No hurry

It’s hard to leave the warm embrace of one of the loveliest families I know, and I’m reminding myself this is a leisurely day, so altogether there’s a fair amount of prevarication.

Wth no performance today, and no deadline. I’m going to try to enjoy the ride, to allow diversion, and see what happens. This is a rare treat.

First I have to negotiate the cycle paths of Telford. Like all urban cycle paths they don’t exist for the benefit of cyclists. They’re there to stop bikes inconveniencing the motor traffic. Why else would you make cyclists go so far back from a junction in order to cross? Why put such long delays on the lights at crossings? Why have so many gratuitous right hand bends, so many silly barriers, so many places that necessitate dismounting? Imagine what would happen if cars were subject to such indignities.

Anyway, that only lasts a few miles, and after that it’s the open road. It’s not hilly; it’s not windy; it isn’t raining; the sun isn’t too hot – though it might be later. Blissful riding conditions.

Sundays, I’ve discovered, can be lonely days. Not much is open, except the pubs that do Sunday Lunches. Coffee is hard to come by. Sunday Lunch (always with initial capitals) is a family affair; no-one wants to sacrifice a table to a lone traveller. Apart from anything else, it lowers the tone.

Yes, there are other cyclists on the road, and there are friendly greetings to be exchanged, but the general closedness of houses, and the introversion involved in gardening and car-washing, seem emphasised.

Not today somehow. Last night’s warm embrace carries me forward. When I stop at Bolas Magna to look at a quintessential village church, I just feel gently at home. Bolas Magna has a complete set of box pews, which is very unusual – nice if you want privacy, but probably slightly uncomfortable,

Not much further on there’s another church, celebrating a 150th anniversary with flowers and a carefully prepared sermon.

And then it’s time for lunch, sitting in the shade in the big churchyard of another village. There’s pudding left over from last night (it was only left over because it started off truly enormous), homemade bread, and garden salad. The church itself looks locked, but it isn’t, and I surprise myself by kneeling briefly at the altar rail. Afterwards I might have slept in the sun; I’m not sure.

I’m in Wales by mistake. I’ve lost track of the number of people whose response to my account of myself – a pilgrimage around 42 English cathedrals – is St. David’s? No, I tell them; that’s not England. Usually they persist. Oh, so not Wales, then? How many cathedrals are there in Wales? Are you doing those next? And so on.

It’s the effect, I think, of modern navigation methods; they undermine our sense of geography. We don’t look at maps, and see this place in relation to other places. We just tell the machine where we want to be, and it tells us – in bite-sized chunks – how to get there.

So I don’t realise I’m in Wales until I pass a Slow Araf. I might even have forgotten that Wrexham, where I’m heading, is in Wales. My excuse is that it’s only a staging post, somewhere to stay on the way to Chester with its definitely English cathedral. The logistics are a bit complicated for these few days, and I might not have done all my homework properly.

Or I might just be exhausted, with five days left to go.