Espresso 6 March 2011. To Tea or not To Tea?

First Espresso of March, so here's a seasonal mad March hare. I set off in good time – don't want to cut it fine like last week – and find that the cold is just awful. One of those mornings when I spend most of the seven and a half miles to Cornhill wondering why I'm doing this to myself. Why does it feel SO cold, when the numbers aren't that alarming? I mean, it's only just below freezing at Norton. How short can I decently make this ride? How soon could I claim an imperative obligation to be home – entertaining relatives, doing chores? Just as I arrive in Bury I notice the empty bottle cage. Aha! Help is at hand. Keep that one up my sleeve, and play it early. Rehearse anger and frustration at missing the ride . . . . Then the others arrive, and soon we are thirteen. Justin, Adi, Pauls Callow and Barry, Jonathans Howe and Sjolin, Jeremy Waterson, Glynn, Deane, Ron Fisher, Mike Bowen, Glenn Morris and Self. The mood is relaxed, and we agree on a sort of Bressingham, though Justin keeps mentioning somewhere called Winfarthing. I'm feeling better about this. Then I remember – Damn! I don't have a bottle!

As we set off along Mount Rd, and it's apparent that we're heading towards home (mine) I put in a request to Justin for us to swing by Blogger HQ and pick up a bottle. Mike Bowen immediately offers one of his. Some time later he tells me how to open the nozzle. We avoid, as has become the habit, the cyclepath from The Flying Fortrss pub to the Rougham crossroads. Now this is a shame. I know why it began, it was at the beginning of January that the path was gritted with sand containing a very high proportion of flints. I had three punctures in the first two days of the year, and I wasn't the only one. No one has dared use it again – except me, that is. I've used it for the last three weeks with no problems and, though there is still some sand lying around, it can be easily avoided. I think that we should go back to using it. But if I suggest it, and manage to persuade the group to follow me, and someone gets a puncture (as could happen at any time in any case) I'd be in the merde.

We do the rotating leader thing, without really thinking about it, and it keeps us pretty neat and fairly tidy. We go via Wattisfield and Hinderclay, Knettishall and Freezen Hill – cross the A1066 and wiggle across to Shelfanger. There were one or two times when we split, but nothing too dramatic or long lasting. As we turned off at Shelfanger Justin called a halt, and there was a brief conference on route choices. He was going to take any who wanted on a loop via Banham (further North East) then a return without tea. The remainder of us would go back to Bressingham and have a pleasant break. I was of the tea-break faction and lead the way to Blooms with Jeremy (who didn't want to repeat his experience of a fortnight ago when he opted to join the five of us who 'rode through' and skipped the stop at Semer. He ran out of fuel big time.) Glynn, Deane, Ron, Glenn and Jonnie Sjolin. The Sensible Seven. We crossed Boyland Common, which Justin had warned us was a wild place. Was he ever right! On the bleak and muddy common itself, a scattering of small caravans was outnumbered by tethered horses of various sizes; all of the type favoured by Travellers. A couple of Jack Russell-ish terriers gave chase and one, misunderstanding the game, overtook us and sped ahead at 12mph. Close to the road a girl of about 12 was filling a small churn from a stand pipe, a wild-looking woman with long matted hair hollered at the the tiny hound (which froze in its tracks at the side of the road – as any creature on the receiving end of that voice would). There were no trucks or chaps – all out hare-coursing or totting no doubt. Deane was impressed and, as we waited round a corner at a safe distance (the group had split up) he said “how can they live like that?”. I reminded him of his bungalow days this winter, coping with no heating or water, “no, no, not that – I mean the environment, such a mess, how do they get away with it?”

We move on. Zig zagging across the network of tiny lanes that brought us back to Bressingham. Their displays of food are, these days, quite extravagant – as the pictures show. There's always time to make several different choices (I always seem to be behind a queue of cyclists). Those cakes, huge, generously-filled baguettes, plated salads, chocolate éclairs, short bread, biscuits, macaroons – all seem to be twice the size of the normal item, and begging to be chosen. And look, the little bottles of red wine, there's a cabernet-sauvignon as well as a merlot! But as ever, it comes down to a scone weighing half a pound, plus butter and jam. We sit and savour our sensible break, chatting about track-standing couriers in London (look, no hands) and the self-evident wisdom of our choice to stop. Glynn implies that Justin's group are all in mortal fear of being late home, and that thus we, self evidently, are the real men. He put it more pithily than that, I remember. Our civilised chat is interrupted by the arrival of the Cappuccini. Time to go. Ron opts for the gentler ride home and, now we are six, we head off across Redgrave Fen, past Thelnetham Windmill, and the splendidly-named Blo Norton, lined-out behind the hunched figure of Dynamo Deane (also known as Metronome Man). Jeremy was flagging by the time we reached Sapiston, and young Jonnie began to fade at Honnington – but hey, we got home nice and quickly.

I got home at 1.10 with 63 miles under my wheels. I later learn the Wallace faction (well, Justin, anyway) did 66 and were home by 1.00. But we'd had tea and social interaction.
SJH