Hot & Heavy.  Who knew that two little panniers could make such a difference?

This was our third attempt to do this section, after the first one was postponed at the last minute, because Den had to attend a funeral, and the second was cancelled half an hour in, owing to what we thought was a serious mechanical failure and an inability to hire an alternative bike.  It turned out to be just a broken derailleur hanger, but the local "experts" had never seen one before and we stupidly took up their offer of a lift back to the railway station...

After a 5:00am alarm call, Den & I made it to Tiverton by 10:10, on schedule despite a nervy dash at Newport station, just making the connection after an unscheduled delay and a change of platform for our train from Shrewsbury.  Tim and Jim were due in nearly an hour later, but their train was also delayed so we weren’t able to start our first day’s ride till about 11:30, by which time the heat was barely tolerable.

Advised of the Tiverton Curse, Tim immediately stood on his best cycling sunglasses, before depositing them in the bin, and we all breathed a sigh of relief, feeling irrationally safe in the knowledge that nothing else could possibly go wrong.

In spite of the temperature we made reasonable progress and soon enough we were in Taunton, where convenience led us to a grubby restaurant in Morrison’s, and we observed two extremely overweight women demonstrating how they got that way.

Back on the road, conditions were difficult, our liquid supplies were being consumed ridiculously quickly, and our destination seemed like a distant challenge.  We pulled into a pub in Basinbridge, sank a couple of pints of lemonade each in short order, and debated whether to go the 3 miles direct to our hotel or continue the planned route to Burnham on Sea, which was about 6 miles further.

The lemonade and the competitive banter led to us taking the coast road, and only Denry failed to take a refreshing swim by the pier.  The murky water was cooling, so not entirely unpleasant, although the impact on our costumes was somewhat dubious.

We made it to the Fox & Goose about 7:00, and we soon exchanged beer for lemonade as our preferred refreshment.  The mood visibly lifted, and was not seriously threatened by the gaffe I had made in booking a double room for Den & I (and the later news that no other rooms were available so we’d have to put up with it for the night).  Fortunately the bed was a super-king and the exercise, supper and beer made the experience bearable.  Den was so unconscious he didn’t notice me getting up three times in the night to perform yoga gymnastics to try and relieve severe attacks of cramp.  And for once, I was either too far gone to notice Den’s snoring, or he was too tired to bother doing it.

Chepstow