la, la, la, la..

The weather here in Blighty has continued to be very seasonal, snow and heavy frost keeping much of the country swathed in white through the week. We've seen some sunshine here in the South West but temperatures have stubbornly resisted climbing above 0c!

On the Thursday the frost was heavy which delayed my ride by an hour or so, ruling out a proper long ride so instead it was a 60km loop to the north taking in a tea stop at Oldbury and a cold but pleasant ride up through Berkeley and back past Yate, the sun was out but even with full winter gear i never really got properly warm, rather, i just ended up a bit clammy.

Friday i devoted to writing, the next segment of Trixie eventually completed late evening - Patreon peeps can read that now. Its turning out to be a longer tale than i'd originally planned but i'd still like to see it completed by the end of the month so i'll be cracking on later today.

Saturday looked like the pick of the week when i checked the forecast, early fog clearing and temperatures in the plus by lunchtime, great, i can get in a longer ride! Of course, the weather wasn't playing ball, i woke to the fog with a good dose of frost but i got myself ready and a short delay to allow the roads to clear a bit still had me out early enough for a decent day's ride. I've not been out onto the Cotswolds this side of Christmas so, being cautious enough to stick with main roads, i headed east into the fog laden countryside.

I thought maybe the fog would be less on the higher ground but visibility remained @ 200m and in places it looked like snow rather than ice dusting walls and sheltered verges. The roads however were mostly dry so i decided to leave the main roads for some more used 'C' roads which took me sort of parallel to the M4 on the north side. I don't think it actually got colder, rather the cumulative effect by the time i turned towards Chippenham was that my bemittened hands were feeling the cold even as the weak sunshine tried to cut through the fog. I hadn't planned a stop but a short detour brought me to a burger place that supplied tea and a cheeseburger, a stop that got the blood flowing arounf the extremities a bit.

It wasn't a long stop, too cold to delay long, so i started the return leg hoping the promised temperature rise would still materialise. Those hopes were dashed within a couple of kilometres as i found myself negotiating ice laden tarmac, the fog closing in and yep, real snow lying on the ground. Luckily the ice didn't last long, replaced by sticky mud but at least the chances of a painful dismount were less. I rejoined the B and A roads around Corsham, avoiding Box Hill to descend a little more warmly towards the Avon valley, hedges coated in frozen road wash attested to the still low temperatures even as the watery sunshine made a bit more effort on the run into Bath.

From there its a steady ride up the bike path, somewhat devoid of bikes and walkers until it reached the edge of Bristol and even then, quite quiet. I stopped the GPS just before four after 95km, close to the century but i couldn't be bothered to make up the distance. The computer records all sorts of metrics, notably on this ride the average temp was -3c!

Today i'll be cooking a roast lamb dinner when i finish this then getting on with Trixie, i'll fit in a walk at some point, its certainly less frosty but its still cold.

There is of course new Gaby for you, Christmas Dayz is part 13 of Only Five Minutes - Gab finds she has at least one fan of her singing when she saves the day at the Christmas morning service!

I'll be back with more news from Cabot Town mid week, for now tho',
Wiedersehn,
Madeline Anafrid