In search of Lawrence

Well it’s been an unusual first week of 2017 with a lot of the confidence gained in December evaporating in two sluggish 13 mile rides. I can’t even blame it on an excess of alcohol on New Year’s Eve. It was cold and breezy but I just didn’t have a lot of energy. I decided to pencil in a longer ride for today (the 5th) but last night the demons associated with the drugs I take decided to come out to play. Not good and hard to keep a lid on. Nevertheless this morning I vowed not to let them beat me and set off by train to Cambridge…

The local news has featured several sightings in the last few days of an escaped large rhea called Lawrence on farmland South West of Cambridge. It would be fun to make his aquaintance so I plotted a route taking in the area where he had been spotted.

All was going well until I alighted at Cambridge Station…a front wheel puncture! Damn..I could either get the next train home or try and get it fixed and carry on. As luck would have it there is a bike repairer in a shack just outside the station. What a shame the proprietor showed a good deal more interest in the sausage roll he had just bought than in my front wheel and he informed me I would have to wait three hours for a job that would take him ten minutes. There was nothing for it but to walk to the City Centre and fix it myself. OK Sports Direct get a bad press but they certainly came up trumps today, an inner tube, tyre levers, and a pump (which I needed anyway) all for £17. Twenty minutes later all was done.

Riding along King’s Parade in front of King’s College is normally a huge pleasure but I could feel the demons resurfacing and scrambling my brain. I pushed on, out through Newnham, Barton, Haslingfield, Barrington before stopping for a rest. I really wasn’t enjoying the ride and not a sign of Lawrence.

Through Orwell and a brief stretch in the Western Hemisphere

 

All of a sudden I settled into a rhythm and eventually struggled home. It was 27 miles and I was proud that I hadn’t given in to the drugs’ side effects. Alas, this evening I have discovered that not only was the rhea recaptured this morning but his real name is Eric. What a day!