A holiday — day-ride at Needham Market

The Castles and Rivers tour

Badley Church -- Tudor construction

A dull day, with heavy showers forecast. Not a promising start.

After getting checked in at the Limes Hotel, drove over the the base at Alder Carr Farm, parked the car and picked up the bike. This time, a 48cm frame, so I just needed to fiddle a little with the seat height and I was comfortable. And then a spin to get used to the Shimano gears (remembering which lever changes up on which side).

This was about 13 miles, a bit off-road, and a bit of footpath to push along, in a stiff breeze with just a hint of dampness, with dark clouds scudding past. Already, the first hints of autumn colours in the trees.

Portions at dinner are heroic -- they were out of the steak and ale pudding that had been my first choice, so I chose from the so called smaller portions to be starting with. Potato skins. Well actually, it turned out to be a substantial jacket potato just split in two and buried under a huge pile of cheese, bacon and chicken. One of the other people in the bar took up their Monday beer and curry offer, and was served a simply enormous bowl So I probably did the right thing in the end.

Stroll in the twilight for digestion. Another beer for luck, and so to write this up. Hmm. Looks like they do have WiFi here, but I can't be bothered to reconfigure my network now -- I just want to crash.