Another beautiful day so I decided to get out on the bike again, alone, for some solitary exercise. This time I thought I'd ride 'the slow way' to the Tatsfield churchyard and I decided to take some tea with me. For those of you unfamiliar with this blog, there are two ways to reach the Tatsfield Churchyard from my place, the fast way along the B269 and the slow way following the country lanes that lead to Beddlestead Lane and beyond. The latter is harder and longer, but it stays away from the traffic.
The ride was wonderful, like yesterday, if not better, as yesterday I was on the 269. The sun was shining, the skies blue and once again I found myself feeling the freedom offered to me by a bicycle. The ride to and from the churchyard is roughly 17 miles there and back. It means that this week I've so far riden around 53 miles and there's still one day to go before I start on my third week. Last week my total was 36 miles. My plan is to ride six days per week, with one day off. Last week I had Sunday off, this week it was Friday.
On the roads, the occasional lone rider like myself would whizz past in the opposite direction and we would briefly acknowledge one another with a slight nod of the head and then continue on our way, although I've noticed that there's less politeness these days, people think that 'social distancing' also means not saying hello for fear of catching something. It doesn't really bother me except that I hate it when I've made the effort to shout 'alright!' or something and there's no response. I always think: 'rude bastard!'.
When I reached the churchyard and had climbed the steps and walked through the gate, I was pleased to note there was nobody around and that I had a choice of around five or six wooden benches on which to sit. I chose the bench Andy and I normally use and then set about simply enjoying the moment. The only noise, give or take, was the sound of buzzing insects, other than that all was still and I soon realised that I should have brought with me some sandwiches, perhaps a newspaper and, of course, a radio. Had I done so, I'd still be there now. I did have a flask of hot water, some milk and a couple of teabags so it wasn't long before I was sitting there, alone, in the sunshine, listening to the sounds of nature and sipping tea from a bone china cup. Yes, a bone china cup. I noticed, however, that my flask was 'made in China' and that put a damper on things as it reminded me of the virus, something I'd forgotten up until that point.
And then, of course, I heard it. The dull murmur of the M25. Why, I started to wonder, were there so many cars on the road? They can't all be going to their local shops to buy food. Everybody's been told not to go out unless it's necessary, like shopping, but there's always a bunch of idiots that flout the rules and mess things up for everybody else. We're allowed to take exercise, alone, like I was doing, but what are people doing just driving around? They're probably the same people who buy all the toilet rolls and leave the shelves of supermarkets empty, they probably believe every word uttered by Boris Johnson and were certainly taken in by the message on the side of the bus during the Brexit campaign, a lot of them probably voted for the Brexit Party, I bet! They're also the sort of people that are likely to be calling the police to report their neighbours when they spot them venturing out for some reason or other. In short, they're cunts.
After my two cups of tea, I spent a little longer at the churchyard, chilling out and checking on a couple of the headstones that I could see from the bench I was sitting on. First there was Albert William Barton, born 3 February 1914 and died 7 September 1977, the Queen's Jubilee year. He was sharing the headstone with his daughter Gladys Jean Shrubb, known affectionately as Peggy. She was born on 18 March 1933 and died on 31 September 2014. I looked at the dates a little closer and realised that old Albert was only 19 when he became a father to Gladys. Underneath Gladys' name was an epitaph. "I've lived a good life and now I will have a good rest". I wondered why Albert had become a father so young, but then my attention was drawn to an adjacent grave, that of Walter "Wally" Simpson, born in 1936 and died 2015. He was sharing the stone with Ian Alexander Simpson, born 1963 and died 1976, at the age of just 13. Now that was tragic, I thought as I set about packing up and preparing for the ride home.
Back on the road with around 45 minutes left in the saddle - or at least that's what I thought at the time, it turned out to be 35 minutes - I was staggered to see a bunch of around 8-10 cyclists riding along and paying no attention to the social distancing rules imposed by the Government during the lockdown. It started to annoy me as, back in the churchyard, I had checked my iphone for news and noticed that the BBC was claiming that Health Minister Matt Hancock, aka Jiminy Cricket, was threatening to ban exercise out of the home unless the minority of people flouting the rules got their acts together. I couldn't spot the name of the cycling club (otherwise I would have reported them for sure) but they'd probably emerged from Beddlestead Lane and could have come from anywhere in South East London or they might have been local. Either way, I don't want a bunch of Lycra monkeys ruining my daily exercise. They were heading into Tatsfield Village where, if that was their stopping point, I'd imagine they would all be grouping together on the green or around the covered bus stop. There are probably people living in Tatsfield who notice them and are probably wondering, just like I wondered, why they were all together.
I put aside my anger for the ride home, which was very enjoyable. The good weather continued and the traffic was relatively light, although again I found myself wondering why there was a fair smattering of cars travelling along the 269 on, of all days, a Sunday. No pubs were open, nobody was allowed to visit other people so why so much traffic?
I'm hoping that Jiminy Cricket doesn't forbid solitary exercise outside of the home for the sake of a few idiots, although it has to be said that the UK has more than its fair share of idiots these days.
The ride was wonderful, like yesterday, if not better, as yesterday I was on the 269. The sun was shining, the skies blue and once again I found myself feeling the freedom offered to me by a bicycle. The ride to and from the churchyard is roughly 17 miles there and back. It means that this week I've so far riden around 53 miles and there's still one day to go before I start on my third week. Last week my total was 36 miles. My plan is to ride six days per week, with one day off. Last week I had Sunday off, this week it was Friday.
On the roads, the occasional lone rider like myself would whizz past in the opposite direction and we would briefly acknowledge one another with a slight nod of the head and then continue on our way, although I've noticed that there's less politeness these days, people think that 'social distancing' also means not saying hello for fear of catching something. It doesn't really bother me except that I hate it when I've made the effort to shout 'alright!' or something and there's no response. I always think: 'rude bastard!'.
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| Tatsfield Churchyard, Sunday 5 April 2020... |
And then, of course, I heard it. The dull murmur of the M25. Why, I started to wonder, were there so many cars on the road? They can't all be going to their local shops to buy food. Everybody's been told not to go out unless it's necessary, like shopping, but there's always a bunch of idiots that flout the rules and mess things up for everybody else. We're allowed to take exercise, alone, like I was doing, but what are people doing just driving around? They're probably the same people who buy all the toilet rolls and leave the shelves of supermarkets empty, they probably believe every word uttered by Boris Johnson and were certainly taken in by the message on the side of the bus during the Brexit campaign, a lot of them probably voted for the Brexit Party, I bet! They're also the sort of people that are likely to be calling the police to report their neighbours when they spot them venturing out for some reason or other. In short, they're cunts.
After my two cups of tea, I spent a little longer at the churchyard, chilling out and checking on a couple of the headstones that I could see from the bench I was sitting on. First there was Albert William Barton, born 3 February 1914 and died 7 September 1977, the Queen's Jubilee year. He was sharing the headstone with his daughter Gladys Jean Shrubb, known affectionately as Peggy. She was born on 18 March 1933 and died on 31 September 2014. I looked at the dates a little closer and realised that old Albert was only 19 when he became a father to Gladys. Underneath Gladys' name was an epitaph. "I've lived a good life and now I will have a good rest". I wondered why Albert had become a father so young, but then my attention was drawn to an adjacent grave, that of Walter "Wally" Simpson, born in 1936 and died 2015. He was sharing the stone with Ian Alexander Simpson, born 1963 and died 1976, at the age of just 13. Now that was tragic, I thought as I set about packing up and preparing for the ride home.
Back on the road with around 45 minutes left in the saddle - or at least that's what I thought at the time, it turned out to be 35 minutes - I was staggered to see a bunch of around 8-10 cyclists riding along and paying no attention to the social distancing rules imposed by the Government during the lockdown. It started to annoy me as, back in the churchyard, I had checked my iphone for news and noticed that the BBC was claiming that Health Minister Matt Hancock, aka Jiminy Cricket, was threatening to ban exercise out of the home unless the minority of people flouting the rules got their acts together. I couldn't spot the name of the cycling club (otherwise I would have reported them for sure) but they'd probably emerged from Beddlestead Lane and could have come from anywhere in South East London or they might have been local. Either way, I don't want a bunch of Lycra monkeys ruining my daily exercise. They were heading into Tatsfield Village where, if that was their stopping point, I'd imagine they would all be grouping together on the green or around the covered bus stop. There are probably people living in Tatsfield who notice them and are probably wondering, just like I wondered, why they were all together.
I put aside my anger for the ride home, which was very enjoyable. The good weather continued and the traffic was relatively light, although again I found myself wondering why there was a fair smattering of cars travelling along the 269 on, of all days, a Sunday. No pubs were open, nobody was allowed to visit other people so why so much traffic?
I'm hoping that Jiminy Cricket doesn't forbid solitary exercise outside of the home for the sake of a few idiots, although it has to be said that the UK has more than its fair share of idiots these days.
