Dover to Grimsby

The Road to Broadstairs

Sunday trains never run to time

And I couldn’t book my bike on right

Leaving a day early suits me fine

When I can cadge a bed for the night

The Villa hordes are on the march

And soon fill up the train

For them a rare sighting of Wembley’s arch

They’ll enjoy the beer if not the game

Few spares have been packed, to reduce the grind

Travelling light is hardly a mystery 

But I’m carrying a load that plays on my mind

A rag-bag of ailments and injury

All the routes are on my new Garmin

So at Euston I’m straight out the traps

Route errors galore are alarmin’ 

They’ve neglected to give me the maps

In the morn, a map download is started

90 minutes seems quite a lot

After three hours I’m seriously down-hearted 

As I’ve missed my departure slot

St Pancras I race madly toward

Through red light or green I don’t care

No entry signs simply ignored

I get there 2 minutes to spare 

Den made his connections as intended

He waves me onto the train

By Dover the world looks quite splendid 

And we climb the white cliffs with disdain 

We roll down to Deal through a dingle

Looking for sand which is there

But all we can see is some shingle

So we look for Sandwich elsewhere

Traffic free by the coast, it is glorious 

The sea is flat as a pancake 

The route to our digs is laborious 

But what a brilliant start to this break.

Sittingbourne