Lockdown, Part 20: Oxted High Street is deserted

It's grey, cold and windy outside. Since late afternoon it's been getting steadily worse. What started out as a great day, which saw me riding to Oxted - wearing summer clothes, like a tee-shirt - morphed into a horrible blob of greyness with cold gusts and, in some places, rain.

Oxted was deserted

Looking out now I can see trees swaying about and a general dullness which has been reinforced by the face of Boris Johnson, our Prime Minister, on television talking about the virus and the lockdown and what we can and can't do, and I think the mood of the nation is simple: fuck off, Boris, leave us all alone, we're quite happy self-isolating and we don't want to go back on the building site to start making money for you at the expense of our own health. Or perhaps that would be my view if I was a construction worker. I'm quite happy the way things are, I'm happy with my daily cycling, I don't mind nipping out to do the shopping on a Saturday afternoon, even if it does mean standing in the car park two metres behind the person in front of me. Alright, you can exclude the 'Covidiots', they've never socially distanced themselves, they're too busy at their VE Day parties doing the Conga down the street or the Gap Band's row boat thing that everybody used to get excited about in the eighties.

Titsey Hill is not for beginners...

I think Sturgeon is right to keep everybody in Scotland under lockdown and put paid to the potential of a second wave of the virus that is likely to be caused in England by the aforementioned Covidiots. I love that word, Covidiots, a great name, of course, for a band. "And now, welcome on stage, the Covidiots!"

A dry leaf just cantered past my window and is now stationary until the next gust of wind blows it out of my line of vision, but you didn't want to know that, did you? Perhaps you did. Anyway, there you have it: a prematurely autumnal leaf playing dead as I write this.

Under the new rules we can now jump into our cars and go out for a drive somewhere, but in all honesty, I've gotten used to not doing that. I last filled the car up with gas about six weeks ago and it's still a quarter full now, mainly because we've only used it to drive to and from the local Waitrose. The last thing I want to do is go back to our 'old ways' of driving aimlessly into the countryside or down to the sea just to wander around for half an hour and then drive home again. We've been saving loads of money through not doing that and I'm used to it and don't particularly want to start it up again. I'm eating and sleeping well, getting more than enough exercise on the bike and I simply don't need to tire myself out driving miles to do nothing. I mean, it's not as if we'll be able to get a cup of tea and a slice of coffee and walnut cake, they're all closed and even when they open I don't particularly want to sit there with 'other people', I was getting used to my small circle of acquaintances, namely my wife and daughter. I was hoping the 'new rules' would mean we could see our son, but no, there was no mention of the so-called 'bubble' everybody's been talking about.

Lunch when I got back

Today's gloomy weather was predicted a few days ago and we've all been expecting it, but it's still depressing, even after six weeks of sunshine and warmth. But I think its temporary, I fact I know it is, sort of. This morning, yes, it is another day since I wrote the last sentence but one, the sun is out and the wind has calmed down a little (it was crazy during the night) so I'm hoping that today I'll clock up my second week of riding 100 miles. All I've got to do is ride to Botley Hill, come back, take a right on Ledgers or Beech Farm and make my way home. A straight ride to and from Botley will leave me two miles short and I can't be having that, not after pushing the envelope yesterday and riding to Oxted. Coming up Titsey Hill is not for beginners, but I've done it before and I did it yesterday without much bother. In fact, on leaving Oxted (I rode to the Little Waitrose and then back along the deserted high street, leaving town via Granville Road) I noticed, before the climb, a wonderful lake and I can only assume it's part of the Titsey Estate. I intend to ride to Oxted again next weekend as it's a pleasant ride, although going down Titsey (a 16% drop) is a little scary, especially with a dodgy front brake.

The Rockhopper outside Waitrose after a mid-week ride to Botley Hill

I need to visit the bike shop as the front wheel appears to be out of alignment, I'm guessing the front brake needs fixing and I need to buy a saddle for another bike that's in the garage, something a little more comfortable for the potential riders. That's one of the reasons I rode into Oxted, because I thought there was a bike shop there, but no, it's gone, replaced by a gin palace that is closed because of the pandemic, which seems so wasteful. Oxted needs a bike shop, not a gin palace, and now it doesn't have one, more's the pity.

When I reached home I made lunch for myself using up the last of the Jersey Royals, some brocolli and some scrambled eggs, which sorted me out good and proper prior to my drive to Waitrose to do the weekly shop. And yes, I had to stand there in the queue in the car park, in the cold breeze, watching out for Covidiots, but not seeing any, there's no such thing at Waitrose. Earlier in the week I'd paid a couple of visits on the bike, just to pick up milk and stuff we needed, like a Wispa bar for me, which I ate alone before unpadlocking the bike and riding home. I quite like going to the store on the bike.

Today, yes, it's still Monday morning, I've just heard that it's going to be dry and cloudy with patchy rain in the north, well, that's not down here in the south so I'll get my final ride of the week in. I need to check the weather for the rest of the week.