Non-stop ride, approximately 15 miles...

I'm trying to break a cycle of just one ride per week. The world keeps conspiring against me, which is annoying. I was out yesterday (Saturday 14th March). I rode to where? Nowhere! I rode towards and then past Botley Hill, then hung a right on to The Ridge and followed the road round into Woldingham and then down Slines Oak Road towards that steep bit of the same road that leads up to the 269. A 15-miler, not bad and, as I say, non-stop. I don't know, I was hoping to ride to Oxted but, in all honesty and while I know the whole thing is psychological (see last post) I just didn't fancy riding up Titsey Hill. Also, for some reason, I didn't want to be away from home for too long. There were things to do and I felt a little guilty about being out on the bike. I shouldn't feel that way and generally speaking I don't, but I felt I ought to get back and do things, boring things like taking old paint tins to the dump.Then a trip to Sevenoaks and, of course, that means going to Gail's and despite saying no more cakes, I had one of those tiny ones with pink icing. The tea in Gail's is excellent because it's made in one of those teapots with a built-in infuser, like the ones in Biscuit Love in Nashville. The pots in Gail's are small, though, and you just about get two cups. I checked out the bookshop and found two books I'd like to read, one being a book about the band Simple Minds. I was never into them at all, but the book seems interesting. Trouble was it was £25 and right now we can't afford to over spend so I left it behind and likewise a book about stoics and stoicism. I'm almost a stoic, but not quite. The reason I shrug my shoulders is because I simply can't be bothered, not because I don't care of whatever being a stoic means. It's about shrugging one's shoulders, but I don't really know and that's why I'd like to buy the book.

Those pink iced cakes in Gail's.

Sunday rolled around and I almost forgot it was Mother's Day, which means everything stops and things need to be arranged; instead of cycling I drove over to Sutton to see my mum, listening to Moving Pictures by Rush (a great album). Normally, having been in the home, I feel depressed when I leave and so I can't really listen to music. I don't know, I need to spend time realising how lucky I am and also how I need to tackle that list I keep talking about, I need to act basically (not acting, I'd make a terrible thespian) but acting in the sense that I need to tick things off my list, but first I have to write the bloody thing. I suppose I should be writing it now instead of doing this blog, but hey ho! Perhaps that what being a stoic is all about, saying 'hey ho' every now and then. 

"Damn! The local leisure centre has fallen into a sink hole! I won't be able to go swimming!"

"Hey ho!"

That's it, the ability to say 'hey ho!' rather than fret and get uptight. I don't know, I'll have to read that book and that's a fact. And the one about Simple Minds even if I've never been a fan. But I've got Geddy Lee's book to read and somebody left me a copy of The Drought by JG Ballard. I need more bookshelves and that's a fact. The Simple Minds book is called Our Secrets are the Same and it's written by Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill with some help from Graeme Thomson. I will be reading it, of that you know. 

My pink iced cake!

It's Sunday night, almost 2100hrs and I've checked a load of unchecked lottery tickets. I haven't won anything, not even a tenner. I buy lottery tickets and then don't check them for at least three months and then, when I do, there's a bit of excitement in the air, perhaps I've been holding on to the winning ticket for all these weeks, but no, I wasn't and I never will. 

Have I ever mentioned my love of Pellegrino mineral water? No? I love it and I have one large glass left in the bottle, hold on while I go and fill my glass...well, perhaps not a full glass, but enough. I'm watching a YouTube video of this guy who's parents died and decided to buy a crofters cottage in a desolate part of Scotland. He has a cat and chickens and he's slowly doing things around the place, like taking down a car port, making a home for his rescue chickens and so on. It's great and so is the music that accompanies each video. I love videos of this nature, they're cosy and that's what I need at the moment, cosyness. I'm also still obsessed with the band Rush as they're going to be touring the UK in 2027. I'm guessing they'll be doing Glastonbury too. I'd love to go see them, I really would. Oh yes, and I still haven't bought my guitar.

One of two books I need to read!

The weather, incidentally, was wonderful yesterday. The sun was out and I felt nostalgic. I started to wish I had a flask of hot water and a couple of tea bags plus, perhaps, some Belvita biscuits. Had I been so equipped I would have headed for the Tatsfield Churchyard or somewhere else out in the open. Riding along The Ridge I spotted a fallen tree in the woods to my left and that would have been ideal as a stopping point. I might investigate buying another flask as I'm sure yesterday's weather will, at some stage soon, repeat itself.

Perhaps next week I'll manage a two-ride weekend, here's hoping. I'm also hoping that the weather next weekend will be as good as it was yesterday. If it is, I might well buy a flask and bask in the sunshine watching the world go by. But then again, I might end up in Caffe Nero or Starbucks or even Costa Coffee. Who knows?

Leeches don't work on 'slime' innertubes...oh I wish I'd known that!

Not a great deal to say. Cycling has been weekly at best, once a week at worst and always Tatsfield Village. Nothing wrong with the destination, but the weather has been poor, on and off, for weeks. They're saying that it's the wettest February for years. I'm not sure whether the phrase "since records began" is appropriate, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Washpond Lane, Saturday 9th March 2024

Andy and I have been enjoying the sanctuary of Sheree's Tearooms, and the fact that Sheree actually exists makes it even better. We meet on Sundays mainly and enjoy a good old chinwag about something or other, it's a relaxing time when the troubles of the world can, by and large, be forgotten about, and believe me we've both had a few problems of late and they've taken their toll. My sister and Andy's wife have both passed and it's not been easy for either of us. I can't speak for Andy, obviously, but during the lead-up to Christmas, after my sister's passing in early December, I went through the mill a bit. I kind of calmed down by Christmas Day and, give or take, while the emotional side of things will take time, the physical symptoms, if that's what they were, have disappeared. I think (although I can never be sure) that I suffered from panic attacks. On the day of my sister's passing I should not have been driving, but I was and I felt terrible inside. It's hard to describe if I'm honest, but somehow or other I managed to fight through it. Cycling has helped a great deal and so did being at Sheree's drinking tea, munching a Biscoff biscuit and chatting with Andy. I know that Andy found Sheree's equally healing – and still does.

The Tatsfield rides were pretty straightforward, just a scoot along the 269 and then hanging a left at Approach Road, past the famous Tatsfield Bus Stop, which is now confined to the NoVisibleLycra history books as we tend to enjoy a café rather than a bench exposed to the elements. This, as I've mentioned before, was largely a result of lockdown, or rather the aftermath of the lockdown, and I think coffee shops are here to stay as we both feel that, in addition to the sanctuary offered at Sheree's, it's also a reward for getting out there and taking a ride.

I've been rather lucky on the puncture front of late. The reason might well have a lot to do with fitting one of those green slime inner tubes on my rear wheel. Weeks, months even, went by without a puncture and I began to feel invincible until, the week before last, I was riding along the 269's off-road path and suddenly the familiar wheel wobble meant just one thing: a puncture. Throw in some coldish weather and some rain and the fact that I had no idea about how slime inner tubes worked (leeches don't adhere to them, Andy told me later) and you have what I regarded as the perfect cycling disaster. Well, not so much disaster, just annoying. There I stood by the side of the 269, rear wheel resting against a gate, holding an inner tube, trying to find the puncture and getting ready to use a leech. Why didn't they stick, I wondered, as I worked through an entire pack of 'scabs' or whatever they were called. It seems that Leeches (the proper ones) have disappeared not only from bike shops but also from the internet and we're left with inferior products (what's new?) But let's get back to me standing in the rain, surrounded by discarded 'leeches' wondering what to do next. I'd told Andy that I was liable to be here for ages (and I was). It took a while to get the tyre on and off and then get it back on AFTER I remembered that my inner tube was supposedly designed to fix its own punctures. I noticed the green spot where the puncture was located and without any leeches to plug the hole I decided to put everything back together again, pump up the tyre and then hope it would get me home. It did! The drizzly rain didn't let up and by the time I got home I was unpleasantly damp, having not brought my cumbersome cape along for the ride. I put the bike into the garage and then, the following morning, I noticed that the rear tyre was still pumped up the following morning. To be honest with you, the puncture event happened on the Saturday and I think (although I can't be 100% sure) that on Sunday there was more rain and the whole idea of a ride to Tatsfield was simply aborted. It was the following Sunday that I met Andy at Sheree's and he told me how leeches don't work on slime inner tubes. Well, I know now. Like I also know that I'll avoid the off-road path if I can. The problem there was that I was labouring under a false sense of security. The rule, as we all know, is that the off-road path along the side of the 269 is puncture city, but for some reason I rode it a good half dozen times and never got a flat. I put this down to the new (ish) rear tyre as I figured the front tyre wasn't as vulnerable as the rear, but then it happened. Anyway, let's not go on about it anymore. It happened, the slime inner tube worked and all is back to normal. As I rode home on that drizzly day, however, I must say that I allowed myself to get a little angry about the whole episode. I tend to let small things get me down, which is silly and completely pointless, but I figured that the best way to change the direction of my emotions was to stop at the Esso garage and give the bike a much-needed jet clean, although it was my soul that needed jet cleaning. The bike had been covered in mud for some weeks and it was great to blast it all off and then ride home with a tyre that was still holding out.

I can't remember how things turned out after that; I carried on working during the week and cycling at the weekend and the rain and poor weather continued too. Today has been weird, although what is today? I can't even remember when I wrote this post, it was certainly around a week ago – up to this point – probably longer. Overnight there was a lot of wind and rain and then during the day the rain competed with the sun; one minute it was raining, the next minute there was sunshine. I decided to walk rather than cycle. Late in the afternoon I embarked upon a three-miler and I managed to escape the rain. I stopped halfway at a Costa in Sanderstead High Street for a green tea and, yes, a Bakewell tart and then I walked back. And now I'm sitting here writing this blogpost with the shit show that is the BRIT awards on in the background (so the BRIT awards will give you (and me) an idea of what day it was, not as long ago as I thought).

Hopefully the rain will have stopped once and for all tomorrow and I'll be able to get out on the bike and head for Tatsfield village or Biggin Hill or Westerham or wherever. I doubt I'll go to Biggin Hill as there's something depressing about it, especially the Costa Coffee there, which is a little dull. I don't know what it is, but some places don't work for me and Biggin Hill is one of them. It's fine on a hot summer's day but not when the weather's bad. There's always Oxted but right this minute I can't handle a ride up Titsey Hill.

It was a week later when I decided, on a Saturday, to ride the non-stop 'Botley Bastard', a trip up the 269 and then into Woldingham and home – around 15 miles; the following week I rode the Washpond Weeble (see photo of sheep above) – 12 miles – and now it's Thursday and the weekend lies ahead of me. I'm now thinking about Oxted or, perhaps, another non-stop ride, another Weeble perhaps or another Botley Bastard. I'm guessing Andy and I will be meeting on Sunday at Tatsfield. 

To Flowers Farm...

Sometimes, the smallest of mistakes can be catastrophic. Well, not catastrophic, but when I realised I'd left my keys in the office, it dawned on me that to get the bike out of the garage I would have to go through the back door instead of the front and use my emergency padlock key, the one I keep in a matchbox. Alright, it wasn't the end of the world, but it was mildly annoying – and made even more so when I discovered there was no milk.

Fortunately, the plan was to ride to Godstone and visit the teashop at Flowers Farm. It would mean tea and cake and, as it turned out, a real log fire. You can't get much better than that, unless a beach is involved, but we would be many miles from the sea.

Cake and a woodburner – pic by Andy Smith

We haven't been to Godstone in a long while and that's because there's a big hill on the return journey. It's so steep that if the gears on our bikes were playing up – and they often were – it was not worth the hassle.

Avid readers will know that my old Kona Scrap was always minus a gear or two and that there was never an occasion when they were all working smoothly. But now that I have a new bike with 27 gears we both felt that a trip to Flowers Farm was long overdue.

The weathermen on TV had promised rain on Sunday but the weather this morning was fine. In fact, the whole day was good. Cloudy, but not cold, so when I headed up the Limpsfield Road towards the green, I felt good and the idea of a ride to Flowers Farm, with the promise of tea and cake at the end of it, filled me with what can only be described as good vibes.

As we rode towards Slines Oak Road, we noticed the fog rolling in, a bit like in the John Carpenter movie. We thought that by heading west towards Godstone we would avoid it, but it stayed with us for most of the journey there and back.

It was weird having to tackle two off-road sections. Ever since I'd taken possession of the Rockhopper I'd managed to keep it spotless clean, but now I found myself riding through mud and puddles, albeit only for a few yards. We then rode through the leafy streets of Woldingham, past the big houses on left and right and on towards the second off-road bit through the golf course. The fog was so thick we could only just make out the trees.

Riding down Gangers Hill without lights – mine without batteries, Andy's simply not switched on – was treacherous enough, but we took it easy and eventually rode over the M25 and then the A22 towards the A25 where we rode the last few yards on the path and parked up at Flowers Farm.

How can I explain to you the greatness of Flowers Farm? A farm shop, a micro pub and, of course, the tea room, not forgetting the wood-burning stove. Andy did the honours – tea for two and two enormous triangular slices of an iced sponge cake with cherries. We took a seat in front of the fire and awaited delivery of the goods. They soon arrived and we sat there enjoying every moment. I found myself mesmerised by the flames of the fire, it's better than television, put it that way, but we still found time to discuss the pointlessness of social media and the uphill slog involved of getting anywhere near to a 'dream' job.

Soon it was time to head home. We'd been sitting there for around 40 minutes simply enjoying the solitude, the warmth of the fire, the conversation and the fact that we weren't on the bikes; but now we had the big hill to confront and as we headed towards it I cranked the bike down to its lowest gear and got on with it. Hills, however daunting, are best tackled by simply getting your head down and going for it. The fog was still making its presence known all around us; I've never known it to be so persistent, but soon we reached the top of the hill and found ourselves back in Woldingham with the golf course to our left and some posh houses on our right. When we reached the top end of Sline's Oak Road we said our goodbyes, promising to be out again tomorrow unless the rain dictated otherwise.

I road the length of Slines Oak Road and managed to handle reasonably well the steep section leading to the 269. I headed towards Warlingham alone. My ride was now flat all the way home and it wasn't long before I found myself free-wheeling down Church Way. But when I reached home I felt oddly guilty about the muddy state of the bike, my new bike, so I took it into the back garden, filled a plastic bowl with warm water and set about getting the mud off the frame. Then I oiled the chain and put the bike back in the garage.

Here's hoping we'll get a ride in tomorrow, but I don't want to lull myself into a false sense of charcuterie, alright, alright, 'security', I was just trying to be funny.

Down and out at the Tatsfield Bus Stop...

There are two 'slow ways' to the Tatsfield Bus Stop. Two slow ways to the churchyard and the village and, if you like, two slow ways to anywhere. In the case of our regular cycling, there's a choice of turning left off of the 269 or right. Normally, we opt for the former and wind our way around the country lanes, down Hesiers Hill and then up Beddlestead Lane – a long, torturous incline – until we emerge on Clarks Lane.

Down and out at the Tatsfield Bus Stop? Not really. Just pretending to be asleep. We needed a different image.

To go the 'other slow way' we turn right on to Slines Oak Road and follow the route we normally take to Godstone Green, a route far less travelled mainly because of gear problems that persist to this day (and still need fixing). In fact, the last time we rode through leafy Woldingham and the golf course was about a year ago. I remember it clearly because it was snowing and I took a load of photos. We stopped, if I recall, at the car park halfway along the Ridge. See Twats of the Antarctic.

So Andy suggested turning right off the 269 and we sailed down Slines Oak Road, hung a left and then a right across a patch of 'off road' track, which was full of mud and puddles, and through Woldingham, a place that's jam-packed with well-heeled people who are a little exposed during the winter months by the bare trees, which give passers-by – especially cyclists – a good view of huge gardens with massive houses and gatehouses and loads of space.

The weather was fine, although there were signs that there might have been overnight rain – wet roads here and there. It was certainly not cold, even if it was still 'gloves' weather. The gloves stay on until at least May.

Normally I find this particular ride hard going – normally when we reach the golf course I start moaning – but not today. I did remark to Andy as we turned left on to the Ridge that it was a tougher ride that the other slow way. He agreed and we continued along the Ridge, past some huge houses, including Al Fayed's mansion. Is he still living there? I don't know, possibly not, but just past his gaff there's a short incline and then it's pretty smooth all the way to the bus stop. By the way, when I said I normally moan as I go through the golf course, I don't mean that I really moan, in a whingeing, irritating manner; I merely mention that it's not my favourite part of the ride. I thought I'd mention that in case you all thought I was a pain in the arse. I'm not, although Andy might beg to differ.

So we were headed towards the bus stop and all was good with the world. The weather was holding out and it was soon time for tea and biscuits. There were Lycra Monkeys around, quite a lot them, shouting 'Gravel!' and 'Car!' whenever the fancy took them; and Andy and I were just sitting there chatting – about pensions. Yeah, you heard correctly. We were talking like Lycra monkeys.What is it with some of the monkeys? They've taken to wearing luminous over shoes and matching gloves. Why? Well it's quite obvious, innit? Visibility.

"Why don't they just buy some lights?" asked Andy as we headed towards Botley Hill.