Highway Cello

French pronunciation can be tricky.  It’s sixty miles to Reims if you go straight, and I’ve nowhere to stay when I get there, so today is not a day for time wasting. I thought it would sound something like Rem, as in Rembrandt.  But then no-one knows where I mean.  No, it’s more like Hhhrrrrrrans, […]

It’s warm in the sun, and cool in the shade.  The Roman road goes straight and true, through fields of potatoes, maize, beet, and oats, and a few exotic things.  From time to time it’s lined with lime trees, but there are no hedges, fences or walls, so it feels open and free. The wind

There are 150 seats in the basement restaurant of the Diocesan House, and five are set for breakfast.  The other four didn’t come while I was there. I’ve got a spare day in Arras, so I’ve planned to find a bike shop, to buy a case for my phone so I can use it for

I had to prove my bona fides as a pilgrim today.  We’re talking the Roman Catholic Church here, so there’s no harm in a bit of Latin.  Bona fides.  Sounds like a name for a dog, doesn’t it? I set off from St. Omer to follow the general line of the Via Francigena, and the

The white cliffs of Dover, backdrop to the ferry port, and a thousand Polish lorries.  There’s a red line through it all directing bicycles in a convoluted maze. Bicycles aren’t like cars.  They’re a kind of exotic beast requiring much checking and paperwork.  But eventually it’s done, and I can sit down with a well

From here there’s a proper pilgrim route to Rome, the Via Francigena.  So everyone understands the concept of an arduous journey South to the Mother Church. Some proper ceremonies and good omens should accompany the setting off from here. So with the Bishop’s permission I have wheeled the bike into the Cathedral, and propped it

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.

You can guage the age of an oak tree, by measuring its girth.  The Woodland Trust has a handy table on its website.  That’s how I know that the big oak tree at home was probably planted in about 1700, a generation after the house was built. But here is a truly great specimen, just

When it’s a choice between certain injury and likely death, you have to choose the injury, don’t you? I was riding down the A3 to Guildford, on a cycle path next to the roaring traffic.  The path was narrow, underpinned with tree roots, and overgrown with nettles, brambles and hawthorn.  But the road was unthinkable.

Buntingford – of course – has proper bunting for Her Majesty.  Outside the almshouses it’s all real knitted (or is it crochet – I don’t know the difference).  No plastic flags here. Through more pretty villages, with more flint churches, thatched houses, and rambling roses.  Go quickly and quietly through the village of Nasty.  Don’t