On the Level

There are the usual slow convolutions to get out of the urban area. After that it’s all on the level. When the GPS tells me today that this 75ft hill is the first of four, I believe it.

Yes; these are the Somerset Levels – very nearly as flat as the Fens. I did try hard to make friends with the hills, but I confess I like this better.

There’s a house with its own enormous – and by the look of it recently re-engineered – suspension bridge over the river. There’s a ruin called Burrow Mump that looks worth a visit. And Othery, on the top of a 30ft hill – how we laughed – calls itself an “island”.

There are lots of Road Closed signs, with contradictory diversions. One of the diversions goes down the Closed Road I’ve just come along. A car in front of me just moves the cones out of the way and carries on. A van stops me to ask accusingly, “How am I supposed to get to wherever, then?” I tell him he could safely ignore all the Closed signs until the last one. I’m a mile up the road before I realise that’s a singularly unhelpful direction.

They still dig peat in these parts, which is distressing. But the sight of Glastonbury Tor, and then Glastonbury itself, puts all such thoughts out of mind.

The town is preparing for a solstice tomorrow – though perhaps it’s always like this: lots of shops purveying magic of one kind of another, and prohibiting photography. Presumably photography would either weaken the magic, or bring down curses on the photographer. Either way, not to be risked.

Helen and David invite me to their table. Their bright orange tandem is called Donald. It’s been ridden 30,000km since they sold their house in Australia three years ago.

After a peep over the fence at Glastonbury Abbey (it costs a lot to get in) it’s only a short way to Wells. There’s no electricity today, so no microphone. But cathedrals were built without microphones, so we don’t need to worry about that.

I’m sitting in the nave, in front of the famous scissor arch. It’s a lovely place to play. I’ve borrowed a cushion from the vergers’ vestry, which I realise is the Lord Mayor’s cushion. Moray has come to see the performance. I first met him just before my bike ride to Rome, and I’d forgotten he wrote me a blessing: “A curse, a curse, and many things worse, on whoever meddles with the pedals of the fellow with the cello.”