Instead, rounds of weighted foam were wrapped up in white plastic and sent bouncing down the 1 in 3 slope of Cooper’s Hill, Brockworth – to be closely followed by groups of people running, falling, tumbling, somersaulting and sliding after them.

Nobody really minded the cheese wasn’t real. It just made things a bit complicated when the winner of a mens’ race got to the bottom of the hill first – the outright winner – and another guy who physically caught the cheese thought he’d won too!

True to the spirit of the day, there was no unpleasantness. The organisers just gave both of them a beautiful big round of Double Gloucester, made by hand, seven miles west of Gloucester by Mrs Diana Smart.

It was the treatment of Mrs Smart, before the cheese rolling was held, that got me quite cross this year. The cheese-rolling, in its third year of being “unofficial” – meaning no insurance, no H&S assessments, no St John Ambulancemen on hand, no police to direct people and traffic – was looking as though it would be more popular again.

It was the international popularity of the event which led to it being “cancelled” by the authorities because of traffic and people hazards.

Thankfully, local people (bear in mind I’m Welsh first, Brockworth second) did not even countenance the possibility of this ancient and much-loved manical tradition being cancelled – and quietly continued to hold it.  Brockworth hero Chris Anderson – not present this year due to Army duties – continued to win the mens’ cheese-chasing races with style.

But the police had other ideas and Mrs Smart was leaned on… told that if she knowingly supplied her cheeses to the organisers, she could be held responsible if anyone got hurt. She took note, as anyone would if warned by the police. But the advice, in my humble opinion, was nonsense and quite frankly not what the police are paid to do. If it has a smidgeon of weight in law, I’d like to see it on paper.  Has selling cheese now become conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace?  No.

The publicity about the pressure exerted on this 86-year-old lady (blessed are the cheesemakers) ensured that the police scored a massive own goal. It was all over the newspapers and on the TV and Radio 2 – so naturally, an awful lot more people turned up to see the crazy event they’d heard about.

But the crowds, Brockworthians, Gloucestrians, Spanish, Portuguese, Australians, Americans, were an amiable happy bunch – looking forward to being astonished and cheering one of the oldest traditions known to humanity: the sport of watching people take life and limb risks just for the hell of it.

The Iron Age people who lived at the fort on the Cotswold edge a couple of miles to the east probably undertook very similar pursuits to amuse and entertain the populace while someone stoked up the barbecue ready for the venison.

A police helicopter – how much does that cost an hour to fly? – hovered over the assembled crowds on the hill before any races started. The crowds waved – all the “catchers” lined up at the bottom of the hill to receive the racers – turned round and waved to the police too.

The crowds cheered at the “One to be steady, two to be ready, three for the CHEEESE!” as the cheese was bowled and the contestants plummeted, lemming-like, after it.

They roared encouragement, cheered the winner – Colorado-guy Kenny Rackers in a splendid stars-and-stripes skinsuit – cheered the runners-up – cheered the last man down – a guy in a panda suit who mostly came down quite carefully on his furry panda bottom, but looked cute the whole time.

They cheered the women – a Brockworth girl Lucy Townsend won it – they cheered the uphill races, they cheered the childrens’ uphill race, cheered the last kid who managed to get to the top. No-one got left in the middle this year but on occasions when a child has lost their bottle mid-hill and Dad has gone to rescue them – there have been cheers for them too.

A guy who broke his ankle in the last “cheeseless” race would have got cheered too – but it took half an hour for an ambulance to arrive and by the time they got him off the hill, the crowds had gone and many were picnicking in the lower meadows in that rarest of meterological events, Bank Holiday sunshine.

Another racer painfully dislocated his shoulder in one race – but it popped back in when he ran his second race! Apart from those two casualties, I didn’t hear of any other injuries.

Mind you, when I was a teenager, the races were held at 6pm not midday, giving contestants ample time to sink a few pints of cider or lager before attempting the plummet.

There’s a lot to be said for a much more relaxed cheese-chasing style.  Contestants are much less likely to get injured… and the aches only begin when sobriety kicks in. 

Colorado realtor Kenny Rackers -  Cheeserolling Champion 2013

Les Girls! – Womens Champion Lucy Townsend leads the way

The Mens Uphill Race – Kenny Rackers won that too.

The cheeseless ‘unofficial’ last race…  painful for the guy in red near the top.

My *favourite* cheeserolling quote of all time  “….and the next day, I put the kettle in the fridge…”

Watch. Enjoy.

It’s not so much that they have the raving heebie-jeebies when I go in, it’s just that I don’t go in, much. I’m a failed consumer. They’d all go out of business if it was up to me.

The bike I’d just lubed, propped up against the wall outside, waiting for me is about 18 years old. Orange P7. Hardtail. Light as a feather. Updated along the way with Shimano’s spiffiest groupset, Avid Juicy brakes and couple of new wheels, for those interested in the technicalities. That’s as technical as I get. (Actually I was annoyed about the wheels. I specified wheels which were on a par with the original wheels with knackered hubs and the guys at Williams Cycles, Cheltenham, when they couldn’t get them, just ordered what they thought, without consulting me. Never been back since. They also argued the toss about me faulty rear light so two black marks and sod off forever.)

The T shirt I put on was a Rox T – 20 years old at the very least. It’s my favourite Banana T shirt with a big beautiful – guess what? – banana image on the front and a very small hole in it, in an unobtrusive place. It’s endured thousands of washings.

The shorts are five years old – pocketed grey jobs so I can take my phone and cool tool without bothering with a seat pack. Cycling shorts underneath – surprisingly only two years old – and gloves only two years old.

I have nothing new. But, hey, bike shops can breath sigh of relief – I’ll be looking for a new pair of cycling mitts soon, having lost one of my favourite purple ones. Those could cost as much as a tenner. I’ll have a look in Leisure Lakes first in Chelters and if that fails, it’s trip down to Bristle to my favourite bike shop Mud Dock, where you can have decent brekkies, lunch, supper plus watch old Grand Tour + Classics footage.

I saw loads of cyclists taking advantage of a beautiful sunny/cloudy warm Bank Holiday. The roadie boys l – like adverts straight out of cycling mags; lycra, new-looking white bikes, beautiful shoes with white on them for God’s sake…

But while cycling is very much each to his own, looking like an advert isn’t, to be honest what cycling is about. Aspiring to the sparkly and new kind of distracts from the fact that cycling as an activity anyone do at virtually any age with a bike that works.

A cycling pal of mine admitted his bike is nearly forty years old and he has no specific cycling clothing apart from a new helmet. He’s just getting back into cycling again. I predict that within a year, he’ll be in some kind of lycra and white socks to show off the honed leg muscles!

So while I think the new spiffy white bikes look lovely, I’m happy with old purple Orange. Like its owner, it scrubs up fine when the occasion demands. My road bike is a practical black, so while you can still see the mud, it doesn’t look so blatantly awful as a white bike covered in mud.

Off-road, my style is neutral, not look-at-me. I’d prefer it if people didn’t look. One of the great things with cycling is the freedom to look however you end up looking. You don’t take a hairbrush mountainbiking unless you have a meeting straight afterwards. Unlikely. 

I’m riding for the craic… for the pure peace, the challenge and the joy of it. I don’t much care what I look like. It’s gloriously and most definitely not about making an impression on anyone else. I don’t give a toss if the young guns posing with their brand new downhilling bikes (over-engineered to look like scrambler bikes) look at me and think “Just how old is that Orange?” 

Having said all that, road riding is different. You need to think about clothing carefully – to be as visible as possible, to be prepared for weather and, importantly, to wear nice undies in case the white van moment comes.

But mountainbiking… wet or dry..makes worrying about appearance pointless. Nature provides its own make-up – a light covering of dust or globs of mud up your nose and splattered over your cheeks. It’s the outdoors!  A girl’s natural glow should come from sun and effort. And the hair? People I know pay good money for BedHead products to get the same look I have when I take off the helmet and shake out the hair!

So I’ve come back from the ride with wild hair, dusty legs and the usual oily chain mark on the back of my right calf.

Time for a shower.

Or socks for that matter.

Sewing repairs are a struggle and they go wrong. The moment I discovered the availability of iron-on hem tape was a “sliced bread” moment. Never again would I gather the dropped hem of a pair of trousers like an exuberant Cornish pasty.

For me, the whole process of constructing garments is fraught with difficulties and danger.

This might explain why I was hooked (and-eyed) this week by the new TV programme the Great British Sewing Bee.

It’s a spin-off of those successful reality shows where you’re supposed to learn something while somehow building a relationship with the contestants so that you cry when your favourite person is kicked off and equally cry if your favourite person wins. But I never do. I can never bring myself to care that much about stage-managed entertainment. I’d rather watch Doug Allan filming ornery leopard seals.

The Great British Bake-off is a massive success. I’m not sure why because I’d rather just bake cakes myself and eat them than watch other people trying to create perfection and bitching when they don’t. I watched a bit of the first programme, heard them criticising some woman’s perfectly decent-looking cupcake on the grounds it was a bit wonky (mine are ALL wonky) and turned over to David Attenborough.

I almost switched off the Sewing Bee when they showed a woman who’d made her own bias binding. I only ever bought that in packets and I can’t remember why on earth I wanted it now but it was when I was a teenager and my best friend sewed so we drifted among the floral bolts in Thodays on Saturday mornings.

With the Sewing Bee, watching people expertly sew really well isn’t the pull – it’s witnessing the mistakes, empathising with the horror on the face of Sandra who sewed her facing on *back to front*!!!  It was the way the judges frowned at her dodgy neckline , sneered at the ‘invisible’ zips that were too visible and sniffed at unwanted puckering.

I’m pretty sure Sandra mentioned under her breath that she said she had some g&t in her handbag. She had the forethought to take along an emergency snifter. You have to admire that in a woman.

And then they moved on to the all-important bust darts.

“Never squash the bust but there again no-one wants a baggy bodice.”   A fine principle, although some busts do look much better squashed, it must be said.

I rarely got my darts in just the right place but when I did they were magnificent.

Bust darts should never point down or sideways or wildly upwards or to anything other than the nippy bits.

A loose bodice is an even worse crime and pretty bad if you’re constructing a sun dress to go on holidays to a hot country, as I did when I was sweet 17.

It was a nice summery fabric, blue with white spots all over it, sleeveless with a sweetheart neckline. I hadn’t quite got to grips with the bodice properly with the result that the sweetheart wasn’t so much loose (the darts were pointing appropriately) as a bit low and generous, revealing a bountiful cleavage.

Mum, bless her, and not really understanding the Ways of Men reassured the shy teenage me  “Oh it’s not too bad. It’s supposed to be a sun dress after all.”

So I wore it to Tunisia where they welcomed European tourists, but the men hadn’t apparently seen bosoms before at all.  The dress was an unexpected sensation in all the wrong ways attracting slack-jawed gawping. Just fortunate I had two chaperones. I never wore it again.

Returning to the TV prog, my objection to the programme is that it makes sewing look far too safe. Using a sewing machine is easy-peasy compared to those of us who go commando with a naked needle and thread (I typed needle and threat there for a sec and it’s equally applicable). Then there is the high risk of accidentally pinking yourself with the pinking shears.

The act of selecting a needle from the spongy needles and pins thing risks the fingers being impaled on other needles. So you have blood injuries before you start.

Then you have to put the teeny teeny cotton through the teeny teeny hole in the needle. To do this you have to look at it from several angles… experiment with how many inches away from your eyes you need to hold it to see it… remove specs… put specs back on…. remove specs, polish them, drop needle on sofa. Fail to find it. Worry that the next time you have people round, someone will get sit there and hours later when they are changing for bed at home, they will find a needle embedded in their bottom.

Even if you manage to thread the needle, you will start sewing and then the cotton will inexplicably twine itself into a knot so you can’t pull the thread through the fabric…..and so it goes.

If you actually complete a garment or do a surprisingly brilliant repair (one that does not cause a lump like the lump of a darned sock) there might be disastrous consequences – like doing an excellent repair on the crotch of some trousers which just disintegrated on the first day of wearing due to my using Ye Olde Rotten Cotton.  Yes it was *that* old that it fell apart.

The litany of bad sewing experiences would not be complete with mention of a comparatively easy homework task that #2 son was supposed to have done but didn’t. Turned out he’d spent six months “pretending” to use his sewing machine in lessons but hadn’t mastered threading the bobbin.

I had to buy a pattern and, in his presence, fashion the pair of shorts. They were dark blue denim. The pattern wasn’t difficult. I finished the last seam on the sewing machine, turned the fabric the right way round, held them up and proclaimed “There you are!”

We were both looking at, essentially, a tube. I’d followed the pattern but made a one-legged short.  It was summer-wear for a unidexter.

It needed a re-think. We got it right in the end and he wore those terrible long, drawstring-waisted shorts for at least two years afterwards.  This is why, like Sandra, I need emergency g&t in my handbag.

No? Just me then. Colin, the irritating chap from the Fast Show sketch who tells terrible jokes and laughs at them himself in a pathetic attempt to be popular is not alive and well in Seaton.  But a young bloke very much like him is.

I wasn’t in the best of moods, it must be said. Getting out of Lyme Regis with the bikes involved struggling up a massive 1 in You-Don’t-Want-To-Know hill. Attempting to provide an interesting and varied scenic cycling route, I’d taken us into another village which involved a heartsink downhill and then another lung-busting ascent. The worst part was that pedestrians walking down the hill with dogs kept saying “Not far now” and “nearly at the top” encouragingly but they were lying through their teeth. It was a good half a mile to llevel ground at the llama farm. Admittedly, it was scenic with banks of primroses but quite frankly gimme the cut and thrust of a level main road and some artics grazing my right elbow at 50mph any time.

We rode a short stretch of main road and then into a village where a bridleway was impossible to ride because of horses churning up deep mud. Typical horses. It’s always all about them, isn’t it? Four hooves good, two tyres bad. Those palominos with their come-wither looks care not a jot for cyclists.

The mud gave way to an interesting paved trail through a magnificent tucked-away estate with an impressive old red-bricked manor house. Capt Sensible had a brief Downton Abbey reverie involving the Dowager Duchess and a damp kipper.

The bitter, bone-chilling, temperatures were alleviated somewhat by the views from a deserted lane which ran parallel with the coast. It passed an ancient settlement according to the Ordance Survey map but as usual, it consisted of a lump in the middle of a ploughed field full of stones.

The spectacular downhill into Axmouth didn’t fill me with the usual joy as I only thought about the pain of the “up” later  into the easterly wind but the village had two promising looking pubs. There were flocks of wildfowl on the River Axe including shellduck and other not-often-seen birds  but it was too cold to stop for long so we headed into Seaton.

All we knew of Seaton was a grim wet holiday that Capt Sensible had with his parents and unreliably continent gran in a caravan where the pool of rainwater outside the caravan door grew so big and so deep they couldn’t escape.

We cycled over the bridge over the Axe and on to the sea front – along a relentless straight stretch bordered on one side by featureless seaside accommodations of various sorts and bordered on the other by a long concrete wall with a concrete path and a bank of medium shingle dropping down to the sea.

There was a one way system which would have meant us turning into town and avoiding the rest of the sea front but hey, I was enjoying it so much (I wasn’t) that I couldn’t bear missing it, so we ignored the no entry and rode down to a roundabout with bikes all over it.

“Looks like the Tour de France has been through” remarked Capt Sensible. But no, it was just a load of old painted bikes with a cheery sign declaring “Pedalabout – Seaton Town Council in partnership with the Axe Valley Wheelers.” The Wheelers provided the old bikes, no doubt. “Seaton encourages cycling for all.”

Oh really? I missed that. The only other reference to cycling that I spotted nearby was a big bike with a line drawn through it in the gap between the walls meaning “No cycling” on the promenade, although we found a cycle trail to Colyton later.

We wanted a break from all the diversions (I lied about the diversions) when we met Colin, in a coffee shop. So it was no surprise really, that as I was frozen, disappointed with the contrast between Lyme and Seaton and hungry, that Colin got right on my nerves with his “No problem at all madam” “My pleasure” “We are here to serve” and multiple “Thank you”s.

Multiple “thank you”s forced me to reply in a multiple way, which as though I was the one being ridiculous. It was a kind of torture being smothered with pleasantries. It felt like being held upside down in a toilet by a very very nice person while he flushed sugar syrup all over my head.

Even if you told him to feck off, I bet he’d come back with  “Madam, it would be my absolute pleasure, to feck off with a smile.”  He made Kenneth in 30 Rock look positively surly.

Capt Sensible asked me “Do you want to finish that tea?” I was about to answer when Colin chirped up brightly “Oh leave her alone. She’s enjoying it” and gave an annoying little chortle.

I smiled, falsely.

“He’s just very friendly.” said Capt Sensible.

“Harrumph.” (I didn’t actually say it but my sentiment was the same.)

“You might have to stop me from slapping him.”

“It’s because he’s used to dealing with old people…” said Capt Sensible, with a smirk.

I slapped him instead.

———-

Postscript: It didn’t all end in tears. We cycled a bit more along a trail, saw the Seaton Tram, got a bit merry (ok, I did) by a log fire in the Harbourside Inn, Axmouth (it’s by a caravan site not a harbour but The Caravan Site Inn doesn’t have the same romantic ring to it) and stayed as long as humanly possible before venturing back out into the cold. The ride back along the main road was quick (of *course* we walked the appalling hill with an arrow on it – I had taken on board at least a half a dozen extra ribs and a quantity of Stowford Press). Oh and the curvy swooping downhill into Lyme was wonderful.

Seaton

Primroses – in flower in every country lane

Monmouth Beach

The kid ahead of me on the beach must have been about four years old. He wore baggy little jeans, warm red jacket and cute little bobble hat pulled well down over his ears against the cold.

He was so well muffled that if you knocked him over, he would have rolled, insulated against the impact and quite possibly bounced weeble-like, back to his feet.

He stumbled ahead of us on the pebbles of Monmouth Beach – the ugly-but-interesting side of Lyme Regis – wielding a hammer. He was thorough with his hammering. He hammered everything that got in his way and a lot of innocent stuff that hadn’t.

He hammered the fence of the Lyme Regis Powerboat Club, a rock that happened to be sticking up, various pebbles, a tree trunk, the fence around a residential caravan. Then he started running with the hammer. I thought he had a smaller brother or sister in his sights but no, it was a particularly hammerable slatey rock.

Who knows? It might have split open under his toddler hammering to reveal part of an icthyosaur. For this was Monmouth Beach where the Jurassic cliffs yield fossil creatures from 180 – 195 million years ago and that’s what happened to Mary Anning, aged 12, when she found a icthyosaur in some rock.

Mary Anning was the first famous fossil hunter and the first to realise that ammonites mean money – although she didn’t charge enough because she died poor. She was also first on the scene at cliff mudslides, but a bit too quick the time a mudslide killed her dog Tray. (Imagine, every morning putting out the dog food and shouting “Breakfast Tray!” There was a woman with a sense of humour as well as an eye for an icthyosaur)

She’d no doubt be pleased to see that the Dorset marketing people have renamed a whole section of Dorset seaside The Jurassic Coast.

There’s probably still an unseemly rush for hammers when a new section of cliff collapses on to the beach. The stretch between Lyme and Charmouth is certainly subject to unexpected earth movements. It’s marked with a sign that indicates almost certain death if you venture that way.

Lyme Regis has plenty of shops full of fossils – raw from the rock, burnished and cleaned or polished and halved – nautiluses, ammonites (at least 25 different species so when you’ve seen one ammonite, you haven’t seen them all), trilobites and ancient fish.

But hell, that destroys the excitement of finding your own fossil. The kid with the hammer had the right idea although I wouldn’t have given either of my boys a hammer for fear of full-scale filial warfare.

No, for me the joy is nerdishly looking at rocks until you see something vaguely interesting. It’s a specific sub-section of the thoroughly absorbing occupation of beach-combing.

Some fossils on Monmouth Beach are tiny fragments beneath your feet, others are much more obvious – conveniently presented for the public gaze embedded in large rocks tilted towards the sea as though arranged by a Harrods window-dresser.

I was content with my modest “finds” – bits of ammonite to go on my Very Old Things plate in the study which has a 175million year old Plagiostoma giganteum, (a big fat shellfish) and the Devil’s Toenails that I found in the mud at Gloucestershire’s own Jurassic Severn cliff at Fretherne.

I didn’t need a hammer, they were free and I found ‘em.

Dire, dire warnings

Ammonite in rock

Nautilus

Three foot clam of some sort…  (length measurement not its actual feet)

Monmouth Beach – looking towards The Cobb and Golden Cap

A nice bit of ammo

The town sits at the bottom of hills where the rushing River Lym flows into the sea.  I loved the beautifully preserved Georgian architecture, the compact friendly town centre – and the old signs around the place showing fascinating irrelevances such as how much tax they levied on a barrel of tar in 1752 or similar.

Lyme has the famous Cobb (harbour wall)  where the French Lieutenant’s Woman was filmed, working fishing boats in the harbour, cosy old pubs with dark wood panelling and carvings and those teeny photographs they only have in old pubs when everyone had better eyesight and wore no specs. It also has some great fish restaurants including that of Mark Hix – designed like a glass conservatory set at the top of the public gardens with panoramic – I am not exaggerating – views out to sea and of Golden Cap and the cliffs to the east which obligingly curve around Lyme Bay thus improving the vista immensely. I like Hix’s. I like the food and the staff and the fact that he supports sustainable fishing in Lyme Bay.

There were a lot of London-sounding voices in Lyme among business owners and tourists alike but who can blame early-retirement banker types from moving to the coast and running small businesses in such a friendly character-full place? Much better to keep the place popular and cared-for, which is undoubtedly is, than to see locals struggling to attract investment as is happening in some other places.

Lyme is so hilly that it seems a bit like hard work when you arrive but after two days you don’t notice it. I wondered if anyone had studied the health of the locals and compared them to say, a sample populaion from Weymouth, which is more or less dead flat. I’d be interested in the stats for cardio-vascular disease in the two places. In Lyme people get a fair old cardio workout even if they’re only popping down to the Co-op for a pint of milk.

On the other hand perhaps people try harder to keep fit in Weymouth because it is flat. Like the guy I saw in his 80′s, rollerblading along the Promenade. There again, there was someone out swimming vast widths of Lyme Bay last Wednesday morning when it was bone-numbingly cold. Maybe it was Lyme’s only triathlete in training.

The Aquarium on the Cobb had to be visited. The Aquarium guy – there was only one – was talking to some other visitors inside so we felt I only right to wait like well-trained British people to pay him before entering through the fishnetty curtain.

The Aquarium leaflet had advertised trained grey mullet. “Trained!” I imagined them leaping through hoops and performing triple axels like dolphin ice skaters (shome mishtake surely. Ed.) so I was quite flipping anticipatory.

Finally we paid. We’d need to shell out an extra £4 for the performing mullet.

“What do they do?” Ok, I’m mercenary.

“I’ve raised the mullet from very small fish and trained them to take fish flakes from the hand,” he said with the air of man expecting a delighted response.

I was a bit disappointed. Roy the Koi used to do that in our garden pond. In fact he would leap out of the water and slide across the waterlily leaves with a showman’s flourish of orange, black and white to take a fish pellet.  Tragically, like a scaly Houdini, it was his undoing. He sadly dessicated in the sun while we were out one day after doing a showman slide to a place from which he could no longer access the water.

Aquarium guy showed us the grey mullet, which were swimming about and looked in good conditon – great quality seawater – and I said “Will they take flake from you?”

“No.” he said “Too cold at he moment for them to feed.” Oh.  He took us to see the bright-eyed sea-bass – a bit sad in a tank when they are fast-swimming beauties who are usually netted in the oxygenated treacherous swirling currents of The Race off Portland Bill.  According to the Portland Bill lighthouse keeper, fishermen sailed their boatsinto the Race, cut the engines and fished as the momentum of water forced them backwards out of it again.

”They used to be just bass before the restauranteurs got hold of them and started calling them “wild sea bass” and upped the prices. “ Right enough. My dad used to catch them. Always delicious though.

There were other fascinating creatures. He showed us how starfish cling and move and eject their stomachs to envelop prey and then pull their stomachs back inside their bodies to digest the food.

I particularly liked the velvet swimming crabs with the sticky-out furious red eyes. They are hellish little characters – wildly aggressive and great fun to try and catch for your rock-pool specimen collection because they wave their pincers at you menacingly and you can practically hear them swearing viciously like an ultra-crabby version of Father Ted’s companion Father Jack.

There were no moray eels for me to have the heebie-jeebies over, which was a bit disappointing because one quite likes having the heebie-jeebies now and again.

Talking heebie-jeebies, there was a massive crayfish in one tank with antennae about two feet long. It reminded me of the snorkelling in the Caribbean when I’d got a bit carried away exploring a coral reef, gone a bit too far out, and wondered what the line was extending from a dark hole in the rocks.

I got closer to look – a bit of flotsam or jetsam, I thought… then realised with a panicky intake of breath that what I was looking it was the four foot long antennae of a feck-off giant crayfish backed into his hidey-hole. As I looked, I could see the shape of his head and noticed the other long antennae….I backed off at some speed in case the creature took exception to my presence, heebies well and truly jeebied.

In the tank at the end of the aquarium were two rather gorgeous specimens, all decked out in their orange mating colours wearing the most garish lipstick – Lumpsuckers. They were caught locally and given to the aquarium to show for a bit before being returned to the sea.

It was great to get an up-close look at these extraordinary fish – with the sucker pad visible underneath between their wide frilly fins.  They looked more than a bit confused and sad and their beautiful courting costumes are going to waste because they are both males.

We left the aquarium hoping the lumpsuckers are returned to wow the girls in Lyme Bay again very soon.

Lumpsuckers

Dogfish aka coley

Aquarium

The Harbour and The Cobb

There were lots of tweety birds in the lanes, small wrinkly-fresh lambs cwtching up close to their mums in the meadows on top of Woolridge and a woman ostensibly taking two turkeys for a walk.

She was approaching me pushing a child in a buggy with two black and red turkeys strolling alongside.

I couldn’t help grinning.

“Yes, they’re still here,” she smiled back anticipating the obvious comment. The turkeys had the good grace to shift over for me to pass. They fanned their tails and gobbled sociably.

It made me wonder if perhaps we’re missing the whole point with turkeys. They are probably far more valuable and long-lasting as friends of the family than for just the one meal.

“A turkey is good with children  – not just with stuffing”

Maybe not.

“Turkey. Not just for Christmas but for hiking and general outdoor pursuits!

 Discounted membership rates for turkeys in the Ramblers Association.”

“You’re never alone with a turkey”

Also, gives you more options in the event of an unexpected nuclear winter, being stranded miles from the nearest Tescos or needing some feathery hat enhancements.

Apart from the turkeys there were alarmingly low-flying buzzards, gaudy pheasants running all panicky along the hedgerows and a couple of confused partridges… but best of all there was sunshine.

Even the homeward grind along a busy road against the wind was ameliorated by the brightness of the countryside. It’s in the Spring and returning from a foreign holiday somewhere hot that you notice that this pleasant land is so very, blindingly green!

I didn’t see any other cyclists at all. Just me out riding for fun.

Yesterday in the snowy Forest of Dean, it was still Spring and I was still on my tod – apart from one cyclist in the far distance – but it was a very different kind of ride.

The sun dazzled intermittently, lighting up the fine tracery of snow lying on millions of branches, casting lovely long shadows across the trails.

I’d been suffering off-road withdrawal so yesterday’s ride only involved crossing one road and there was no-one about so I just followed my nose and took the paths less travelled.

A ride in the Forest is usually pretty quiet as long as the bike is nicely lubed – silence itself pedalling over a carpet of larch needles – but yesterday there was a constant ‘ssshhhhh’ of snow, loud crunchy-crackling of tyres on broken ice or the wet-splatting of tyres through slick liquid mud.

Sheltered from the prevailing icy winds it didn’t feel that cold – until the cycling shorts under the Ron Hills got saturated with mud and started to freeze.

Mud comes in many textures. Firm is nice, claggy sticks like glue, soft is ok although you’re going to ruin shoes.

Yesterday’s mud was inconveniently gloopy. It splashed up over my gloves on the handlebars, all over my specs and it must have been making a real effort because a couple of good-sized blobs made it into my eyes, making it impossible to see properly until I’d stopped and wiped them with a gloved finger.

Being on my tod, I didn’t chance anything risky. The mobile phone reception in the Forest is non-existent in places and I wouldn’t want to be stuck on the ground with injuries so painful that I faint off every time I try to stand up (2 yrs ago, pulled ligaments. Surprisingly disabling).

So it was all very pleasant (excepting the frozen ass) and the downhill blats were soo, so cold that I felt like my earlobes had turned to ice and would snap off and smash into a million sparkly pieces at any minute.

The thigh muscles were fizzing nicely – riding through snow is more exercise than you’d imagine so the overall effect was good.

But I have to own up here and make one big admission: the real, groany, “Oh-my-God-that’s-fantastic” thing about the ride was the hot shower afterwards.

Yeah, right.

The thing about a new arrival at Gloucester Docks is that you can generally spot it from some distance. So it was with the latest visitor – a celebrity tall ship who’s starred in too many films to list but includes Shackleton, Amazing Grace and the Three Musketeers.

There’s something about tall ships in Gloucester Docks that I find irresistible. It’s like walking into one of those old sepia prints of the docks at the turn of the century 20th century.

The docks has been restored, tarted up and in some places ruined but that iconic view of the old grain warehouses with the wonderful Cathedral tower visible between them, still remains. All that’s needed to complete the picture of 1890′s is a flotilla of tall ships.

The Kaskelot was in the filled “dry dock” basin of Tommy Nielson’s Yard yesterday. The company makes bespoke narrow boats but restores and refurbs any manner of craft so some fascinating clients sail into the docks from the Gloucester to Sharpness Canal.

My snaps really don’t do her justice.  The Kaskelot is magnificent, built in 1948 for the Royal Greenland Trading Company to ply the waters of northern Greenland, she also did service around the Faroe Islands.  Thirty-two years ago she was redesigned and re-rigged as a 19th century three-masted barque. She’s one of the largest wooden ships still in commission.

This is her in full sail.

I hope she’ll remain in Gloucester Docks for the Tall Ships Festival at the end of May.

Alan: Welcome to La Gira del Vago more accurately known as La Gira de la Incertidumbre and you join us at the penultimate stage of the race. It’s all strung out. There are some long lazy hairpins and my goodness aren’t they taking these at speed..!

Bill: For sure Alan…the charge is on. Oh… about eight riders up the road. The rest are trying to wind them in. There’s three Sky riders….er… if Wiggins isn’t there… he should be.

Alan: There’s a Lampre rider. There are more riders who will want to come up to this front group. They are working well on the front, these cyclists. They will be preparing for the sprint.

They are on a charge!  We’re going to a small commercial break.

(Short, merciful release)

Alan: And welcome back to La Gira del Vago….

“Katushka are also playing a game today. Dan Martin is the race leader – we haven’t seen him but we assume he’s there somewhere…. so long as he hasn’t punctured.

“Ah…there are some Astana riders. Now there’s more teams coming towards the front and pushing on.

Bill: You’ll find Alan, that there are a whole lot more riders trying to bring the leaders back. Some cyclists are skirting around the outside. There are the chasers! They have a 13 second gap!

Alan: This could be some ride if Dan Martin is still in there. He’d be very happy to be there in the lead group. If he’s in the breakaway it’ll give him a huge confidence boost.

Bill: Oh yes. It’s purely down to four Cannondale riders and one Astana rider now.  This is what will happen now, they will want to bring up other sprinters…

Alan: The riders are still rolling… doing a good job. The gap is coming down to only 8 seconds between the leaders and the others behind them.  Are they going to sit and play cat and mouse? Or are they going to bring this race right into town?

Bill: Only time will tell now. If the group gets together maybe we’ll see the race leader. We assume he’s there. Let’s hope he hasn’t punctured!

Alan: If I may interrupt Bill, we should mention there’s another team riding well. Certainly bodes well for those guys with one and a half kilometres to go…   There’ll be roundabouts and a nasty right-hander before the finish. Some of the leading riders might be in the group. I’m not sure whether the top five from yesterday are there.

Bill: It’s all to play for Alan. There are lots of roundabouts coming up. It’s going to be tricky. Oh! I recognised a rider back there. No, wait… Just 1.7k to go.

Alan: And here are the men not to be under-estimated!   Oohhh! The time we were given is wrong. That’s the finish line! I do apologise viewers.

YES! One cyclist won and the others are sprinting… there are lots out here. They are spread thinly now. Here’s a brown and white rider but no, he’s missed the sprint.  And on the day it goes to Orica GreenEDGE!

(30 second pause. Waits for official result to be posted)

Simon Gerrans yes!   Well I didn’t want to call it as I wasn’t absolutely sure…..  Goodness me. All the drama at the end, Bill. Breathtaking stuff.

——————

Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

They can’t help it if they haven’t got any footage from motorbike cameras, I suppose.

But a couple of things recently have made me re-think the whole cats as dogs thing. They are in fact remarkably similar to the extent that I believe cats are in fact dogs in smaller furry coats.

The big difference is enthusiasm.  Dogs exhibit it shamelessly – all the panting the drooling, the leaping about, the running to the door and back to indicate “You’re taking me out? We’re going out! Yeah! We’re going out!! Come on! We’re going out aren’t we?! How long are you taking? We’re going out!!  Definitely going out. This is the door. Look a door!”

Similarly a dog will openly show massive enthusiasm for food. Roly, my English Springer Spaniel, did this every time I went to my mother’s house. We would sit and have a cuppa pretending not to look at him. Rolls would be on point, silently, tail wagging furiously, nose quivering pressed up against the door of the cupboard where the pigs ears were kept. If we ignored him long enough he would come over to us, fix mumsie with beeseeching eyes and tell her clearly “The pigs ears are over here. IN HERE Really!! Look at my nose. Follow the nose!”  He would then resume his position with nose against cupboard with manically-wagging tail.  Course, she always caved in.

Cats, on the other hand, are practised at hiding their enthusiasm in purrsuit (geddit?) of COOOL.

A cat *has* to be cool. It’s aim in life is to sleep and never to give away a single clue to any of the enthusiasms it conceals within.

I‘m convinced that they have the same enthusiasms for food and for fun, namely the game of  Interact with the Human. But they must never show any sign of the yearnings boiling within.

Example: in the morning, I serve up some cat food in dishes for Leo and Fat Lily. I yell “brekkies” loudly because they are both relaxing upstairs on the bed. Yes I know, none of my dogs were ever allowed in the bedroom but.. well, you know.. standards have slipped.

So I yell, I hear the thump as Leo lands on the floor.. I hear him thud thud thud thud running down the stairs but at the bottom, just out of sight of the kitchen doorway, he pauses, gathers all the feline insouciance he can muster.. and swaggers slowly into the kitchen.

He is about to pass the food bowls when he stops for a moment, turns a mildly – only mildly mind you – interested head towards the dishes and gives every sign of thinking “Oh good. Perhaps I’ll give it a sniff.” then promptly spends the next five minutes devouring every scrap.

Sometimes, apropos of nothing, I might yell ”Treeeeeets!!” in a high-pitched voice (yes the neighbours love me) just to see what happens. The back fence wobbles as Leo crashes on to the top of it from the other side, leaps off and runs across the lawn, explodes through the cat flap and switches effortlessly to cool, stops, looks around and wanders over casually to where the treats might be.

He will follow instructions to sit and beg for a Dreamie although unlike a dog, he will put his paw up to the hand holding the Dreamie to make sure you’re not just kidding and don’t even fecking consider teasing by pulling that Dreamie away at the last moment…

The other morning, I was coming back from a run to find Leo in his chillin’-and-going-to-be-here-for-some-time position, front paws tucked in, on top the wall at the side of the drive.

“Hello are you waiting for me or something?” I asked him. He replied “Meow” which means “Of course. Where the hell have you been?”

“Do you want to come in? “ I say as he gets up and follows me.

I hold the side gate open for him as I used to do for the dog. But no, of course he doesn’t want to walk through a open gateway.  That’s no way to treat a cat. No, I have to shut the gate so he can leap on to the wall, hop on top of the gate and jump down, showing off all his cool feline skills. Walking through the open gateway is just soooo last-dog. 

Fat Lily appeared on the outside windowsill of the study window the other day.  I was amazed to see her there. It meant she’d either shinned up a drainpipe or somehow got on to next-door’s garage roof and performed a flying Fat Lily leap over to our dining room roof.

Naturally I opened the window and let her in. But then she meowed to go back out through the window, so I let her out and watched. She walked coolly down the sloping roof before launching herself into the branches of the nearby viburnum bush, where she did a ridiculously wonky climbing monkey act and fell out of sight.

I didn’t have time to worry before the cat flap slammed in the kitchen there was the thumping of Fat Lily sprinting up the stairs. True to form, she sauntered back into the room with a pleased-looking vertical hooky tail, hopped coolly on to the windowsill…. and meowed to be let out of the window to do it all again!

Tell you what, any dog would love to be able to do that….

Dogs in little furry coats.