Bank Holiday Weekend Cycling – Part two: to Westerham for tea, toast and cake...

Of late – and by 'of late' I mean for many years – my life has been largely devoid of music, mainly because it's impossible to listen to it without some kind of interruption, somebody asking me to 'turn it down' or requesting different music or wanting to discuss something. Ultimately, whenever I consider putting on some music, I think twice and decide not to bother.

As music has basically seeped away from my day-to-day life, like a burst water main, the machinery designed to bring music into the house started to fall into disrepair too. Old speakers soon found themselves in the garage en route to the municipal tip and now there is an amplifier and a CD player sitting self-consciously unconnected and redundant in the living room.

The music itself is in a state of disrepair. CDs can be found in a draw, not inside their original packaging but somewhere else: a New Order Best Of, for instance, might be residing in REM's Out of Time packaging and vice versa, and some CDs have no packaging at all. Needless to say some of them get damaged so that on the odd occasion when I find myself driving to mum's alone or nipping out to the supermarket to buy some milk, I place a CD in the player and it jumps, so I either switch if off or listen to the radio instead.

In all honesty, music has ceased to be important. I won't listen to anything produced beyond, say, 1995 – around that time good music stopped and a mixture of hip hop and Simon Cowell took over, giving the world some of the worst music it's ever likely to hear. It's not going to get any better either so I'm left with my memories and a few damaged CDs. When I say that music is no longer important to me, it used to define my very existence by providing the soundtrack to my life. I lived my life as if it was some kind of movie with me as the big star. Perhaps we're all guilty of this.

From an early age – probably around 13 onwards – I had been listening to music, trying to find meaning and relevance in the lyrics and, occasionally, transporting myself into a fantasy world where I was the lead guitarist playing in front of a huge audience, until the record ended and I came crashing back down to earth and found myself in my bedroom or, if I engage in such fantasies now, Sainsbury's or round at mum's house. And while I really should know better, I still engage in such fantasies.

Some people put music on as 'background' noise. I can't do this. Or rather I can, but I tend to want to listen to whatever is playing, drift off into some kind of other world and, hopefully, stay there for as long as I can. But, of course, such activity is impossible nowadays as there's always something else to do and, therefore, music is no longer relevant simply because there's never any time to just sit down and listen to it like there used to be. In many ways it's sad because I've always believed that music is good for the soul.

So, this week, on a mid-week drive over to mum's, I found All Mod Cons by The Jam – undamaged. What a tremendous album. From the word go it's brilliance shines through and it took me right back to 1978, a strange and formative year for me in so many ways. It reminded me of Bon, my brother, and going to the pub in Carshalton and drinking pints of Young's and not really having any worries – no mortgages, no bills, no responsibilities.

A few days later I found myself walking around the streets of Redhill with Jezza, a work colleague, who asked me to name any other artist – other than Paul Weller – who had not only remained relevant, but was still putting out cutting edge albums. I tried. The Rolling Stones? No, they're largely reliant upon their back catalogue. I wracked my brain and eventually scored: David Bowie. I was right, but Weller, as Jezza was keen to point out, was the only one of our contemporaries – Jezza and I are roughly the same age – who was still of massive relevance today and, of course, is still with us.

Yesterday, as I stood alone at the check-out in Sainsbury's, I spied Quadrophenia – a double CD set with a smaller version of the black and white story that's interwoven into the cover of the original vinyl offering. It was only £5. I'd earlier put a copy of the Observer into my trolley and now I picked it up and noted the price – a good £3. I cast it aside and put Quadrophenia on to the conveyor instead.

What can I say? Quadrophenia, in my opinion, is the best Who album. Better than Tommy, better than Who's Next, better than The Who by Numbers and so on. There are so many aspects of this great double album to bring out, but for now just two: Keith Moon's drumming and John Entwhistle's bass after Daltry has belted out, "Can you see the real me, can yer, CAN YER?!!!!" Driving home yesterday from mum's I found myself replaying it time and time again, it was that good. And when you think about it, what an achievement – the Who have had TWO albums turned into movies.

Another fantastic bit of drumming by Keith Moon can be found at the beginning of the track Bell Boy. Honestly, it's just amazing and, let's face it, they're all good – all four members of the Who.

Breakfast in Westerham. Pic by Andy Smith.

But right now, as I write this, my brain's in-built Walkman is playing In the Crowd from All Mod Cons. It's on from the moment I'm conscious or, as yesterday, when I rode along the Limpsfield Road towards the Green where Andy was waiting. We headed out to Westerham on what was easily the best day of the weekend – blue skies and sunshine and warmth. There was no heavy flask of water in the rucksack, no teabags and no milk as we were headed for the Tudor Rose café where we would enjoy tea, toast and the most amazing fruit cake.

The ride to Westerham was perfect. Great views, albeit with a few Lycra monkeys thrown in for good measure. We sat outside the Tudor Rose and watched the market traders setting up their stalls. Our tea arrived in a huge (and heavy) white teapot followed by two slices of thick, buttered toast and, of course, a couple of slabs of fruit cake. People walked past – dog walkers and old-age pensioners – and we sat there trying to put out of our minds the journey home and that long hill. But soon we were back on the bikes and heading towards the dreaded hill and I said something like, "Soon we'll be at Botley wondering what all the fuss was about." In truth, it was not that bad – it never is. The initial hill is peppered with flat sections and then, once beyond the Surrey Hills totem pole, it's a slow burn to Botley. We soon reached the pub and all that remained was the ride north along the 269 towards the Green. It was such a clear day we could see London stretched out before us, from the Shard to Docklands, but it soon disappeared behind the trees and suddenly we were back in suburbia.

We parted company at the Green and decided not to ride on Bank Holiday Monday, but, as I sit here now on that very day, with the time only minutes away from 0830hrs, I'm still mulling over a possible ride, although I don't think I'll bother. Instead, I'll take my exercise in the garden, sawing a few branches, pulling out some Devil's Forget-Me-Nots and sweeping the patio. Summer is fast approaching, the garden is starting to bloom... and In the Crowd is still playing in my head.

Back to Basics at Botley...

My bike leaning against a sign at the Botley roundabout

Once, a long time ago, a friend of mine suggested that Quadrophenia, the album by The Who, could have been trimmed down from a double to a single album. Many people, of course, won't understand the terminology of single and double album because these days, Quadrophenia would come on just one CD or, indeed, be downloaded from itunes. In the old days of vinyl, however, albums were either just that – albums – or they were double albums, meaning two discs, and normally a really decent piece of double album packaging was involved: a fold-out cover which opened like a book was the norm and sometimes (as in the case of Quadrophenia) there was a kind of book thrown in too – black and white pictures of eel and pie shops, a half-eaten fried breakfast and that woman who impersonated the queen, whose name escapes me.

"Looking bleak at the Botley" and yes I sent this pic to Geoff

Althoff, the illustrious illustrator

Anyway, I'm digressing. This friend of mine who, sadly, I don't see anymore, used to say that if you cut out all the sound effects between the tracks, Quadrophenia would have been a very tight single disc album. Well, no... Quadrophenia is what was known as a 'concept album' and it was eventually turned into a film so I say no, it was what it was and cutting it down would have ruined it.

The only reason I remembered the conversation with my old pal (Andy Penfold) was because today I cycled out to Botley Hill Farm alone, something I haven't done for a long time. In fact I haven't really been that way alone for the best part of four years, as it was back in August of 2006 that Andy Smith and I started the cycling that led to this blog and all our adventures (see archive). I left the house just after 0730hrs, reached Botley about an hour later and then cycled home. I was back home at 0910hrs, a good two hours before the time we get back from Merstham on most Saturday mornings and it just got me thinking about how things have grown and expanded. From a small cycle out to Botley and back (very boring on my own, I hasten to add) we now have this blog, a number of different routes, there are tea and cereal bars, visits to Hunger's End for huge breakfasts accompanied by mugs of tea and, of course, there's the conversation. In other words, we've turned what could have been a single album into a double or maybe even a triple album, like Sandinista by the Clash (yes, I had the vinyl version, which was three discs).

Newspapers everywhere – so I nicked one!

I reached home at just gone 0900hrs.

The weather was fine today although there were a few large grey clouds looming. Fortunately, no rain. I went the fast way to Botley up the B269 and it was great. Not many cars about, cloudy but bright skies, the sun peeking through here and there and the only blight on the landscape was a load of newspapers that, I assumed, had literally fallen off the back of a lorry. They were everywhere and I managed to find a huge pile of poly-wrapped copies of the Daily Telegraph so I put one in my rucksack and carried on towards the seven-mile marker that was the Botley Hill Farmhouse pub, a great live music venue, as it happens. I carried on to the roundabout a few yards beyond the pub, took a few pix on my iphone and then headed back. There was a strong wind blowing in my face all the way home but I remained dry, there were no punctures – a big fear as I'd somehow mislaid my 'leeches', which would have meant walking home with the bike.

Back in 'the old days' before Andy and I started cycling, I used to take a photograph on my mobile phone of the fields surrounding the Botley Hill pub and send it to my pal Geoff Althoff, the illustrious illustrator. A short message would either read, 'bleak at the Botley' if the weather was poor or, conversely, 'bright at the Botley' if the weather was fine. This I did again today.

When I reached home it was porridge and tea and a browse through the Daily Telegraph, albeit yesterday's, but who cares, it was free!