Blog
Recovery
It has been an incredible stressful week at work, with a major reorganisation resulting in large numbers of colleagues being fired and much anger, sorrow and tearfulness. Many of the ones leaving have worked together for decades. You go to sleep thinking about the situation, and it is your first thought on waking in the morning, let alone the moments that you are awake in the night.
When it is like that, the best thing that you can do is to get on your bike and go to the woods. The deep peace of the fresh green sooths you. The vibrant bird song calms you. If the path is a little difficult, your mind is forced to concentrate on what you are doing and forget your troubles. If you are cycling with a friend, you can talk it over with them, or you can just cycle companionably together.
After that, your perspective begins to be restored and you have taken the first step to recovery.
Shocking green
The incredible green of fresh new oak and beech leaves every year is so intense that every year it comes as a bit of a shock to see it. Especially on days like today when the sunlight shines through the leaves and there is a bright blue sky behind, it is completely amazing. Later on, the leaves are thicker and darker, which is not only less spectacular, but also for a good reason. The first crop of leaves has very few tannins (bitter chemicals that make the leaves taste less good and more difficult to digest) and that coincides with the immense peak in caterpillar numbers at this time of the year. The evolutionary 'reasoning' seems to be that the caterpillars are going to eat many of those leaves anyway and so the tree makes disposable leaves first and only once they have been eaten does it invest in the leaves full of defensive chemicals to dissuade the caterpillars eating them. There is a whole web of life associated with this as the songbirds like blue tits and great tits rely on the plentiful supply of caterpillars to feed their offspring, and time their return from the winter migration accordingly. Global warming makes the leaves and caterpillars come earlier and earlier, and it is very much the question as to how long the birds can continue to adapt their migration patterns to that. Will we see a system that gets out of sync and collapses? But cycling through the woods this morning, it was all so stunningly beautiful that it was no problem to put those questions out of my mind.
Bench
I never understand why there seems to be so many more benches for walkers than mountain bikers. After all, we work harder than walkers (except when we're walkers ourselves). So, this morning, I was pleased to see a brand-new bench had appeared alongside the train this morning. As I sat on it drinking my coffee that i had brought with me, I wondered if this was perhaps the beginning of a new trend. We can but hope.
Summer time
The woods are still bare and leafless, but at least the evenings are longer now that the clocks have gone forward. There are precious few wildflowers yet; the odd bank of little celendines, anf flowering blackthorn and Amelanchia. The gardens are well ahead with all their plants bred to give early spring colour. The Magnolias in our street are a sight to see.
It has been the dryest March on record and already the woodland paths are dusty. I have to take care as I cycle around the corners that my wheels don't slip on the treacherous grey sand that a month ago was sticky black mud. I dread to think what conditions will be like come August.
But for now, the pleasure of being able to get out for an evening ride before it gets dark is simply great.
Damp
There was enough rain that no one else from the club wanted to come cycling this morning. It was supposed to be ten degrees, but in fact it was only 5-6 degrees, according to my bike computer. Nevertheless, I had shorts on, the fisrt time this year, and I wasn't cold. Or maybe a little, but not my legs. I wore my Sealskin gloves and my hands stayed 100% dry so that was great. My feet got wetter and wetter though, due to the rain running off my legs.
I thought that I would have the woods to myself, but to my surprise there were all sorts of dog walkers, groups of people running and walking. Not a mountain biker to be seen, though.
The damp conditions meant that the mosses showed up beautifully on the tree trunks. I remembered learning once that moss grows on the North side of trees, and sure enough, as I swept through the woods, that did indeed seem to be the case.
Last week, I was still recovering from the flu, and quite weak. It was great to find that today I seemed to have recovered a bit of power in my legs. With all the mud around, that was needed, as well.
Wet woods
In the last week, we have had large quantities of rain and snow, so not surprisingly, everything was extraordinarily muddy in the woods today. There were lots of puddles, and even some areas were flooded that normally only do that once the ground is frozen. What was more surprising is that it was getting on ten degrees warmer today than yesterday. It had been forecast, but I had found that hard to believe.
I had dug out my long cycling trousers, reasoning that it was the end of November. My companion did better, putting on shorts, although he did mutter about cold water on his legs as we splashed through the puddles. I was very happy that I had worn both my winter waterproof boots and my waterproof shorts. Waterproof shorts seem pointless, but in weather like this they are a Godsend, keeping your backside nice and dry.
The conditions did make it hard going, though. Especially the sand was very clingy, with our nice grippy tyres hanging onto it as they sunk down into it. We took a strategic decision to bypass what is usually the muddiest section of the route. That was definitely the right thing to do, but we did end up going through an area of lots of unleashed dogs. They were not aggressive or anything, but they, and their owners, did clutter up the track, so that we diverted again onto a cycle path. In general, there were an awful lot of people around, especially considering the foul conditions underfoot (and under wheel). I guess that was partly due to the cold and sleet yesterday.
It might have been muddy today, but at least it was better than it would have been if we went out yesterday.
