January

[Nigel]

Well done, Sweder. It was quite a day.

With no running on the cards this week due to injury, I decided to go for a 'gentle' cycle yesterday lunchtime. And wow, what a blast. The first five miles east to Copthorne were completed in not many more minutes. I felt fit, and very fast, and if it hadn't been for the full-on powerhose experience of the driving rain at my back, I might even have been enjoying it.

And then I turned south, across the wind.

Suddenly, I had to lean so far to the right to stay vertical that any reduction in the windspeed would certainly have seen me floundering. But in fact there were only stronger gusts, so I nearly fell off to my left several times instead.

On the way back to Crawley and directly into the gale, I briefly touched 10 mph. Which was amazing, actually, corresponding as it did with an airspeed of well over 80. A couple of small twigs landed on my hard hat during the return journey, but mercifully the only tree I saw down was the one I had glimpsed resting squarely on Charlwood village's telephone junction box earlier in the morning.

I retired to the office to allow the skin on my ears to grow back and to ponder the folly of my deathwish dash.

But hey, it was marvellous fun. It really was.