Wednesday 20th August – JOGLE Day 10: Chatford to ‘The Lawns’ – Just South of Wormelow. 56 miles travelled.

Where Our Narrator And His Partner In Crime Run Away From A Sinister Child, And Realise Too Late That Hereford Is A Land Of Steep Hills.

Wednesday arrived too soon, as most mornings had so far on this trip, but I woke with a feeling of expectation: we were starting to get close to the final legs of our journey, and I couldn’t help but feel a small twinge of excitement. Cue the usual wincing and groaning, and I spent some time stretching my hamstrings to try to ease them.

We went down for breakfast, and Christine laid on one of the more memorable breakfasts as we chatted with the two other guests who expressed their admiration at our manly prowess at having got as far as we had; I forbore to mention my less than manly tantrum the day before – but time on the road, it can change a man.

I filled up on porridge and toast with some bacon, Ray tucked into the usual, and we drank strong tea and coffee as well as about a pint and a half of water and orange juice. Christine chatted away about the local area with our fellow guests, and we nerved ourselves up for the next leg of our trip which would take us past Hereford, not far from Bromsgrove where I had gone to school for 10 years as a nipper.

We got dressed upstairs, and I dumped anything that was non-essential into the rubbish bin in an attempt to lighten my pannier. Ray took my book as I couldn’t bear to throw it out, I strapped my knee up, and we descended once more, paid for our room and thanked Christine, and got the steeds from their confinement with the angry bullock. As we were leaving the couple we had met at breakfast offered us £10.00 to the pot, as did Christine, and we got back on the road with their best wishes to warm us.

The weather was overcast but at least it wasn’t raining. My backside was by now severely painful, regardless of whether we were at the start or end of the day. The one thing that had been keeping me sane was by slather the Assos chamois cream on my padded shorts all morning as it cooled my tender parts and prevented more serious chafing. I had a problem: I was running out. I had bought Germolene the night before which has a local anaesthetic in it, and this helped to a degree, but without the Assos I was going to be feeling like I had been fingered by an elephant. I determined to find some more.

We followed the A49 past the Bridge Inn, and were soon back into our rhythm passing through incredibly green countryside and some pretty villages as we headed towards Leominster (pronounced Lemster – I don’t know why. I mean – LEOWMINSTER or Lemster. Which would you choose to call it before being mocked?) through the Shropshire countryside. We passed the Malvern Hills on our left (we couldn’t actually see them, but there were certainly a few big ones as we went) before stopping for a break after about 12 miles or so, at which point the sun came and we had some bright spells.

Once rested we headed onwards, and you could tell that you were very much in Middle England as we passed through places like Craven Arms, Little Stretton, and past a quaint sounding place called Longmeadow End. We passed around Ludlow without going into the town, and carried on our way along the well surfaced A49. The scenery continued to be fields and farmland as far as the eye could see, interspersed with copses of tall poplars and oak trees, and we stopped for lunch once more in a Little Chef that appeared from nowhere.

Once more, the pasta and bread combo Heston Blumenthal so reviled got my legs moving again, and I spent most of the time dodging the attentions of a man who looked to be carved from granite who insisted that I was a cyclist even if I didn’t claim to be one. I don’t know, maybe the lycra and the bike gave it away. Ray found it most amusing, and I resolved to push him off his bike later in the day should an opportunity present itself. We called Mike and got him on the case of tracking us down some accommodation for the night, which he leapt into with if not gay abandon, then a certain manly excitement recognisable in dance studios across the country.

The knee support seemed to be working, and I had a lot more confidence in my ability to carry on although I was still in a fair amount of pain both from my now chafed backside and from the injury to the knee. I took a moment to ‘Germolene up’ the worst bits and it was with a sigh that the anaesthetic properties kicked in.

Back on the road once more, we took the occasional break under whatever cover we could find as there were a few rainy patches, and once more I saw the strongly smelling pink orchids growing on the side of the road. There is nothing like dodging downpours to get you viewing trees in a different light, and pretty soon we were adept at spotting what would be a good place to shelter and what would get us soaked.

The A49 from Leominster to Hereford looks wonderfully flat on the torn-out page of a road atlas, but don’t be fooled: it is not. In fact, there is a particularly steep hill formation in the way at a place called Hope Under Dinmore. It was not the worst hill we had faced, in fact not even close, but it seemingly came out of nowhere and was therefore all the worse for it: we had no chance to nerve ourselves up for it. To make matters worse the heavens opened as we were toiling our way up, and we reached the top of a long steep climb not only seriously out of breath but seriously sodden as well.

We passed a reasonable sized car park on our right, and took the opportunity to catch a breather on the side of the road opposite. I looked across to see a small blonde girl waving to us from the arms of her mother, and we duly waved back, surprised that news of our coming had even reached the ears of babes in these parts.

“She thinks you’re her Dad!!” shouted the mother, which confused the hell out of me as I wasn’t even in the county when said consummation was to have taken place. “Her Dad’s a cyclist, so she thinks that everyone she sees on a bike is her Dad!”

I drew a deep breath of relief, smiled politely, and then chivvied Ray to get moving as quickly as possible so that we could get away from the scary child with the ‘personality issues’.

Fortunately, there was a long and very pleasant downhill stretch just afterward where I got up to 34 miles per hour, and I was confident that unless she could drive a car at the tender age 3, we were safe from other incidents of ‘mistaken identity’. Sinister times, people; sinister times.
Hereford is built on a hill. I remembered that from my school days just as we started another climb up into the town centre after a long flat stretch of road through more wind- and rain swept farmland. We received a call from Mike telling us that we staying in a place called ‘The Lawns’ and Ray duly called ahead to give them an ETA.

This done, we pedalled onwards hitting the town centre at about 16:00. We stopped at a large Halfords which appeared on our left and I left Ray to guard the steeds as I disappeared inside to try and find some more Assos chamois cream to take the edge of that nasty chafing. Sadly Halfords had none, and it was with a wince that I rejoined Ray and we carried onwards once more.

Not only is Hereford built on a hill, but there are other buggers bigger than it all around. We stopped for a break outside the town, and I crammed as much Snickers bar in my mouth as I could. Bonking is no fun at the best of times, but when it’s raining it just adds a little more unhappiness to the mix. Back on the bikes again, we hit what I will politely describe as a ‘long bastard’ of a hill which seemed to go on forever, which we fought our way up being overtaken by the now rush hour traffic leaving Hereford. Joyous. And the rain slacked off a bit, which was nice, but there was a headwind, which was not.

About 5 miles south of Hereford we reached the A466, and we turned off the A49 for the last time after just over 135 miles on the same road – we had picked it up in Preston two days previously. Sinister blonde children notwithstanding, the A49 had been a pleasant stretch of road, but it was pleasant to be on a quieter more rural stretch. We passed through Wormelow chuckling a little at the name, and battled up a couple of steep climbs before reaching the newly tarmac’d entrance to The Lawns guesthouse on the right at 17:30.

We cycled up to the front of the house and were met by our hosts for the evening, the absolutely fantastic Ralph and Elizabeth. Ralph and Elizabeth are the kind of storybook grandparents that everyone wanted as a child: they insisted on parking the Manly Steed and its counterpart in the front hall of their delightfully old fashioned country farmhouse, and had already laid newspaper down on the stone flags. They whisked our wet clothes away to be washed, and then had us relaxing with a glass of fine sherry in our room within 15 minutes of arriving having made an absolute fuss of us. I took the opportunity to have a bath and lay back almost weeping in delight as the hot water seeped into my tired muscles.

Ralph offered to drive us down to a pub in Wormelow as we needed a meal and it was a couple of miles away, and Ray and I tucked into some fantastic pub grub washed down with a couple of pints of local ale and cider.

We called Ralph at about 20:30 who kindly picked us up again, and we were back in our room by 21:00 and relaxing in front of the TV. Ralph and Elizabeth, like Christine at Chatford House the day before, are going to heaven.

The weather forecast for the next day was better, and I took the chance to give my parents the daily update of where we were and how far we had come. My Dad had taken to following on an atlas how far we were going each day, and plotting with us where we would be going the next.
I called Hannah and wished her a good night, and Ray and I turned in after having had a call from his better half Evey who was in Ireland and getting stick from her relatives about not being married yet.

Ray went to sleep looking fraught and worried at this, and I collapsed into bed happy that all that had been sorted out already for me the previous year.

As I fell asleep the rain pattered gently on the window, and I thanked whatever guardian angel was listening that I had reached the end of another day without having to pull out because of my knee. I could almost hear the Manly Steed excitedly talking to its counterpart downstairs about the day, and the fact that they were allowed to stay inside rather than in a shed or garage.

Things weren’t going to be the same again, I realised: time on the road can change a man; time inside can change a bike, even one as tough and dedicated as the Manly Steed.