Scotland Welcomes English People

Thanks Julie and Red Wizard Consulting Ltd for their sponsorship of todays (Day 8) riding.

Hmmm, Day 8, the last day in England. Crossing the border at mile 65 today as we travel to Newcastleton. First stop was in Milburn today, an absolutely tiny place in the middle of nowhere; I have a feeling lots of our stops are going to be like that from now on.

The problem with tiny places like this, is the lack of signal. And lack of signal means a very lost support team. We had to use this thing called a map book, something that apparently is good for when your lost. But there was no blue dot on the page telling us where we were, or a voice that spoke to me telling me which route to take. I don’t think they’re all their cracked up to be.

With all this getting lost, Jenni told me it was now her turn to lose her dignity and crouch beside a bush at the side of the road and relieve herself. I waited until we got to a pub at the second stop where they kindly let Jenni and I use their toilets before they actually opened, somehow Jenni was bursting for the toilet again, just 20 minutes after she’d just been. The older generation’s bladder control is something rather bizarre.

Something I’ve learnt from this drive is that I can in fact speak cow. With my glorious ‘moo’ a cow looked up at me, clearly impressed with my attempt; Jenni thought it was a look of derision. We can just disagree on that.

There was more cow drama as a herd of they decided to camp by the side of the road, they stared us down, we stared them down. My car can go faster than a running cow though so I had no fear of them; not sure about Mike.

At stop three Jenni once again had to use a bush to do her ‘thing’, at this point having no shame if a car was to drive past. She even debated at stop four having to go as it was by a stream and apparently the sound of running water caused her some issues; but Mike arrived just before she went behind a wall so she had to cross her legs for a while.

Disaster struck when on the way to stop 4 the stereo broke in my car. The speakers crackled and then nothing but silence. Jenni and I looked at each other horrified before pulling over to have a better inspection. The stereo itself was working, but nothing was coming out of the speakers. We decided to drive on and hope for the best but nothing happen until Jenni gave the side of it a swift punch and Adele came blasting on.

So have now figured out with a hard hit to the side it starts working, apart from when I accelerate, or break, or go round corners, or go over bumps. It’s going to be trying to say the least, because there is no way in hell I am doing this without my tunes to belt out.

Maybe this is the cars way of having its mental breakdown after a whole year of sitting on the drive to reaching almost 90,000 miles on the clock. Maybe I’ll be next if I don’t have my Tay Tay to sing along to.

B&B had a power cut when we arrived, and with no signal it was like going back to the dark ages with me having to drive a mile down the road to send a text message. Can’t say I’m a fan, I like my phone too much. Must say that technology isn’t our friend today.

Even though today has been the day of no signal, no music, no directions; there has been outstanding generosity of strangers. £20 was gained just from people we had never met before who we met along the way; many thank goes out to these people as it’s always a pick me up when that happens. It gets us closer to our goal.

Riders bit.

Strange day today. Really good day to be riding all in all, as the weather was better than had been forecasted, dry until 3 was what we were likely to have with light winds, and that is exactly what we got. But it was so quiet. The roads and country had next to nobody on tem or in it, bit lonely, but pretty scenery.

First stage out of Kirkby Stephen after a good breakfast at the Black Bull had quite a hill in it to wake me up, 22% before mile 5 was a shock! Also, it would seem that hares get up early as I had one running along the road in front of me and when it decided 18mph was too slow it bombed off and jumped into a hedge.

As described, Milburn a quiet place. As was Castle Carrack. Lovely man at The Duke of Cumberland with his donation. Also, a story about how he had met a man and his wife cycling a LEJOG a few years back just over the border. He said to them that they were doing well, but still had a long way to go which shocked the lady as she thought they were nearly there. Only another 400 miles to go!!

I also photoed the beltie cows and they didn’t chase me.

Quite a few more sharp hills over the back end of the ride. Meant we were ready to relax, which we are about to do after a great roast beef lunch / dinner at The Grapes in Newcastleton where they also donated money to our cause. Really helpful friendly people.

Edinburgh tomorrow, some mountains, about 5 to deal with. At least I have Mr Hurren for company, though goodness knows how he will get back from the Burgh.