Back Road Bimbles.: Doris Day.

Ah ha! The Blogger editing gubbins is working again. I've been trying to access my reading list, and also blog myself, for a few days now, but have been frustratingly been presented with blank pages. This morning however, it's all back. Where it all went I know not, nor do I care - but I was looking into migrating to another bloggy hosting site, so we'll see how things go. Any more trouble though and I'm off in search of reliability and also something less knobbly to use.

But anyway, enough of all that, I've had a couple of rural mooches in the last week, as thankfully all is back to normal again in the spine department.

Thursday was a big day for everyone around most of the country, as it was Doris Day. Storm Doris (can they really not come up with something a bit more suitable than the daft names they've been giving our storms to date?) was due to reach land and cause havoc. Thankfully, down here in the South West, we were on the edge of the considerable swirl of venomous isobars, and as it turned out, Doris produced a fairly normal, windy, blustery day for us. Nothing unusual but still a stiff old wind blowing - a West North Westerly gusting to about 50 mph. We were lucky obviously, as up country people copped far worse. Mind you, 50 mph winds count as a near Gale, and a Force 7 on the Beaufort scale, but only scores a four on the Cornish stroppy hooley scale.

So given that Doris would be busy elsewhere, I made plans to have a ride on Thursday. Nothing much, but it would be good to get out.

Excuse the outstanding crappiness of the photo, and the lack of housekeeping. This wasn't in fact a 'proper' photo anyway, just the result of dicking about with the camera, but I kept it and have lobbed it in here.

I've been exercising the other bikes a bit recently, so it was high time Fatso was dragged away from the comfort of the living room and saw action. This is a cycle (no pun intended) I always go through - get Fatso mucky while enjoying riding the thing. Eventually I give Fatso a thorough clean by way of reward and then don't want to take him out again to get filthy too soon, instead preferring to admire him while I'm sat watching ~~Coronation Street~~ my foreign language world affairs programmes. Ahem... keep going, no one will have noticed...

Fatso looking peachy after being dragged away from the comfort of the living room. Now to get him mucky!

I know, I've said it before, many times, but I love riding the Fatty. Bombing down the road out of the village I can't help grinning like a loon as the tyres rasp, the gears kerchanggg and the freehub sounds like a swarm of pissed off Wasps. This bike has character, at least I think so, it feels like an affable enthusiastic puppy heading out for a walk the way it blunders eagerly along the road, and it always feels good to get back in its saddle again.

Well the Daffs are out in the lane towards Idless Woods...

I had decided I'd head for a couple of Daffodil fields at Penmount, on the edge of Truro (by the Crematorium too) and adjacent to the main road. But that main road to me is like Garlic to a Vampire and I give it a swerve at every opportunity. It might be a long way round, and also involve a lung busting bad ass hill to climb, but I was going to nip through Idless Woods and approach from the other side. The aim was try and capture the wind roughing up the Daffodils by using a slow shutter speed and zooming right in to create some bright yellow blurriness.

Passing through Idless Woods I went off piste, cutting off a corner on the main path and briefly made my way through the trees, picking my route over the fallen twigs and branches, and dodging stumps. The noise under the trees was terrific - so invigorating. The gush of the wind, the clacking, creaking and graunching of branches tangling and rubbing together, and the occasional twig falling to the ground. Meanwhile, at ground level all was still - it was fantastic.

It may look peaceful here, but it was all a bit lively, and refreshingly rowdy, above ground level as Storm Doris did her thing.

Back on the main path down the hill towards the car park progress was swift, and I was having to hold Fatso back on the brakes to avoid going too fast as the path is popular with dog walkers and besides, I scare easily.

The Hamlet of Idless. Not exactly the hub of the universe, but that bungalow is for sale if anyone has the odd £465 grand knocking about.

The old phone box in Idless has now found new employment as a book exchange. A great idea I reckon, and one they are looking at in my village where a similar old phone box has just been purchased for a nominal pound from BT.

The River Allen at the far end of Idless. This is a good spot for free range Daffodils, Snowdrops and soon enough, Bluebells, but as you can see, no flowers were harmed in the making of this photo as they were all elsewhere and in places less photogenic. It wasn't to be the only photo fail of the day.

A quick stop to see what was going on in Idless (nothing much) and then another quick stop beside the River Allen to poke about among the Snowdrops. From there it was up the narrow lane to Penmount that climbs out of the valley and up the hill opposite Idless Woods. This is a steepie and I bailed out early on, resigned to pushing up the worst of the gradient.

Like the crematorium near the top of the hill, this boils the blood. A bit of fly tipping in Penmount Lane.

The local Police recently had their loo stolen, but it's clear they don't know who did it, as they said they have nothing to go on...

Looking across to Idless Woods. If I'd been here half an hour earlier I could've watched myself coming down the track that is just visible near the top of the hill above old Fatso there.

Reaching the summit, and arriving at the gates to the fields I was targeting, I was met with disappointment. Some Daffodils were in flower, but they were in the minority. These fields are like a gert big yellow duvet when the Daffs are in flower, but I was obviously a tad early. The Daffs are out in force elsewhere, but here where they're grown commercially, they're a bit later reaching their best.
I still lobbed the telephoto lens on the trusty 450D and had a look at a few shots, but what I had in mind wasn't what I was finding in my viewfinder at all. Fail!

Oh well, there was nothing for it but to head back towards home, a mere ten minutes away if I took that main road, but no, the rumble of the heavy trucks accelerating away from the speed limit by the Crematorium just made my resolve to avoid the road stronger. It's just too narrow, too winding and too heavily trafficked for my liking.

Heading back down the hill I was almost having to pedal as I bumped into Doris head on, and it also became Wet Nose Day - don't you just hate it when the wind blows the snot right out of your hooter?

Coming back down the hill and going head to head with Doris. I had to take my sexy hat off and thread it over the bars to avoid it getting blown off my head and half way to Plymouth or something.

Despite being on the edge of Storm Doris, it was a stormy wind all the same. Usually you get gusts and then quiet bits in between. This storm, like all good storms, was a continuous blast of air, like being in a wind tunnel, with gusts on top of that.

This brings up one disadvantage of Fatbikes - the fat front wheel doesn't half catch the wind when it's coming from the side, making for some wavy wobbly progress at times as you get deflected off course and then have to correct it.

The lower part of Penmount Lane.

Instead of mooching back through the woods, I took the longer route home via the lanes, which being tree lined, offered a lot more shelter than the windswept affair at Penmount.