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June 4 Sunday morning sun then overcast then it rained hard 12º C Bicycle touring England The morning sun shone upon our two-person Kelty bicycle touring tent. Ah, looks like a great riding day for bicycle touring in England. We pulled up stakes, packed our cycling gear, and retraced our bike route back up the dead end road. We plot our cycling route. Shortly, we cycle past a farmhouse with fresh-picked raspberries outside the gate for £1 per jar of raspberries. We pick one out and I go to the house to pay. Mrs Fairhead, a wonderfully hospitable farmer's wife, invites us in for coffee. She speaks Norfolk, she says, and some people around here in Suffolk don't understand her, she says. "Some people think I sound posh and others think I sound common." I can understand her okay. We try Suffolk rusks -- kind of like a round pastry scone mini pie crust about three inches in diameter and half an inch thick. Butter, too. The scones are kind of dry and crumbly with not a lot of taste. If I put some of that raspberry jam on, though, I'll bet that would perk up the old taste buds, all right. Mr and Mrs Fairhead have a friend teaching school in Old Crow, Yukon Territory. They were going to visit two years ago, but Billy (Mr Fairhead -- it doesn't take cyclists long before they're on a first-name basis) had a six bypass heart operation. Wow! That's a double triple bypass. I didn't know they could even do those. And here all this time I thought four was the record. All those bacon and eggs breakfasts, no doubt. And fish and chip lunches. Gak! They were in Ireland last week. The seas were rough Sunday night when they returned. Mrs Fairhead was sick twice on the way over. Mrs Fairhead says her son says he doesn't care how far out to sea he goes ... as long as one foot is still on shore. They are farmers, all right. Their son lives next door (in an attached house). That's what I call next door! He has two kids -- a girl, 6, and a boy, 4. The little guy likes to go on the tractor. He has a toy gun and he shoots crocodiles in Granny's pond. Must be pretty good too, cause there's not a one left. For someone who has such a good imagination though, they said he really couldn't figure out how that old bus driver was going to drive that big bus across the water to Ireland. Mrs Fairhead's son says he didn't like to go to school, but his daughter just loves it. Rather than cooped up inside, he liked to be out on the tractor with his dad. Whenever a tractor went by at school, the other kids would say to him, "There goes your Dad!" Which never failed to set him howling. What are friends for? We cycled along a road lined on both sides with thousands and thousands of purple rhododendrons. Beautiful cycle touring in England with all the blooms. Another lane had red poppies in a field with a picturesque dead tree (am I allowed to use a French adjective when bicycle touring in England?). We saw red telephone booths alongside the road and kept wondering where the pub was. We only see these old red phone booths at pubs back home in Canada. Outside Elephant and Castle at the mall. We cycled past an old churchyard cemetery with an old stone church with a round stone tower ... which are supposedly rare in England, except in Norfolk and Suffolk counties. The headstones read from the late 1700's ... on the ones I could still read. We leaned our touring bikes against the church and sat eating by a side door. It started to rain ... big ferocious drops. We tried to cover ourselves with the poncho we use as a ground sheet for our cycle touring tent, but the poncho was meant for one. I think I was getting wet from the rain bouncing up. A church porch was locked. We huddled pitifully in an arched doorway, under a little overhang, but the rain was been blown into us from that direction so we were getting soaked. The door into the porch didn't seem all that secure. I tried pushing on it to open it. Anything to get out of this downpour. When I pushed on the door at the same time as I jiggled the door handle, a huge crack of thunder boomed so close that it made me jump and exclaim "Sorry!" out loud. Don't try to break into a church! As we huddled in the doorway, Sharon leaned back on the door and the latch popped open. It turns out it wasn't locked, after all. We had to turn a handle that looked like it didn't turn. We scrambled inside the cubicle. The door is a frame made out of tiny chicken wire. It is supposed to keep the bats out. It didn't keep batty people out. It rained throughout the afternoon. It made me think of a postcard I saw. A sheep is standing in the rain with "winter" written under it. On the other side of the card is a sheep standing in the rain and "summer" is written under it. I must say it is very green around here.... And June is one of England's drier months? They say the English humour is a bit dry. I dare say, that may be the only thing that's dry in England. Earlier in the day, we cycled past a restaurant with a sign posted: "BBQ Sunday 12 - 3 PM." I had to pull my touring bike to a stop and go and check out how much it cost. It has been ever so long since our last barbecue! I enquired and the chap said, "Sorry, Sir. The barbecue's been cancelled on account of the weather looking inclement." Crikey. Doesn't he know this is England? Inclement weather is normal here. "I've barbecued in the winter before at -40 degrees," I tell him. "Don't let a little inclement weather stop you." As a matter of fact, that may be the very best time for a barbecue. British humour: A person knocked on my door and said they were a Jehovah's Witness. I responded, Oh my God! I hadn't even heard there was an accident. They asked me what I thought of euthanasia. I said, I thought they were about the same as youth in Ireland. My brother is unhappy in his marriage. He keeps playing the video of his wedding backwards and ends up a single man. It continued to rain. We finally unrolled our Thermarests inside the church vestibule and threw our sleeping bags on top. We snuggled down with a perfect view of ancient lichen-covered headstones leaning at various angles like some old woman's crooked teeth. Our heads are towards a black studded wooden church door. A poster is tacked on the door from the Book of Luke. In part, the poster states: "... with whom God is well pleased." I hope it us referring to us. |
