In between the rain showers today paul and I made it out of town for a short
Muni ride. starting with a gentle up hill on a by-way covered in fallen
chestnuts and conkers our route was mainly by-ways with the occasional short
road stretch to link them. Most of the tracks were rideable, some the puddles we
rode through were huge, spanning th eidth of the track and stretching for 15+
feet, getting too deep the bottom of some of them, mostly we came out unscathed.
A few patches of soft mud caught us unawares and we both got filthy dirty legs
from the muck being sprayed off our wheels. Part way round we heard gun shots
and decided there was a shooting party somewhere up ahead, 5 min later rounding
a corner onto a bridle way we were passed by a procession of smart Landrovers
and the like ( pricey 4x4 SUVs) carrying well dressed tweedy types and some dead
pheasents. Looks like we found our shooting party, the beaters were still
packing up and as w climbed a grassy slope a chap on a quad bike called out
encorageing Paul to " go for it" . The clouds gathering overhead looked ominous
and we decided to take a short cut, walking along 20m of foot-path ( that looked
just like the byway it soon rejoined) rather than riding an extra km of by-way.
Now on the homeward stretch we pedeled down toward a farm yard, very muddy,
slimey and smelly ( a lot like the one I fell off in back in the spring with
jerry) . A gun dog was not happy to se us and it took our dimounting and having
a chat to one of the game keepers to reasure the animal that we were not
invading monsters. A last few km of gravelly by-way tracks lad us back to the
car, but the ride was not finished yet. Having noticed several chestnut trees
dripping with nuts on our outward ride we decided to nip back up the hill and do
a little nut harvesting. Found lots at a decent size and were just about to
pottle back down the hill on our trusty one wheeled steeds when the heavens
opened. A pottle became a dash, Paul managed to ride the brick littered puddle
that had eariler thown me off, I managed to avoid the sinking mud section and we
high tailed it back to the car, flung the unis in the back and got out of there.
The rain continued.
sarah