Bish & John

This is my blog, where you will find the truth behind all of Tom’s stories. I will try not to bore you all too much with details like what we’re eating or which of my 3 pairs of boxers I am wearing and if I do please feel free to read Tom’s blog instead. By the way, if yiou are reading this on the homepage then you will find all the paragraphs are run into one. I don’t know how to correct this but if you instead go through ‘John’s blog’ on the side and click on the title it looks much nicer.

 

We had been waiting around for my new bike for so long that even the Bishop’s were glad to see us leave (I jest of course). It was on the 30th that we eventually left Cambridge, stopping in town for a quick TV interview. Actually, it was Tom giving the interview, I was told to ‘stay in the background and fiddle around with your bike’. I did as I was told, changing the set up of my bike so successfully that I then had to put it all right again when we had finished the interview and cycled round the corner.

 

On our leaving day, we had made it about 4 miles down the road when we were overtaken by Rory McGrath (please google if unsure). We caught up with him with such ease that I won’t describe it, when he had stopped at the traffic lights. We had a little chat along the lines of ‘hello’, ‘hello’ (I was the first hello, Rory following soon after), then I told him about our trip and he seemed interested, which was nice. Then he left. Not a great story so far I grant you. 30 seconds later, Rory was waiting for us to catch up, and when we did he said the this, ‘I would join you but I just had my hair cut’, which seemed a bit weak for a funny guy, maybe I just don’t get it.

 

So far the cycling had been pretty good fun, it helps that it’s been sunny the whole time although we have had a headwind, which isn’t so nice. Camping has been fun for me too, Bish did have a little drama on Saturday night though. We were struggling to find a decent site to pitch a tent and so instead resorted to the tree line of a farmer’s field, which meant using our bivi bags. Tom’s bivi is slightly different to mine because of my lankiness and his relative stumpiness and he was complaining about the lack of movement in it having had to slither inside through the tiny opening at the top. He was just saying that the bag would be a whole lot better with a zip down the side when he rolled over and ripped straight down the side, at that he went quiet and presumably fell asleep. In the morning we inspected the bivi and found that the rip was about 6 inches long and the zip had fallen off that side. On the other side of the bivi Tom had actually jammed the zip on the material rather than open it fully and there was about 12 inches of unopened zip beyond it. The zip was so thoroughly jammed that in trying to open it, Tom actually ripped the bivi that side too so unfortunately for Tom, he now has a bivi with only 1 zip (jammed) and 2 rips.

 

I haven’t been totally without mishap myself and wouldn’t want the reader of this to think I am perfect because according to some I’m not quite. And so today, while Tom and I were on a minor road we passed a sign saying FORD, which seemed interesting but little more at the time. As I turned the corner I saw that there was indeed a rather large puddle on the road but I was going pretty quick (although Tom says it was all in slow motion) so I decided to plough straight through, creating an impressive wave before me, delighting onlookers. What actually happened is that my front tire slipped away on the algae and I was totally underwater very quickly. The good news is that my bike and I came away practically unscathed, I say practically because I did think I had cut my ankle until Tom pointed out that the ‘blood’ was green and so more probably algae. My bike now has a few scratches on the brake and gear levers, I like to call them speed burns.

 

All in all we’re having a great time so far, we’ll upload photos when we’re somewhere other than Caistor library, where the computers can’t compute a wire. Tom will also write here soon but at the moment he’s ordering a new bivi bag, like mine this time because that last one was way too cramped.