I suppose I have my fair share of prejudices. Some of them I think are fully justified, like my aversion to large and unnecessary cars.
So when a Range Rover refuses to drive a foot onto a grass verge so that we can pass each other on a narrow road, I just toss my eyebrows.
And when another sees me on a roundabout, going the same speed as the cars (‘cos that’s the only safe way to go round a roundabout) and cuts me up with three feet of clearance, I just wave my hand as though I were swatting a fly.
These were minor annoyances on an otherwise beautiful day. I don’t mean weather-wise. The weather was mostly appalling. But there were tea shops in all the right places, quiet roads, and beautiful places to see.
I stopped at Goudhurst, for a bacon baguette, and told the lady she was a genius for suggesting I eat half of it now, and take the rest for lunch. (It really was too big to eat in one go). And she went straight to tell the boss – that she was a genius, I mean.
When you’re in Goudhurst you can’t not take a picture of the Star and Eagle pub sign. It’s so clearly referring to the church.
So then I looked inside the church, which turned out to be the first of many today, each more lovely than the last.
Over the last two days I’ve cycled through Surrey, the Sussexes (That’s West and East) and Kent. And I’ve made a few comparisons:
Steepest hills: West Sussex
Best-kept roads: Kent
Finest churches: Kent
Worst drivers: East Sussex
Best tea shops: Kent
Least modest house names: Surrey (The Manor, Ten Acres, etc)
Which reminds me – what house names does a cyclist most / least want to see? Answer: respectively, Hill Top House, and Hill View.
I propped my bike against the wall of the Archbishop’s Palace. There was no Archbishop to object, Henry VIII having seen to that. Sorry, I should have said, this was the Palace in Chilham, not in Canterbury. He may have taken the Palace, but he left the magnificent church.
England used to have lots of road names like these – you can imagine what might have gone on there – but there aren’t many left, what with our modern sensitivities and all. So when you pass a Lewd Lane, you want to stop, don’t you?
And I haven’t played my cello all day!!!
But I have ridden 544 miles since I left home.
