Tuesday 10th September
Rain and wind combine to become the prevailing enemy of the day. Together they negotiate how miserable they intend to make me feel. But through this entire cycling lark if I was to average one shit day in five, then I’ll take that, that’s doable. For today was certainly one of those shit days, in a roundabout way it was a continuation from last night.
I’d decided to retreat inland and begin my loop back home to Cambridgeshire. Being as today was so considerably dire I made way for a YHA Hostel in Blaxhall. Some 12 miles from where I would start my day, here I intended to hole myself up for the day as to evade the onslaught of the headwind and rain that’s only real interest appeared to be harassing me. Alas, upon arrival at the YHA in Blaxhall I was greeted by a complete cunt of a character. I rang the bell upon arrival as the front door was locked. Here I was greeted by a chap in a YHA shirt, the receptionist I shall presume. He was caked in somewhat of a smarmy presence, the kind of guy that believed that he might know something you don’t. And in this case he did, I asked for a room for the night to which he replied. ‘I’m afraid were closed’. The look upon his face told me that he was joking; he appeared to find this revelation rather humorous.
‘You’re closed, seriously?’ I replied.
‘Yup, for the next 3 days’ he countered. So they had been open all this time, like any other YHA in the country, but the day with what appears to be a monsoon hitting they are closed. For 3 days no less. But he still had an aura of jokiness about him whereby I really couldn’t quite work out as to whether or not he was actually fucking with me. Maybe he was. I guess now I’ll never know. And YHA in Blaxhall will for eternity never receive my custom.
‘Seriously???’ I repeated like a biddy. I just couldn’t work the guy out.
‘Yeaaahhhh, seriously’ he came back at me in a rather pretentious manor that put my nose well out of joint. In a strange way I kind of wanted to smack him in the mush, but I like to believe that those days are behind me now. And thus I proved this to myself by grumbling some profanities to myself and fucking off in the direction of ….home.
The weather only getting worse and worse with every pedal. It felt like a hopeless venture. Inland Suffolk was not treating me well as I was being sent in circles by the road signs that appeared to be neither here nor there. Sending me to villages that I’d already previously ventured too. At one point I arrived at a 3 way crossroads where the road signs were just swinging in the wind around the pole that they were assigned to. I could work it out roughly on my map but avoiding the A12 was a bit of an issue, I wouldn’t last 5 minutes on that road. In the end, being drenched to the bone and thoroughly pissed off I made camp in a small spinney on the outskirts of Thorndon
Start: 06:30 Westleton
Finish: 17:00 Thorndon
Distance: 48.04 miles
Calories burnt: 1872k
Total Run time: 32.23 hours
http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/pic/?pic_id=1747986
Tokyo to Tokyo 