As Sid will tell you, the mind of a Doris is a strange thing, I sometimes believe it is a separate entity living in my body, and I look on in a slightly bemused way as it considers, in no fixed order, and often hopping from topic to topic, things like:
Psychosomatic fears. Have I got saddle sores? Am I getting piles? What are the symptoms of those anyway? Are they curable or will I just have to give up? Arse! Feck!! Homage to Father Jack from the Father Ted series, for giving us that mantra that we repeat regularly.
The countryside. Gosh these are large fields. And rape blossom is really smelly. Oh wow listen to that, the glorious pointlessness of a skylark, I do love those. And OMG a hare! Because the hare had a spare pair (some obscure lost lyric from Jethro Tull I believe).
The route. Am I lost? Am I found? Am I sure?
Mathematics. We have just done 12.5km which is 1/8th of the way to today’s total which is 100km. But we have only done 80m of climb which is 8% of today’s total of 1,000m. So I think the rest of the day will be, on average, steeper. Or maybe not.
#Earworm. I wish Sid hadn’t made that joke about us not having electric bikes: “No pedal no go”. No pedal no go. No pedal no go. No pedal no go. I wonder what the next line of that song is. Bob Marley and the Whalers. I wonder if there’s a joke in there for Mifter Bat.
My legs. Feel like spaghetti. I blame…
The surface. It’s too rough. Iitttttssss verrryryyryryrry coobbbobboblbly. My eyeyeyeyeyes willll nnenennvnennveever focuusssuususus againagiagain.
The wind. At home we call it Edwin the Headwind. You would think that in this part of the trip, which is largely east-going, we’d mostly have tailwinds, as the prevailing wind in the UK is from the west. I wonder if that’s the case in continental Europe? I wonder why I didn’t do more research on the weather patterns in continental Europe. Anyway wow dammit that was a sudden sidewind, I’m lucky I didn’t end up in the middle of the road, I saw that happen on some early stages of the Tour de France, that was why Bradley Wiggins broke his collarbone and had to drop out of the tour the year before he won it, whenever that was.
Are we nearly there yet? It’s a long way. I bet this is like an old-fashioned pilgrimage. I bet wives didn’t go on pilgrimages because they were suddenly overcome with religious fervour, they just looked at their smelly old husband and their boring old lives and said “I want to travel and see the world”. Ha ha like that old Prudential advert which ended “we just want to be together”.
My legs. Feel fab. I think it’s because of…
The surface. It’s so smoooth!! I bet that’s because someone in this village pulled some strings to get the road resurfaced in order to win the local elections.
#Earworm All day long we will be wombling in the snow dammit think of something else all day long no no no all day long.