Nature settles its averages

May 21, 2022

WEATHER runs in averages. Or, I suppose it does: so many dry days, so many wet. There'd be variations over time of course but, for a cyclist, things even themselves out. So today the weather evened itself out. It compensated for days of sun, of white boats on blue water and glistening dew on grass. It started cold and then it rained.

It rained for two hours, paused for breath, then started again. And it fell on one of the narrow mud paths that are a feature of Eurovélo 4. I struggled on an uphill bend, ran into leaves, then headed back across the path before balance became too much and I fell to the ground and slid back the way I'd come.

There was no great damage but the tent this evening smells of antiseptic, a field hospital. A man likes to feel heroic, of course, to struggle against adversity. But the truth is that the cuts and scrapes are no more than superficial.

I'm not sure why anyone should paint this on the side of a house but the eccentricity pleases

We have again been making our way round another wide bay, another broken jigsaw of small islands. Yesterday Steph saw the Plymouth ferry in the distance as it made its way in or out of Roscoff.

It was publicity for Roscoff, for its artichokes and its new ferry company that brought the Tour de France to Britain in the 1970s. I remember my free artichoke and how I and other Britons unaccustomed to such foreign novelties eyed it with interest and suspicion and wondered whether you'd eat it with chips.

The Tour was equally suspicious of Plymouth. It might have thought better had the stage been through the moors behind the city but the police wouldn't hear of that and the race had to go up and down an unopened bypass. For hour after hour.

The expected crowds stayed away, as unexcited as racing round roundabouts as the riders were, and the bunch rode all day in a sullen mass before allowing an unheard of rider to win, their revenge on the organisers and a good idea that died.

But at least it was warm that day. And nobody fell off on a muddy path.

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