Once Upon A Time in the West . . . Country (26 page)

‘Do you want a bacon sandwich?’ asked Simeon.

I coughed and pointed to the small creature who was sniffing around beer bottles in the bar area.

‘Oops,’ said Simeon, with a smile, ‘take your point.’

‘All this talk of local ingredients might be making Titch nervous.’

‘Quite agree. Toast?’

‘Toast sounds more like it.’

Just like Paul from the Fremington Quay cafe the day before, Simeon had moved down to Devon to enjoy a life where nature and the outdoor life was prioritised. And just as with Paul, the benefits of this showed clearly in his face. Happy, open, stress-free.

‘Where are you hoping to get to by tonight?’ Simeon enquired.

‘Tavistock, if I can.’

Simeon inhaled sharply, much as mechanics do when they’re about to relay unwanted news regarding the state of your carburettor, or similar.

‘That’s quite ambitious.’

‘The Bedford Hotel have offered me and Titch a complimentary room for the night, so we want to make it there.’

Raised eyebrows now.

‘The Bedford? Lucky you. That’s a very nice hotel.’

Simeon then directed me to the cafe’s telephone and I got on with the job of updating my progress with Radio Devon. As I waited for a suitably anodyne piece of mid-morning radio music to finish – it was Simply Red’s Mick Hucknall wanting to fall from the stars straight into his lover’s arms, a reckless act if ever there was one – Simeon pottered in his kitchen and oversaw Titch’s explorations behind the bar. When we went on air, Judi announced that we had already reached half of my fundraising target of £10,000, and she put out another appeal for donations. Simeon listened proudly, as I plugged his fine establishment. Then, interview over, he gave me some helpful hints on the best route to take from here (the trail divided in a couple of places), and by 10.30 a.m. Titch and I were on the road again. Revived, refreshed, rejuvenated.

***

Evidence of the storms that had raged during the night came in the form of a tree that had blown down and was blocking the trail. Passing it involved a lot of clambering and bike carrying, all of which disturbed Titch in her sling (she’d not yet settled from the recent excitement of beer-bottle foraging). Never mind, I was in such good spirits that I managed it all without even a hint of a ‘tut’ crossing my lips.

A return to verbal abuse of the bike came seconds later, though, when it became apparent that this loss in momentum had once again resulted in the battery packing up. This time, turning the battery off and then back on again didn’t work its magic. Given this failure, I was keen to avoid what for me is usually the next stage – becoming tearful. Clearly there had to be some fault that was caused by the bike stopping and starting. Blessed with a mobile phone signal, I called Peter from the electric bike store. Unfortunately he wasn’t there, but Luke, his young apprentice, talked me through some possible checks I could do, and suggested cleaning a few contact points on the bike where the electrics might have been effected by the extreme weather.

I knelt down beside the bike and got my hands dirty. Literally. One of the points that needed cleaning was behind the bike chain, and soon my hands were blackened with oil. Once peddling again, I learned that whatever I’d just done was effective enough to make the battery work on a kind of ‘part-time’ basis. It kicked in at times, and at others it flatly refused. There seemed to be no logical reason for its irrational behaviour. It just seemed to be
in a mood
.

With Titch now happily asleep in her sling, my legs laboured and edged us ever onwards. We passed through a small, sleepy village called Sheepwash. I assumed it had got its name from being the place where they used to wash the sheep. No doubt I would be cycling through Sheepshear next, and then Sheepshag – where I wouldn’t be stopping for lunch and getting to know the locals. For about the fifth time on my travels, I cycled past an impressive-looking property called ‘The Old Rectory’. I began to wonder why I’d never seen a building called ‘The Young Rectory’. Or even ‘The Middle-aged Rectory’. It seemed that for some reason no rectory construction had taken place in recent years. This raises an important question. Where are we housing our young rectors? Clearly some kind of rectory ‘new-build’ scheme is needed in the English countryside, and fast. But do we hear this debated in the British parliament? Is it any wonder that people are becoming disillusioned with our politicians?

It was right in front of the muddy entrance to a farm, a few miles outside a place called Hatherleigh, when the chain decided to come off the bike. Cyclists will know that this happens from time to time, for no apparent reason, but quite possibly in proportion to the number of red lights one has ignored in the previous fortnight. It’s vengeance from the Greek god of sensible cycling, Cyclips. I had jumped no red lights, and this act of retribution was therefore unjust and simply spiteful. Gods can be like that, though. It’s their prerogative. It’s what makes them god-like. If they were consistent and bound by the rules, they’d be far more like civil servants, and less likely to strike awe into our hearts.

Putting a bicycle chain back on requires manual dexterity and patience, neither of which has been granted to me in abundance. My first attempt didn’t get off to a good start. I lifted the bike onto its built-in bike stand and then looked on as an untimely gust of wind meant that it immediately fell over. I lifted it back up again, noting that the tumble had dented one of the brake levers on the handlebars. For me, this is one of the most disappointing aspects of trying to do practical things myself – the fact that I so often make things worse, rather than better. Good intentions fail to convert into results. I hate having to admit this, but I am a hopeless liability, and there can be few tasks that expose this failing more efficiently than the one of having to put a bicycle chain back on.

On my hands and knees, I did my best. I grappled with the chain. I wrenched it. I gently manoeuvered it. I shoved it, guided it, forced it, eased it, twisted it, bent it, and then, when all else had failed, I shouted at it. My hands were black with oil. With each failed attempt, my spirits nose-dived. It began to rain. Consecutive gusts of wind blew the bike over three more times. A man who had been watching from a distance approached. He was dressed like a farmer, and given his current location, there was every reason to suspect that he was one.

Just as he drew near, Titch seemed to take this as a cue to try and escape from the sling. Perhaps all my awkward movements had woken her, or maybe she needed a bathroom break. Whichever it was, she wanted out, and she wanted out now. Fearful that bringing Titch into contact with a real-life farmer, at the entrance to a real-life farm, would be in severe breach of the livestock movement orders to which I’d agreed, I supported Titch with my left hand and attempted to calm her.

‘Problem?’ said the rather stern-looking farmer, combining brevity and shrewdness in equal measure.

‘Yes, I can’t seem to get my bicycle chain back on,’ I said, using the word ‘seem’ quite needlessly.

‘Here,’ said the man, falling to his knees and seizing the initiative.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

The man began grappling with the chain, much as I had done. Simultaneously, Titch redoubled her attempts to escape. I gripped her firmly, but couldn’t prevent her from letting out a couple of protest snorts. The farmer immediately stopped and looked at me. I returned his gaze with a kind of apologetic look and patted my stomach, as if to explain away the noises as my own gaseous emissions. The farmer eyed me guardedly. Presumably, as someone who worked with livestock on a daily basis, he knew the difference between a pig and a fart. (It may well be one of the final tests they set you before you’re admitted into the National Farmers’ Union.) However unlikely, supposing that the noises were caused by a fart was still less of a jump than believing I had a pig stuffed inside my anorak, so the farmer shrugged and returned to the job in hand.

‘There,’ he said, pointing to a chain successfully back in place, and completing an interaction with me in which he’d lavished all of three words.

‘Thank you so much,’ I said, as he idled off.

I felt a mixture of relief and irritation. It was splendid news that the chain was back on, but yet again exasperating that I had been unable to complete the task myself. I remounted the bike, feeling like a failure. The rain strengthened, and the battery decided that spasmodic working was now too much for it. The hill ahead looked daunting.

‘Shit,’ I said, accurately summing up the kind of day I was currently having.

I decided to try and make it to the next village or town and phone the bike shop. Reaching Tavistock before it got dark now seemed a distant prospect – a great shame, since I had been so looking forward to a night in a luxury hotel. The chance seemed to be gone to show Titch just how different this quality of accommodation can be to a sty.

I was extremely tired after an hour and a half of wheeling the bike up the hill to the small market town of Hatherleigh. I glanced at the map. I was still less than halfway to Plymouth, and yet only that morning, I’d announced on the radio that I would be arriving there at noon the next day. In less than twenty-four hours. I was hopelessly behind schedule.

I chose a small cafe in Hatherleigh’s main drag. It was a mark both of the nature of this challenge, and the advancement in my years, that I was choosing cafes ahead of pubs as my points of refreshment. Alcohol and cycling don’t mix terribly well. Over the last decade, I’d also become what hardened drinkers refer to as a
lightweight
. One drink and I’m tiddly, two and I’m sloshed, three and I have a hangover in the morning. It was a shame, because by and large I like the atmosphere of pubs, and although they are all geared up handsomely to cater for the non-drinker, ordering a pot of tea and a piece of cake still seems vaguely impolite. After all, they’ve gone to all that trouble of changing those kegs, choosing those wines, and refilling those upturned whisky and gin bottles.

They looked after me well in the incongruously named Cafe de Ville. The owner had heard about my antics with Titch on the radio, and complimentary soup and a roll were immediately forthcoming. Following this trip, it would take some time to get used to that old-fashioned notion of actually
paying for things
. The adulation of Titch followed from the dozen or so other cafe users shortly afterwards, just as soon as I unzipped my coat. Donations in fivers and tenners flowed thereafter. Well, I thought, the journey may not be going as planned, but the funds were still rolling in.

Peter in the bike shop sounded a little depressed. No doubt he’d lent me the bike so that I could sing its praises whenever I spoke on the radio and boost sales for his business.
1
So it was not the best of news for either of us that the damn thing had broken down.

‘Stay where you are,’ he said, ‘I’m sending Luke out with a new battery and a load of tools. We’ll get you back on the road in no time.’

The cafe emptied of diners, all wishing me and Titch well as they departed. Now the wait. Honiton to Hatherleigh was well over an hour’s drive for young Luke, and sitting there alone, I felt like the forgotten ten-year-old I’d been so many times at 4 p.m. on weekdays in the 1970s. My dad, a self-employed builder, was supposed to pick me up after junior school, but so often work held him up. I would stand there, a forlorn figure, watching as each vehicle turned the corner and failed to be my dad’s grey pick-up van. All around me, happy children were reunited with their lovely, loving mums, and whisked off for tea and
Blue Peter
. I waited. Yes, he always turned up, but the feeling that perhaps I’d been forgotten was never far away. Well, I was a big boy now, old enough to be Luke’s dad, in fact, but I still felt that tinge of insecurity. Medicinal latte and chocolate cake came to the rescue. Complimentary, of course.

***

‘I think yesterday’s heavy rain got into the electrics somehow,’ said Luke, once he’d checked the bike over. ‘I’ve put a new battery on there, and you should be fine.’

The trouble was that it was now nearly 2.30 p.m. The brighter weather of the early morning had long gone. Rain clouds loomed overhead and the prospect of darkness engulfing the trail in ninety minutes or so seemed very real. It was still about thirty miles to Tavistock, and three-and-a-half hour’s cycling on a normal bike. With a freshly charged battery performing well on its highest speed setting, and with me cycling my heart out, perhaps I could shave an hour off that time. That would leave me cycling the last hour in the dark. I searched both panniers at the rear of the bike for the front light that Peter had given me. It was nowhere to be found and had obviously fallen out, a consequence of my botched job of keeping the panniers secure with bungies.

‘Crappy plastic zips!’ I blurted.

Without a front light, cycling on an unlit trail would be impossible. Now I was faced with the pressing question of where Titch and I would sleep tonight. We had nothing else booked, and there didn’t seem to be an awful lot marked on the map on the approaches to Tavistock. The rather cowardly option would be to play safe and find somewhere to stay in Okehampton, which was now only nine miles away. However, failing to press on further would leave a colossal task for the following morning to make Plymouth by midday. So I chose to continue without a real plan – almost in homage to the way I’d lived my entire life thus far.