My best friend had great friends, it was great to spend time with them.

I got to Leek Wootton last Thursday and spent a few days in Warwickshire, a place where I have spent on and off lots of time in the last seventeen years. I was guest of Jo and Martin and I loved spending time with them and their two wonderful children.

The journey was easy, as usual restarting with a couple of days of rest in the legs is easy. The only tricky bit was in the latest part where the average speed reduced proportionally to the steepness of the road. I took the A429 all the way from Warwick to Stow on the Wold as I was, well, frankly quite lazy. The A429 runs in the main on the trace of a roman road so it will be no surprise to anybody that it’s pretty straight and goes onto easier grounds than the more scenic side roads. The problem is that it can get pretty traffiky. It was not lethal today, perhaps it being a Sunday, but it is not greatly enjoyable to get overtaken by a big lorry at high speed so I might try and give a miss to road like this in the future.

When I got to Morton in Marsh the shape of things to come was laid in front of me, a French Market. I considered buying some carbs (baguette, croissant, etc..) then i remembered I already had stuff and, oh yes, If I buy I must carry. I will have a good three weeks of France to use for sampling all of that.

While on a drink and nose-around stop in the square I got approached by a lovely 85 years old almost deaf chap who wanted to know all about me. I shouted most of it and he was really impressed, not sure if more by my lung capacity after a day cycling or my story. I continue finding really quite interesting how older people in this country have a much better attitude towards people doing crazy things like this. Something else that can be exported from the UK to Italy.