Today I was so sad

So I wake up in this big carved wooden bed in this fantastic manor house B&B, bikes resting easily in the stable. I can smell breakfast wafting up the stairs. The problem ? It was soundly raining and it's 6 degrees outside.

So we get up, have the breakfast which has been wafting up the stairs, and then go back to our room, where I proceed to spend about an hour (perhaps hour and a half) finding reasons not to leave, email, phoning home etc. Some time about 20 min past our allotted checkout time we leave.

So this is where the sadness begins, out to the horse stables to get the bikes and then riding down to the river Tyne in the rain, that's pretty bad, considering I've already procrastinated and looked at the rain radar which paints a bleak pictures of increasing precipitation. But then we meet english bike tourists going to Holland wearing this:



That almost made me laugh, but it was still raining and they had hats.

After that we rode through a beautiful green forest (still in the rain), which ought to have been very nice, really it was, except for one detail. At the 7.8 mile mark for the day I declared I was cold. Alex declared she was toasty. I was dismayed, perhaps one could even say on the verge of being sad. Then I noticed a fatal flaw in my dress for the day, my 'pit zips' were fully open from the last time I wore my jacket (sometime last century (last week)).

So now I was cold, and that's when I became sad.

Another 7.8 miles in to Newcastle central and I was wet and sad, my hands were so wet and cold that they hurt, and I needed to Pee.

Greggs (the baker) to the rescue, cowering in a dirty lane way we hid from the rain and I bought us food and hot Chocolate. It didn't really make a difference.

Then there was the super loo incident, no public toilets in all of Britain as far as I can tell, certainly nothing civilized like the PUBLIC TOILET MAP. So I paid my 20p at the super loo to go inside, only to be given a short lecture on how the door was closing, how to go to the toilet and how if I didn't leave quickly something unpleasant would happen to me during the self cleaning cycle.



Then there was another 10 miles of riding in the rain unable to feel my hands at all, cold and miserable... Priory ... more riding. Finally we got to our place of rest, as best I can tell a stag night paradise, about 30 bars on one street mostly proudly announcing their love of a good stag night. Some with plastic palm trees, some with 'Real Live Strippers'. Sad.

Finally Alex annouced to me over dinner that my beard is going grey.

Today I am so sad.