HENRY IN FRANCE, PART 1

ENGLISH MERCURIES

Sunday 26^th

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 27^th

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 28^th

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.