We parked at the entrance to Southey Wood, and walked along Langley Bush road north-east to the corner where the plaque, erected in , tells of the history of Langley Bush. John Clare wrote a poem about Langley Bush.
Langley Bush Road bends to the left and continues north to the junction with Stamford Road. We turned left and walked along until it becomes Marholm Road. Shortly before the village of Ufford we took a bridleway to the left, which led us into Southey Woods. The path turns left and there is a barrier to stop vehicles entering.The main track thorugh the wood is easy to follow as it goes east, then turns right, left and right once more before continuing pretty well south, past a picnic area to the main entrance.
We stopped at the car for a break 0 a little early as we hadn't yet covered four miles.
Next we took the bridleway opposite the Southey Woods car park. This goes south, past a farm building and a stretch of woodland, underneath a line of electricity pylons, then past a small church on the left. This is part of the tiny settlement of Upton.
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| The church of St John the Baptist, Upton. |
Shortly after this we turned left and walked past a field with a stone artefact.
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| Is this a sundial? See link about Upton. |
Next we walked along the edge of Manor Farm's yard.
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| Perhaps not a way-marker? It'd be a good one. |
The path continues across a couple of fields, more or less south-east, then turns slightly left (east) along the edge of fields.
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| What? Why? We saw a similar arrangement with a bench. |
In less than half a mile we met a north-south path, which crossed our route. We turned left to head north into Castor Hanglands Nature Reserve. Once again the path was easy to follow - there is plenty of insect life, and the woodland stays quite damp. The reserve is interesting and contains heathland as well as woodland - in parts it is almost a mini-New Forest area.
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| Not quite New Forest ponies |
At the northern end of the reserve it is possible to take a path directly to Southey Woods, to the left. We carried on, and just as we turned right along the northern edge, we noted a permissive path for customers of the farm shop. On this occasion we took the longer route, coming out at the road (between Ailsworth and Helpston). A couple of miles of road walking took us past the farm shop, then we turned left onto Langley Bush Road and retraced our steps to Southey Woods car park.
At one point we heard the loud call of a green woodpecker and saw it disappear into the woods.
I try to keep my non-bicycle-related life separate from this weblog. However, I have already mentioned that I am an artist and support myself financially with an academic dayjob. Well, this week the bicycle world and my professional life collided. That is to say, I used a bicycle in one of my art projects. Here is the Co-Habitant dismantling the tripod after a photoshoot on the South Boston waterfront. And that's 
My art is a little difficult to describe. Technically, I am a painter. But before I paint, I create the fictional worlds depicted in those paintings by making series of photographic "tableaux-style" stills. This part is done by both myself and the Co-Habitant as a team: We work together, where he is the technical expert and I am the set designer. We both take the photos, but he is responsible for setting up the technical aspects of the shots and I am responsible for the composition. We use manual film cameras and usually black and white film. But we always have a digital camera along, because it is useful for testing out compositional ideas, getting a sense of the lighting, and so on. So these are some of the pictures off of the digital camera that were taken during the photoshoot. Some were for compositional and light metering purposes, but in others we were just fooling around.
The idea here was to set up an environment that combined notions of indoor and outdoor space.We then enacted a variety of metaphorical scenes using this set-up.
The above picture is an example of "bad composition" that we, thankfully, caught on the digital camera before wasting expensive film on these shots. See how my feet overlap with the bicycle wheel? That's no good; the chair should be further away. For things like that, a quick little digital camera is extremely useful.
A much better composition, for a different scene.
Well, that's enough of the pretentious artsy shots. Here is another one of the Co-Habitant after the photoshoot was done. I was very proud to have captured the full moon here.
And here I am. I really hope that 
In a recent post I wrote that, when roadcycling, I've come to prefer carrying just the bare minimum that fits in my jersey pockets instead of a full-fledged saddlebag or handlebar bag - as the latter I inevitably tend to overpack, ending up with a 30lb+ bike before I know it. However, I neglected to mention an object that is so small and unobtrusive that I basically think of it as part of the bike and forget it is even there: my saddle wedge tool pack.
Inside the tiny bag is a folding allen tool, a spare inner tube, 2 tire irons and an air cartridge - just enough to take care of one flat tire and any mechanical problem that can be fixed with a 1.5mm-6mm hex wrench.
So why carry tools if I can't use them? Because that way, others can help. When cycling alone, it would not be the end of the world to take a taxi home if my bike breaks down. But when cycling with another person, my mechanical malfunction can ruin their day as well. Last week I met up with another cyclist for a ride, and en route I noticed with horror that my front brake caliper had gotten misaligned, so that the left brake pad was rubbing the rim. I was unable to fix it myself, but I had the allen tool in my saddle wedge and my riding partner (who was not carrying her own tools that day) fixed it in 2 minutes. Having that tool pack made all the difference between doing the ride vs both of us having to go home. 
In the course of 24 hours, the park went from being fairly quiet to being a little city in itself. Almost every site was taken, and there were families everywhere. They had lots of fun activities and the beach was packed, so it looked like people have a great time.
One of the things I was truly excited to see at Interbike was the GB display. GB Components (the initials stand for the founder Gerry Burgess) are known to vintage bicycle lovers, particularly the handlebars. Well, the company is now re-establishing itself under the ownership of the original founder's son (Jeremy Burgess), and the prototypes of their new, made in the UK components were modestly on display. 
These include a gorgeous lugged stem (both quill and threadless models),
sculptural-looking wingnuts, handlebars, and other components. I have more photos that I will include in my big Interbike write-up, but these should give you an idea of their beauty. I spoke with the GB representative for a while, and may get to review some of the components as they go into production - will keep you posted.
In the meantime, I would like to give you their cycling cap. These were being given away as promotional items at Interbike, and they are rather nice.
The cap is white summer-weight cotton, with a single black ribbon stripe and an embroidered GB logo on the underside of the visor. The crown is rounded. The size is what I would call a Medium. 
Have you ever cycled in a dense fog?
For the past couple of days, we have been surrounded by this stunning, surreal landscape. There is no distinction between sky and ocean. The dunes, grasses and rosehip bushes are wrapped in a milky whiteness. There is a tornado warning in effect, but for now everything is eerily calm.
To watch someone approaching through the fog from a distance has always fascinated me. It looks as if the person is coming from nowhere, or from the sky.
I took the opportunity to see how Graham's lights would perform in these conditions, and they were fairly well visible - even at slow speeds.
The lights on my Rivendell Sam Hillborne are powered by a Shimano Alfine hub.
The headlight is aBusch & MüllerLumotec IQ LED Cyo Senso Plus, and its performance is stunning.The beam is not just powerful, but surprisingly large -so that cycling in the dark feels as if there is always a street light on. There is a standlight feature (the light remains on for a few minutes after the bicycle stops), as well as a "senso" feature, whereby the light turns itself on and off depending on how dark it is.
The tail light is aBusch & Müller 4D-lite Plus, which has classic looks, 4 LEDs, and the same standlight feature as the headlight (though the Co-Habitant thinks the standlight on this one is not sufficiently bright).
An additional feature of this tail light is that it is surrounded by a metal cage, which prevents the light from being damaged when it is bumped. This is very useful when the bicycle is dragged through doors and left at bike racks.
I am confident that others can see me in the fog with the light set-up I have on this bicycle. Seeing the road, however, is another matter. What do randonneurs do in these situations? I cannot imagine that any bicycle light can really be strong enough to act as a true fog light in the daytime.
One of my favorite things to do while sitting at the beach, is to watch the surfers.
