Well, one thing and another has had me constantly rearranging a trip down to Wiltshire & the Grandparents since the beginning of July. So when I got both a Sunday free, could afford the petrol AND it was decient weather - kinda had to be done really.
Thought I'd stop off for a late breakfast not long into the journey and started to get the feeling I was being followed.
Had I gained yet another stalker in Dr Rich?!
Nah, the roads were far too well surfaced for his tastes I figured. Pleasant enough fast dual carrigeway pretty much all the way down to Newbury from Northampton.
Not particularly exciting, but beats the motorway - and you get to look at some really big balls just before Oxford.
Told you they were big. :P
So bye bye dual carrigeway and hello picturesque market towns and the A4. View for miles, no speed cameras and blissfully free of caravans.
Pulled over by an old childhood favourite. Many was the school holiday spent with the Grandparents and charging irreverantly over this old monument- Silbury Hill.
Sad to say all fenced off now.
Thought I'd take a bimble up to Roundway Hill just before arriving at Devizes (my intended destination). Little twisty side road with a surface that would make Valleyboy cry tears of pain and suffering.
Then I began thinking back to earlier... would Dr Rich be lurking ahead?
Hmmm, more his type of road - but never let it be said that the 'Blade didn't take it all in it's steady stride.
And worth it for the view and Ice Cream... only the Ice Cream van was missing.
Anyhoo, bimbled back down into town and popped by to say 'Hi', leave a couple of roses I'd brought from my garden and do a bit of tidying up for the Gramps.
It's a nice place for a rest, adn lo, there was an ice cream van by the cramer (the lake thing infront of the Church).
Well, weather was still holding - infact out of the shade of the trees it was almost uncomfortably hot
so I took a bit of a spin to another childhood haunt. Sadly also fenced off and not given the attention it should do in my opinion.
All this exclusion from places I love and used to play in was beginning to be a bit of a downer - so I headed back to only haunt I knew I could still get down and dirty with - Avebury Stones.
The travesty there being that whilst the stones are as open as ever to anyone who wishes to navigate the sheep poo - I was a tad knackered to be bimbling round on my crutches.
So I just sat outside the pub and ate heartily of Wiltshire ham and eggs.
Though I did stop for a shot back at my favourite stone - the one that always seems to be straining at the fence in some bizarre escape attempt.
(Yeah, I know it's a bit skewed... but it was just a coke I had at the pub!)
So, bimbling back up the A 34 and was forced to filter through about 5 miles of traffic jam... got to the next slip road to find out why - an articulated lorry had managed to over turn itself! Both lanes being blocked off by the Police as I arrived so up and across country to pick it up again at the next junction.
Well, you learn something everyday - I was diverted past a rather imposing looking powerstation that I never knew existed!
Uneventfull and blissfully traffic free trip from then on - past the big balls and back home.
To be honest, I didn't think that I'd be wanting a cool bath quite that much after a rideout in September - gotta thank global warming for something I guess.