Seend Cleeve to Trowbridge
The canal and its banks were lovely as ever but this was the least enjoyable section of my journey. Only ten miles all round but I am finding ten miles of extreme rattling and shaking is becoming increasingly unpleasant. The bike has been stellar and it is amazing that I have only had two punctures. But the only suspension is at the front.
Completely failing to learn from previous outings I swallowed a fly and nearly fell off twice – but didn’t. I have become used to having the towpath pretty much myself, but yesterday was busy – lots of other cyclists and walkers. That didn’t matter because everyone was so lovely and good about making way for each other.
This stretch of the canal does not have many particular points of interest. The Purple Loosestrife, above, though, was supremely abundant. There’s an aqueduct at Semington over the A350 and this is the somewhat jarring, incongruous view from it.
I do like swing bridges. The construction is ingenious since one person can pretty easily push them open and closed.
And is this perhaps the quintessential Cotswold stone house?
I found myself rather envying the grand, isolated houses which punctuated the way. Location, location, location.
Our local paper recently reported an instance of canal rage – threats and abuse as barges queued for a lock. The unpleasant and unnecessary similar incident I witnessed on an earlier ride was not as bad as that but I do wonder if it was the same perpetrator.
A Grey Heron was hunting and didn’t seem to mind the proximity of people (just a few feet) in the slightest. They usually fly off if you so much as look at them. Absurdly, I had left my camera at home and the photo I took with my phone this time is terrible – not just the light – proving to my mind that a phone camera will never compete with the real thing. Call me old-fashioned. Had I not taken the pictures posted previously, which I cannot see that I will ever better, I would have been beyond livid with myself.
So, here instead:
This is from: Liflord (Lord, Thomas Littleton Powys). Coloured Figures of the Birds of the British Islands. Seven volumes. Chromolithographs mostly by Archibald Thorburn. R.H. Porter, 1897. Specifically the Harvard University Library copy, digitised by the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Lilford was one of the founders of British Ornithologists’ Union in 1858 and its President from 1867 until his death
I have not quite been firing on all cylinders lately and I wonder if I was too goal-orientated yesterday. There’s a fighting chance I can finish the last section, Trowbridge to Bath (the canal is said to run to Bristol but as far as I can make out it becomes the River Avon after Bath) in one go, making a day of it in Bradford and Bath and getting the train back to Trowbridge. I will of course feel a sense of achievement but also don’t really want it to end. That much fun for £500 (the cost of the bike, not counting accessories), feels as though it should be illegal. I wonder what form the next journey will take. One thing’s for sure, it will involve flat surfaces.
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