Category: LEJOG 1997

I grew up here in Ferriby, and it was a small world. We occasionally went to Hull to the pictures, but we’d only been to York once. One sunny Whitsun bank hol circa 1968, we all drove up to see a butcher’s shop dad was thinking of buying. It was an expedition. Mum packed the…

A rest day, at my parents’ house, somewhere round the halfway point of the trip. I went for a morning swim with my dad, and felt stiffer after twenty minutes in the pool than I have after ten days of cycling. Next time I’m at an interview for a job I won’t get, I’ll know…

A short day, ending with a trip over the Humber Bridge to my parents’ place in the village of North Ferriby, where I grew up. I explored Lincoln in the morning (pic), hunting and gathering local specialities for later picnic purposes. There were plenty of regionally-sourced items on offer – Lincolnshire sausages; Lincolnshire haslet; Lincolnshire…

It may have been Friday the 13th, but it was the best day of the trip so far: half-decent weather, which is 50% more decency than hitherto, and some world-beating local food and drink experiences. Especially the drink. I enjoyed my best traditional English Breakfast so far – the kitchen staff clearly knew their onions,…

I cycled round Stow’s handsome square, watching the town come to life, and hoping the miserable landlord of the pub next door had had an awful night’s sleep. I carried on heading northeast towards Lincoln, parallel to the Fosse Way/A429, along a great little back road (pic) that gave me splendid, elevated views of the…

After a rest day at home, I could push on. Literally, up the steep and narrow lane that led out from my shared house through the village and up into lush green Somerset hills. Gradually my fretting about this (an unevenly seated rear tyre) and that (a ticking chain) gave way to the joy of…

A rest day at home today (pic), doing routine chores in town – pictures to the chemist’s, replace my back tyre, buy a house etc. The back tyre had been deteriorating steadily since Taunton: a little thup-thup-thup, one per revolution, detectable as tiny jolts to the saddle. The rubber’s gentle way of telling you it’s…

I may only have been a quarter of the way to John o’Groats, but I was going to be at home tonight. A full sunny day of riding got me back to Bath, where I live. So instead of a strange, uncomfortable bed in a damp and dingy hostel, I could look forward to my…

I’ve clearly upset the weather gods in some past life. This is turning into a very wet trip. I fixed my puncture from yesterday evening in the B&B porch and set back out into the heavy rain. There followed a lot of long, wet slogging up and down tedious hills (pic). I was continuing to…

At last, a day without rain, and with a euphoric tailwind. The local element to the B&B breakfast was home-made redcurrant jelly, and jam – a delicious rhubarb, ginger and pineapple, though I wasn’t sure all those ingredients had necessarily come from the garden. Camelford had been in the news for a chemical spill in…