Monday 4 November
November is the time when the old year begins to die but before the New Year takes over, which is why maybe Hallow'een happens now as the lost souls escape into the world whilst we are distracted. It is a melancholy month. The fields around here are dead and lifeless, beaten down by five days of rain and the trees have carefully laid their leaves on the road where traffic has crushed them into a fine tilth. On the news this morning it was said that Voyager 2 has left our solar system and is now transmitting from interstellar space. I imagine it is cold out there and lonely. It is quite cold in Truro too today with thick grey clouds boiling up over the hills and regular needle-sharp showers, but today I won't be lonely.
I didn't mean to go cycling today. I have learnt not to buy things on
eBay after drinking a few glasses of wine and the same rule must now be applied to texting 'Yes' when someone I once knew from work has found me on Strava and suggests a ride. Madame Crow has her 'told you so' expression as she leaves for the gym, coat over her head and running to the car as rain sweeps in. She hopes I have a good time and swings the car out and disappears. I push my bike up the hill until I can pedal and then descend into Truro, blinded by spray and too afraid of the traffic to mix it on the roundabouts.
Stephen is the same age as me and also a retired headteacher but he has a full set of lungs and a fine record of Audax rides. He tells me as we meet by Iceland in Truro that he sometimes catches the train to London and cycles back to Cornwall overnight, watching the sun rise over Stonehenge. When I told Madame Crow that story she looked at me and said 'Why?'. Iceland is a an appropriate place to meet as we both shiver in a cold, searching wind and that leads me to musing over Voyager 2. We set off up the steep hill out of town and I am soon wheezing. Stephen looks concerned and asks if I am OK, at least I think he does but with his helmet and dark glasses and the sound of my breath I am not sure. I assure him it is always like this. He tells me this is nothing compared to Voyager 2 and I puzzle this as I try to follow his bike through the mini roundabouts, rain and heavy traffic at the edge of town. All I can see is a winking red light and spray from his wheels.
Another hill. We pass the isolated primary school at Kea and discuss the headteacher there whom we both knew who has recently married someone possibly called Chunky who may be a fisherman. I am trying to listen but finding it hard to keep up, just occasionally nodding to show I am following the thread, but I am not. She may not even be married. I hope there is not a quiz at the end of the day. Stephen expounds on his theory that rides are better in company as you can talk but I need to breathe. I am catching one word in three but don't want to say anything. I don't have enough breath.
Down again, back to sea level at Feock. The Fal estuary spreads across to the left; today the tide is in and the wind is stirring the sea into skeins of spume and aerated water. I start to tell Stephen how I nearly rammed a Porsche here last week but he has shot ahead and again all I see is a winking red light pulling further away.
On through Devoran, the creek to our left still. Boats are pulled out for the winter, a forest of masts and banging rigging. Stephen for the first time slows down as we hit the Bissoe Trail. He doesn't like the grit and mud and stones. He tells me I have a gravel bike and he doesn't but they both look the same to me. I am able to regain my breath now as Stephen gingerly pilots his ridiculously narrow tyres around the puddles and mud and for the first time I get ahead. As soon as possible we are back on the road, Stephen showing his approval by upping the pace.
Up and through the Bissoe Valley, me following the winking red light, no eyes today for the scenery just pushing on, on, on. Stephen is talking to me, yelling words over his shoulder. I don't really know what he is saying and add a "yes" or "umm" whenever he stops. He beckons me to ride level with him but I am not comfortable there as cars pass in a welter of spray and bad temper.
We arrive in Chacewater. Stephen looks at me and asks where next. I don't know. I thought he knew where we are going but apparently he thought the same of me. We both have degrees in geography but the road network of mid Cornwall was not on the syllabus, or maybe I was away that day. It's cold being indecisive. We choose left and soon I am wheezing up a hill, eyes locked to Stephen's rear light, not wanting to see how long the uphill goes on for. The day is still grey, clouds tearing across and this old mining area is a wilderness of moors, stunted trees and patches of bare ground where even after a hundred years, nothing will grow. There is so much arsenic in the ground in this valley as a by-product of mining that the owners of the scattered whitewashed cottages and converted mine houses cannot grow vegetables in their garden unless they use a raised bed and fresh soil.
By alchemy and luck and the sight of St Agnes Beacon, a sky tearing lump of ground that dominates this part of the north coast we find our way to the fashionable St Agnes village. It is North Coast trendy: wood burning stoves, organic food shops and lots of builders vans as houses are turned into facsimiles of the more expensive ones in Rock and Polzeath up the coast.
Stephen says he knows a cafe here and it turns out he does. It has a wood burning stove and cake, which I accept without asking if it's organic. At this point I am so hungry, I don't mind either way. I watch the rain running down the window. My leg warmers have fallen down revealing a couple of inches of pale, goose bumped flesh. I sense Stephen disapproves.
Standing outside the cafe and shivering we both recognise that we don't know where to go next. Two other cyclists leave and start to walk their bike up the hill. I point out it's a one way street and go the other way, a steep downhill that does nothing to warm me. At the bottom of the village, the sign for Truro points back up the one way system to the top of the hill we have just descended. It does at least warm us both. We overtake the two cyclists outside the village.
For the next hour we choose roads that appear go south every time we meet a junction, going up, down, up, down through tree shaded lanes thick with mud, Stephens red light winking at me as I wheeze uphill, then brake nervously downhill whilst he keeps up a running commentary on a wide range of matters, tossing words over his shoulder. The lanes always start off going south but then with Celtic cunning twist west or east or even north again. I wonder if we will ever finish this ride. Finally, at the interestingly named hamlet of Zelah, I see some blue NCN signs, I love the friendly NCN signs and for the first time since leaving St Agnes, I think I know where I am.
I assure Stephen it is all downhill now to Truro but it is not and around the bend the road heaves upwards and into the gloom of a disappearing day. Stephen crashes into bottom gear and tells me ' this is going to be a bad one' and so it is. Winking red light, breathe, wheeze, wobbling the bike from side to side, stand up, sit down, pulling zips down to get cooler. It ends as all bad things do except Brexit and the way to Truro is now (mostly) down hill.These are not downhills that encourage exhilarating speed, risk taking and leaning through the bends though. It is difficult to discern they are roads at all as five days of rain and gales have left them looking like a field track. We haven't seen any traffic for a while but you would need a 4 x 4 today.
At St Allen, Stephen heads off to the east. He has already cycled to Truro from Mevagissey, 18 hilly miles, to join me and now needs to find his way home. He texts me later to say he got lost and it rained heavily. I apologise for my poor directions but he is sanguine; "I wasn't cold or hungry so it was OK". He has done nearly 70 miles today. He says he likes cycling with me because I am a good listener and I seem to know some excellent back roads where he has never been before. Sometimes it's best to just accept a compliment.
I am home before it's dark and switch off my own winking red light. The shower is working today and Madame has made flap jacks. I ask if they are organic but she ignores me. Strava says it is thirty five miles and over 3000 feet of uphill today and Stephen is right, the company made it easier.
. Secretly I think both of us were waiting for the other to bail . But we're both as mad as one another 
. So out the door a 6.00 into dry conditions . To Market Bosworth to meet 
. It soon became time to leave on with damp clothing and new dry glooves 
.Onto familiar roads heading homeward the rain begins to ease .A few flooded lanes but they were passable . Back to Market Bosworth and retraced my route home . Parted company with 
