you like it or not, the first non event of 2023 is behind us.

Yep, Valentines Day is gone and much like the orevious 40 occasions, it passed without so much as an exchange of greetings let alone a card or token of affection. Not that i've ever done much better on parent days, i can count the number of cards on those on the fingers of one hand too!

What have i been up to this week then? In the UK we currently have a government spomsored capped fare scheme on stage carriage buses to encourage their use after the pandemic severely impacted their use. Some operators have taken this further with day tickets at much reduced prices too, the main operator hereabouts are charging just £7 for a day's unlimited travel on their network which reaches well into Somerset as well as west Wiltshire and South Gloucestershire. So on Monday i decided to make use of this provendor, heading to the bus station with the idea of taking the first out of town bus that departed, I struck gold, the trans Mendip route to Street was just loading.

Its a distance of @ 28 miles with a journey time of @ an hour forty which takes you through south Brizz before crossing the Mendip to Wells before continuing south via Glastonbury to Street on the western edge of the North Levels. Monday was glorious, not hot but bright and sunny, ideal for the fairly scenic (for these parts) ride. Oh i've done the journey by bike a couple of times but other than being faster, you get a whole different view from the top deck of a bus.

What's in Street? well to be honest, not a lot, its a fairly non descript small town most famous for being home to the Clarkes footwear empire. And thats why people travel there, parts of the factory complex have been made into an 'outlet village', a wide variety of brand stores selling all manner of stuff often clearance lines at discounted prices - who can resist retail therapy with potential bargains in every store? Anyhoo, i might not have much spare cash but it doesn't cost anything to look right?

So, after a walk along the High Street i spent about an hour 'doing' the shops, the highlight for me being the Haribo shop - who can resist gummi bears? Moments after returning to the bus stop, mobile lunch in hand, the return bus arrived and i started the long journey back to Brizzle. It was a full day for much less than the price of a coach excursion, the scheme rubs for another 6 weeks so i might well take the opportunity to explore some more without relying on Maddy power.

Tuesday looked like pretty much a repeat weatherwise so i set off for a north Somerset loop to deliver me to Clevedon for my lunch stop. It was before Christmas the last time i did a similar loop and that was in the other direction so it felt quite different as i skirted the northern edge of the Mendip before crossing the River Yeo and the ciastal levels to my destination. The return was a bit less enjoyable as it used some busier roads but it warmed into double figures making it feel quite spring like as i completed 107km in a little over five hours riding time.

Then today it was time to tidy up the garden a bit, it'll soon be time to plant stuff and time spent today is time saved later. Obce the winter debris was cleared and the cherry tree 'cage' repaired it looked quite good!

The other news this week of course is the release of the new Trixiebell Heartswoon book! Amazon really sorted things out quickly so you can putchase it in either Kindle digital or dead tree formats, There will as i said before, be a Lulu version which should be available in the next couple of days but in the meantime jere are the links;

Thats it for today,
Tschussie,
Madeline Anafrid