Busy Place, the Countryside.

So the unseasonably good weather these last few weeks has come to an end, and the lanes are set to be wet and mucky now until Spring next year. Goodbye dry and dusty, hello wet and squidgy.

I've had a bout of the glums in recent days, the bad old feelings of lifelessness and fatigue taking over again, and all enthusiasm for anything disappeared under my duvet where I spent a lot of time looking for it, but failed dismally to find it. Sunday was a beautiful day with no wind, just warming sunshine and glorious autumnal colours and smells. Even that failed to kick my spirits up the backside and lift the gloom as I closed the curtains again and headed back to bed.

But this is all part of a cycle, ups and downs, like one of those pump tracks or whatever they are where young folk with jeans halfway down their asses get airborne. One minute you're flying and showing your keks, the next you're in the bottom of a pit. Just as the better times come and go, so do the days of feeling kicked and crushed, it's often a case of just giving in, riding them out and the better days will slowly appear once again.

Well yesterday was a better day – I may not have been sliding down the bannister and singing 'the sun has got his hat on' when I woke up to the world, but I was feeling a bit more like it, so I quickly decided a bimble around my usual lanes would be just the ticket.

Grumpy looking skies looked ominous but the only rain that fell was while I was under tree cover once again.

Was I really out of action just a few days, or was it weeks... months even? How could things change so quickly? Firstly it seems there is some building work or other going on to the East of the village here and the result is a steady stream of six and eight wheel tipper trucks roaring along part of my favourite loop, filling the lane with diesel smoke, noise and big lumps of assorted Scania, Daf and Volvo. Oh and mud. Lots of mud, both from their tyres leaving the muddy site, and from them going up the verge and dragging mud back into the road. Deep joy.

Ok then, some on the fly route modification saw me take to Tregassow lane, only to find just as much mud, and a steady stream of farm tractors barrelling along and filling the lane as they go, making getting out of their way a bit of a problem in some places. It wasn't like that last time I went along there.

There's tarmac somewhere under all that slop.

Thankfully though, I soon passed the field they were dragging produce from, and beyond there the lanes were free of heavies, if not gooeyness. The leaves have fallen big time now and where my knobblies last fizzed on dry tarmac, they now splashed through puddles and squelched through decaying foliage. Some of it is flipping slippery too, as we all know wet leaves can be. Going down the steep S bend in Tregassow Lane, which is also blind, I got a ridge running up the middle of my saddle from where my clenched buttocks were snapping at the fabric as I tried to avoid locking wheels and subsequent impromptu break dancing. Falling off on that vertiginous hill would see me bombing down on my backside like a winter Olympics luger who'd forgotten his tea tray. Not a good look I find.

Autumn is starting to reveal the twisting boney skeletons of the local trees.

Safely down and pausing at a bridge to gawp at the waters flowing underneath saw the first of three encounters with chatty folk I was to have on this ride, another unusual occurrence as I often potter about these roads without meeting a single soul. A van pulled up as I was taking a photo and a local chap asked if the water was running very fast or not. From there things moved on and we had a right old natter, and this chap was quite a character too, with a fine sense of humour to match his equally fine beard.

Not so bad here, but these Ash leaves can be as slippery as a well greased Weasel, and test one's sensitive braking abilities to the max on severe downhill sections.

The second encounter came at the top of Tregassow Hill where I met a roadie stood by the roadside and talking on his phone. Wondering if he was ok I stopped to check and found he was just out for a big old ride around with a mate who knew the planned route, but who had dropped him and beggared off into the distance. Some mate. So this chap was ringing this 'mate' to find out where the hell he was and which road to take given the choice of three at this particular junction. So we stood and had a brief chat, stuggling to make ourselves heard over the growling tippers coming past every couple of minutes.

Carrying on saw my choice of lane once again take me away from those blasted tippers and I just had the ever present catastrophic Pheasants for company – bloody things they are, crashing, flapping and screeching about. Oh and Squirrels, lots of Squirrels, all flitting about and launching up trees and so on. Pheasants could learn a lot from Squirrels about making quiet escapes, but they don't take any notice, obviously.

The colours of death and degradation.

Colourful life is still to be found in the hedges and verges, although this Cranesbill Geranium is likely an escapee from a nearby garden.

My third encounter came near home as I gamely made it up yet another unruly hill, and I met three women walking a varied assortment of dogs. I bumped into them at just the point where I usually stop to take in the view through a gateway (not really, it's where I bail out normally and start pushing, but I prefer the former explanation). So another brief chat was had and I made friends with a Pug. Least I think it was a Pug, it could've been a Terrier that chases parked cars, but what struck me more than her 'hit in the face with the flat side of a plank' looks was her name – Marion, apparently. An odd name for a dog really, made me wonder what the other assorted mutts were called, but I didn't get the chance to ask.

Muddy puddles failed to wash the gribble and slop off the bike, so it was out with the pressure washer once home as this is a house bike, and I don't want it dripping wet mud on the carpets.

So that was a brief ride around my local loop and I couldn't believe how busy it was, with mud flinging heavies, chattermongous people and flat faced dogs too. Apparently the trucks could be rampaging along my fave bimbling routes for months to come, which is not good news at all, but hey ho, I'll just have to find other routes around my 'hood.

But it all sort of proves that even though the lanes are supposedly quiet, there is still all sorts going on. This time it was added humans going about their business, but the nature related stuff was in evidence too as the landscape has changed with the falling of the leaves and various beasts beat hasty retreats and so on. Busy place the countryside sometimes.