By last night I was desperate. I didn't know if it was the medical condition or the antibiotics doing me in, but I was weak through and through, and sleeping half the daytime. So...I resolved to go for a ride this morning.
Susie didn't even question it. She just said 'you're old enough to know what you're doing' - which is true enough, although it leaves the possibility that I'm old enough but completely clueless. But not quite clueless. I knew I wanted an easy ride, and I knew that going to the sea would do me good, so I schlepped out of the house at seven and made it to the Dartford Tunnel just after eight, pushed by a tailwind that had me scooting down the A206 in a 53/14 without apparent effort. At which point I did the sensible thing and chose Southend over Whitstable. A wait for the tunnel bods, and then through a still sleepy Grays before passing East Tilbury and taking a new route east via Mucking to Stanford-le-Hope, where an extremely large fried breakfast met it's maker just opposite the church. On then, through Fobbing (where we will, in a couple of weeks time, observe the sunrise over Canvey Island, a sight that can move the hardest of men to tears of wonder) and through Vange, Pitsea, and up that little hill in a gear that I don't readily confess to owning, before sliding down to the view point off Tattershall Gardens, and down to Leigh, Chalkwell and Westcliff, arriving at Southend a little before 11.
Hardly a pedal turned in anger. That bike does nothing so well as run in front of a tailwind. All the vibration is smoothed out by the on-board butler that Ernesto has hidden in the forks, and corners are ironed out by that same domestic. I can't claim it was exercise, but it really has cheered me up.
Roll on the nicer weather.
