Day Eight - Carperby to Carlisle

I woke up this morning, deep in the Yorkshire Dales and re-read yesterday's blog. It was clearly the work of a lily-livered, cossetted, sofa-dwelling wimp. It was time to give myself a firm talking to; 'Get a grip, Slatter!'

There was to be no more moaning, no more self-sorrowful paragraphs - I had to man-up, take control of the situation and show this ride who was boss (after I'd rolled over and had another half an hour in bed of course).

Cath and the kids, who had wonderfully driven up from Mankinholes yesterday to spend another evening with us (and prepared a Mexican feast, bought beer and washed cycle kit as I lay like a zombie on on the sofa) were heading home today. So after breakfast I waved my happy little family off in the car (the thing sensible people use for long distance travel) and turned to face my bike. Let me tell you, I gave it a good hard look.

Six more days of riding and I could hurl the damn thing into the North Sea (and get a great deal
of pleasure in doing so). But I had to get there first. Today we were up against a long ride through the Yorkshire Dales, then the North York Moors, before dropping down into Carlisle.

It sounded tough - it turned out to be a ride blessed by the cycling gods. With a general 'off the dales and down to the sea' feel to the ride and helped by a juicy tailwind, we raced along. It was just what I needed. The miles were ticking off and the painkillers were quietly but efficiently going about their work on my ankle which had stubbornly refused to get better since, oh, I don't know....Penzance. When I say ankle, I think its my Achilles (an altogether more classical injury - geddit !?).

Anyway, with my ankle on the acceptable side of niggling, all was going well.

Once again, Steve had plotted a superb traffic free route, which he had painstakingly added to his Garmin (for the non-cycling fraternity, a Garmin is a small handlebar mounted computer that acts a little like a bike sat-nav). At each junction it indicates which way to go via a little screen, and if you stray from the agreed path, it beeps irritably and insistently until you get back on course. This has meant we have not got lost once in over 600 miles.

But I have noticed something suspicious. We do seem to be passing a statistically unlikely number of train-related places; disused lines, restored steam lines, railway museums, goods yards, working lines..

Now Steve has something of a history in this department and I'm beginning to wonder if there wasn't a little 'tweaking' made to our daily routes.

You see, as a lad, Steve would rush home from school, pack a tupperware box full of sandwiches, jump on his bike and - often in the company of his brother Nigel - race off to the level crossing at Wivelsfield in Sussex to wait for trains.
So innocent...
so wholesome...
so sad.

This is of course now ancient history for Steve, but today, his interest was once again aroused as we were following the famously scenic Settle - Carlisle line. And as it was a Sunday, there was a special steam service running.

So imagine the scene at coming upon a level crossing and finding that a steam engine and Pullman carriages was on its way. For five minutes, Steve was that twelve year old school boy again - I have added a photo both of the train and Steve photographing the train for you to enjoy.

As I think I may have occasionally mentioned in passing, my ankle has been giving me grief. It gets OK later in the day, but it's pretty flippin' sore in the mornings. (Not that I go on about it).

So as we neared Carlisle, I decided that rather than just stretching it by walking to the pub in the evening (my usual warm-down routine) I'd be a whole lot more pro-active about it - and get an ice-pack involved.

But for that I'd need ice. Since we were staying at the Carlisle YHA I surmised that a full ice bucket might be low on their list of guest services.

As we entered Carlisle, it became apparent that picking up some ice from a shop wasn't going to be that straight forward. (Carlisle; plenty of Icelands, not a lot of ice - if you get my drift).

Eventually, we stopped at a Co-op store. Rather than draw attention to myself clopping around the shop in those ridiculous cycling shoes with plastic cleats on the bottom, that make you sound like a very slow moving tap dancer and make you walk like a duck on an icy pond, I asked one of the lads stacking shelves if they sold bags of ice.

Given the look he gave me, I might as well have asked him if they stocked Strawberry Daiquiris and fresh Sorrel leaves. So I settled for a bag of peas instead; as John Lennon would have said, "let's give peas a chance". (I'm sorry!) See picture.

Heroes of the day include the Ashcroft family for their fine hospitality (and pet therapy!) in Carperby,and Ed Will, AnnaMarie, Claire Prosser and my dad who all helped pushed my sponsorship total higher - I'm touched by how generous people are being.

Villians include the owners of an All-You-Can-Eat' Chinese place that we made the sorry mistake of visiting after two very fine real ale pubs. I fear spectacular food poisoning overnight following our ill-advised consumption of a variety of re-heated dishes, each of which was an unlikely and unnatural colour (and taste). A dodgy constitution won't be fun as day 9 sees us cross the border for Scotland - and take on a 100 + mile day to Glasgow.

I'm told it's forecast to rain.....

Better check in for my next blog update - it could be a quite memorable day.... In all the wrong ways.