my Grundig C410 tape player listening to the former while awaiting the arrival of my parents and younger brother and sister before we embarked upon two weeks of inflatable boats and visits to a beachside café a short walk along the beach. Places like Ridge Langley are like time machines, they take me back and hold me there until the bike emerges on Arundel Avenue and I wind my way around to Norfolk Avenue and back home. It adds a little magic to what might have been a pretty average ride, but I wonder what the winter will bring?
I was running late and Andy was waiting at the green. We rode to the Tatsfield Churchyard and the ride was pretty energetic. Clearly my last two weeks of cycling had done some good, I felt a lot more energised than normal. We sat on our bench talking about Greta Thunberg (I'm not a fan) and rumour has it that they had to fly in crew to return the boat to wherever it had come from, not very environmentally friendly if you ask me. And of course we discussed Brexit, we always do, and it was the same old arguments. Once the tea was finished we took a shot of our bikes with the church as a backdrop. Every Sunday, a World War ll Spitfire takes off from nearby Biggin Hill in pursuit of a light aircraft, the two planes climb and then the Spitfire somehow positions itself almost on top of the light aircraft, no more than a few feet above it. They carry on and I'm guessing they eventually return to Biggin Hill. It was time for us to return to our respective homes. We rode up the hill towards the Botley Hill Farmhouse and then Andy branched off at The Ridge, heading home via Woldingham, and I carried on along the 269, reaching home just before 1000hrs.
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| A Belgian bun in M&S Croydon - I shouldn't have |
On Saturday I rode over to mum's. There was a fair amount of traffic on the road. Mum's alright, she's got a leaking (make that 'dripping') kitchen tap, but it's nothing to worry about and she's calling somebody over to fix it. If I was a plumber, I'd do it, but I'm not. Mum's a bit of a worrier and she didn't sleep well on Friday night because of her leaking tap. I rode back the 'slow way' avoiding most of the traffic and riding the off-road tracks as much as possible. When I reached the Purley Downs Road I decided to ride its entire length and then carried on up Sanderstead Hill before descending towards home along Church Way. I reached home around 1100hrs.
It's strange what keeps people awake. For mum it's a leaking tap, for me it's waking up after a fretful dream (I have many of them) and then not being able to get back to sleep, like this morning. I woke up around 0400hrs and didn't really get anymore sleep. I was awake at 0557hrs, three minutes before the alarm was due to go off. I had porridge and fresh fruit for breakfast plus a mug of tea and then I went out on the bike.
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| Our bikes in the churchyard... |
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| The master at work... |
Great weather at the moment: blue skies, no cloud and fairly warm. Let's hope it stays that way.
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