but I've been out today

- but more of that later.

It's been a bit of a strange week, weather from warm and sunny to 'where's the Ark?', throw in the bike issues at the front end and you get another typical week in the world of Madeline Anafrid!

With the bike sorted, on Thursday I set off to collect some new Wiltshire tarmac, out towards Royal Wootton B and at the same time visit some places further afield. Confused? I'll try to explain. Place names, particularly those of well known towns/locations can be quite iconic, we all know where London and Paris are but that doesn't mean they are the only places using those names. Of course, some like 'Newtown' or 'Ford' are quite descriptive and reoccur countless times, even cities like Leeds and Sheffield have doppelgangers within the UK let alone around the globe. The area of my current domicile is littered with 'stolen' names, on the national level for example we have Driffield, Barnsley and Chapel Allerton all places better known for being in Yorkshire and on an international stage we have Philadelphia, California and Dunkirk quite close by.

Lets get back to the ride. It wasn't a hot day but dry and short sleeves so on my way out I added some dirt road to the equation and even so made good progress out to RWB from where I started the return leg. Well not quite, I wanted to visit New Zealand before lunch so after visiting Preston I scampered through Lyneham to the 'not' antipodes, eventually stopping to eat @ 15 mins further on. Food eaten I cracked on, a bit of a loopy route but eventually I landed at moon base Bev, over 1100m and 163km after setting out.

After the century ride on Thursday, Friday was never going to be too active, a bit of shopping, laundry and cropping a few bits of fruit and veg.

Saturday was supposed to be a longish ride out to Warminster to witness the somewhat eccentric Imberbus operation, another explanation coming up. So most countries with a standing military will have ranges and training grounds, often in fairly remote areas to avoid annoying too many neighbours. Occasionally these areas are quite large, substantial chunks of Lueneberg Heath in Germany for example are set aside for the soldiers to play in.

For the UK, by far the largest and best known training area is the huge Salisbury Plain area which occupies a huge lump of Wiltshire adjacent to Stone Henge and of the separate ranges, Imber, to the east of Warminster is the largest covering some 100sq miles or so of the Plain. Until WWII the village of Imber sat happily in the middle of all this but during the Normandy training, the US military insisted the village me evacuated for reasons which have never really been explained. It was supposed to be temporary but the villagers were never allowed to return, their homes now used as military props - except for the 14th Century church.

Access to the village, well the church is very restricted - It does sit in the middle of live ranges after all but a few times each year the range is closed and the roads opened to the public. Imberbus was started 20 years ago as a way of transporting people to the village on these 'open' days, a fleet of @ 20 London buses get to go on their holidays exchanging Regent Street and the Strand for rural Wiltshire and gunnery ranges! Yesterday was the day however Odin decided to quite literally rain on the parade so whilst the buses ran, I didn't go to see them.

Bev was getting a bit of cabin fever and suggested going for a drive, okay I said, where to she said, maybe across the Severn I opined. And so we did, making our way up to Monmouth via the 18th century blast furnace at Tintern then continuing up to Skelfrith Castle. By now the rain had largely given up, just a few spots so we had a bit of a walk, checking out the remains of the medieval dock but thwarted by a locked door at the church. My chauffeur fancied a cuppa which somehow found us in Hereford!

To paraphrase Monty Python, what has Hereford done for us, apart from the beef, the cider, the SAS and of course, the Mappa Mundi. The what? The Mappa Mundi, a map of the world drawn on vellum in @ 1300 which has somehow survived some 700 years in its home, Hereford Cathedral. Shall we take a gander says Bev, it'd be a shame not to I concur and so we did. Forget Magna Carta, that's just a small wordy sheet of fishing rights and there are five originals (i've seen 2 myself!), no MM is unique, there is just one, some 4 feet across and roughly circular and whilst the 'known' world is represented it was never intended to be an accurate, scale depiction but rather a representation of the world through the eyes of the church. Google it, its fascinating.

Anyhow, we came, we saw, I bought some postcards. By now it was late afternoon so having missed lunch, Bev treated us to tea and cake before we set off for the 55 mile drive back to Brizz.

And so to today and my postponed ride. Well the forecast was for bright and reasonably warm so whilst Imberbus was over, I set off for a lunch stop in the Warminster area. I didn't have a specific destination in mind, so not spotting a suitable picnic spot in the town I ended up at Scratchbury hill fort where i spent half an hour sat on the grass under mostly blue skies looking out onto the Imber ranges (see above!).

It was still quite early so rather than heading fairly directly back, I headed into Cranborne Chase for a bit before looping through Lord Bath's Longleat estates. Then it was an up and down route back north through the Menwolds, that mess of crumpled hills that occupy the Frome - Wells - Bath triangle. I was in need of a cuppa by the time i got back, 160km covered, 1450m climbed, not much in GOC but a stiff day in Wessex!

There is of course a chapter of Ontario for you to read, Away on a Wheel is classic Gaby, absent minded musings, a bit of bike riding and a bit of speculation for good measure!

Well I've just about exhausted the hours of Sunday so I'll bid you adieu until Wednesday
Madeline Anafrid