ENGLISH MERCURIES
Sunday 26th
After church, and a rehearsal for the following Sunday’s
Confirmation Service, Ian and I had a sandwich and packed our panniers (again).
I had told people that we would leave at 4pm, and a small delegation appeared
then to see us off, but it was raining, so we waited a while and invited them
indoors, as Ian consulted the Met Office
rain radar and pronounced confidently that if we delayed our departure a little
while the worst would have passed over. At least the persistence of the rain
persuaded me to take a proper jacket and gloves, for which I would later be
very grateful. It was still raining when we left at about 5pm. Photos were
taken, and our supporters waved us off, as we wobbled out of Rowington Close
under the unaccustomed burden of full panniers.
We followed a route provided by the TfL website for our
journey to Croydon, the only drawback being that it’s designed to be used as an
app on the phone, and you can’t simply print out the instructions. Therefore, I
had copied the instructions by hand, and referred to a map, adding in useful
notes of my own. It got us to Croydon very well, with only a small glitch in
Mitcham, but in Croydon it all got a bit complicated. We were saved, though, by
the excellent “Legible London” signs, which enabled us to find the way back
onto TfL’s route.
It was cool, and rainy, and the first problem had come on Gloucester Road,
when Ian found his rack shifting under the weight of his panniers. He adjusted
it and continued. We crossed Battersea Bridge, and then headed past Clapham
Junction and Wandsworth Common, through Tooting and Colliers Wood, and then on
across Mitcham Common (Ian was surprised at such a large expanse of green in
Saaf London) and onwards to Croydon. As we were coming into Croydon I suddenly
realised Ian was no longer behind me, so I stopped at the next junction. I
waited, and then wheeled the bike back. I found him struggling with his rack and swearing.
He asked me whether I had any tools; I replied that I had packed two puncture
repair kits, but had forgotten to put in any other tools. I wasn’t bothered,
knowing that he had some. It turned out
that tools were not the issue. I had pointed out some weeks ago that he needed
to get a rack fitted to his bike (that’s what I did; thanks, Evans) but it
seems he bought a rack and fitted it himself; at the last minute. He was
frustrated that it didn’t seem to fit properly, and said that he had “lashed it
up”. On inspection, what he had lashed it up with were those little wire ties
that you use to close freezer bags. Funnily enough they hadn’t borne the weight
of full panniers. His proposed solution was cable ties, which made sense to me,
so we walked to a general store that I had just passed to ask there, but had no
luck. Ian carries a certain amount of suppressed rage, and it came out quite
expressively at this point after he left the shop. There were some dangling
straps on his panniers whose function was unclear, and he tore those off in
fury, cursing loudly enough that the shopkeeper came out to check on us. It
turned out that the destroyed straps involved rather annoying metal hooks
which, when they weren’t catching in your spokes or derailleur, could be bent
into shape to serve as a temporary solution to the problem. So that’s what he
did. It was good enough to see us through to the Premier Inn, Purley Way.
The nice person behind the desk at the Premier Inn had a
ground floor room ready for us, as requested (by Gloria, who paid for it,
thanks), and was happy for us to wheel our bikes in there. Next door was
Wickes, and we were confident cable ties could be had there in the morning. So
we went to dinner at TGI Fridays, with reasonable equanimity. Solid food (full
of fat and sugar), fruit smoothies. I was still anxious, though. Slept well.
Monday 27th
A cooked breakfast at the Premier Inn (thanks again, Gloria)
set us up. Amazingly, Wickes was open at 9am on a bank holiday, so Ian was
happy, and fixed the rack quite securely (if not wholly satisfactorily) with
cable ties. The Premier Inn is on the site of Croydon Aerodrome, Chamberlain’s
“piece of paper” and all that, which somehow seemed appropriate. Ian was keen
to get on, and was not ready to retrace our steps when I made a navigating
error at Coulsdon South, so we ended up toiling uphill along the Brighton Road for
3km, which wasn’t pleasant. Still, we got off, and escaped into the steep,
gravelly back lanes, which then took us south. We were mostly following the
Avenue Verte, the signposted cycle route from London
to Paris, but
we were taking a diversion to avoid Redhill and Horley, which was described in
the book but not signposted. In fact, this worked really well, but we
discovered how bad Surrey roads are, and were
ambushed by a particularly vicious hill near Bletchingley which had us both
fearing for our cardiac health. I had always told people that the first full
day was going to be the hardest in terms of hills, and I was not wrong.
The official Avenue Verte goes in a great eastwards loop via
East Grinstead and Tunbridge Wells to avoid serious hills and use off-road
tracks, but we had decided to go a much more direct way, on quiet roads, and
observing contour lines carefully, so from Crawley Down we went south to
Turners Hill (where we took a photo in the drizzle, beside a nice old signpost)
and then past Horsted Keynes (where we could hear the Bluebell Line) and through a very pretty place called Fletching,
to Piltdown, where another picture was taken. A nice woman came and offered to
take a photo of both of us, explaining that Instagram wouldn’t work because
there was no coverage there! We crossed the river Ouse, and felt we were
getting somewhere (as that’s what flows into Newhaven Harbour)
and so felt able to waste an hour at the “Lavender Line”, a preserved railway
that Ian had never visited, at Isfield. I caught up with Instagram duties while
he played trains. It was a pleasant afternoon by now. From there on into Lewes
was very pleasant riding, with a decent cycle route from Ringmer into Lewes
town centre. In Lewes the Brewer’s Arms provided a restorative pint and a
pleasing pulled pork and cider pie. We cycled the last 6km to the South Downs
Youth Hostel at Southease feeling more relaxed (though apprehensive of the
enormous shoulder of the Downs that kept on
threatening to take the road upwards). We did not have to climb a hill; the
Youth Hostel is not far from the river. We had a room for two (bunks) which was
better than I was expecting. I didn’t sleep terribly well. Hard bed, but also
brain not switching off. It turned out that this would happen throughout the trip.
Tuesday 28th
Cycled the 5km into Newhaven along the unpleasant A26, but
there is no real option. We were firmly told at the port office that we were
not foot passengers, but vehicles. Fair enough. Amusingly one each of our
panniers were searched at the port; the Border Force officials welcomed us to
the “Newhaven experience”. The boat was quiet, and we were directed on quite
early. There was a grizzled old gent on an old steel-frame Galaxy who seemed to
be a regular, and a young girl with huge panniers, as well as motorcyclists,
with whom we were penned. On board we filled our time with a cooked breakfast
(it would have been rude not to). The Channel was flat calm, and it was a
beautiful day.
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