Stella And The Big Empty Bed

I cycle in to work; despite the fact that I've got to go down to Maidstone tonight. Luckily I'm not driving. L is out power walking with Doggo and she says she's feeling less of a slug this morning. Which sounds promising.

Still no coffee at work, we are surviving by using three times the amount of de-caff. Which means the de-caff will soon run out too.

This week is Cycle Hero week and there's an article about it on the BBC's website. The article isn't exactly pro-cycling. A London van driver describes cyclists as "my worst nightmare", "You never know what they're going to do", "They're unpredictable, especially at the lights", "Some of them think they own the roads - roads that we motorists pay for through our road tax."

Hmmm. It's a bit rich for any motorist, let alone a van driver to accuse cyclists of not obeying the laws of the road. How many drivers jump red lights, don't indicate, sit in the cycle box etc etc. As for arguing that it's car drivers who pay for the roads. Errr yes but 99.9% of cyclists are car owners too and therefore pay the same amount of road tax. Not that road tax gets spent on roads in any case.

The start times and all the other details for Hathersage are up on their website but it's all a bit confusing. It's about as straightforward as a Leeds United takeover bid.

Everyone starts individually at 30-second intervals, which is a different. My start time is 9.05 and only four people start after me. Which is very worrying. I'll be doing a lot of chasing down. Luckily the starts don’t appear to be in time order because last years winners start in the middle somewhere. It appears they've put a lot of the oldies, like me, at the end. Perhaps they’ve put all the psychos out first, when the traffic is at its lightest. Well, at least they haven’t changed the bike course, it's still the same as the route I practiced on. Also there are TWO separate transition areas, so I've got to make sure I leave the right stuff at each one.

Tour de France news. Patrick Sinkewitz had to pull out of the race after being involved in a crash with a spectator while riding back to his hotel. Bad luck or what! You survive two mountain stages and then collide with a spectator on the way to your hotel. Not so good for the spectator, he has been hospitalised.

Then during today's stage Marcus Burghardt ran into a dog that crossed the road just as the peloton was passing. The dog was probably chasing one of the riders, thinking it was its owner... It was a golden retriever apparently, so it wouldn’t have got any sympathy from Doggo. Dog and rider were both fine but not the bike, the front wheel collapsed. L says the cyclist should have been looking where he was going, they think they own the roads. She sounds so like a van driver.

Black clouds are gathering over work, so it looks like the conditions will be excellent for cycling home. Not. No sign of the hail that was forecast, yet, I'm sure it'll turn up later.

In the end it doesn't rain on me at all and I have a good bike home. I even feel relatively fit and find the hills quite easy. Which is a good job really considering what is ahead of me on Sunday. L and Daughter are not so lucky and they get soaked on their way to the gym, again.

After a quick kick around with Doggo, I drive to the M1 junction to meet my lift down to Maidstone. We are going down tonight in order to be in good shape for a meeting first thing tomorrow. The traffic is amazingly light and we are soon skipping through the road works at Luton, which I didn't think was possible. Another first is I have a decent motorway coffee or is it just that I've overdosed on de-caff. The fresh coffee counter was closed so we had to have one from a machine instead, which turned out to be much nicer and a lot cheaper.

We get to Maidstone in an impressive two and quarter hours. Mind you when your lift drives most of the way at 110mph it's bound to be quick. I had my eyes closed most of the time.

I get a room with a huge bed. What fun we could have had, had my girl been here with me. There would even have been enough room for Doggo to kip on it and not get in the way. We go down to the bar to meet up with another colleague.

I have a pint of Stella because it's the most drinkable thing they have. So at least I'm almost AF. Everything is labelled ‘extra cold’ even the Boddingtons. Ugh. That is except the Castlemaine XXXX which is labelled ‘Xtra Cold’. I’m happy to spend a few hours in the bar because I'm hoping to stay up until 12.20 to catch the late Tour de France highlights. That is if they’ve got ITV4 on the TV’s in the rooms.

At 10pm I get a text from L, saying that Doggo and she are tucked up in bed. Bugger she’s having an early night without me. Sob. Apparently even Doggo is exhausted, don’t know how, I only kicked his ball about twice before I left. He was supposed to be distraught that his master wasn't be there tonight but it doesn't sound like that is the case. I hope L is missing me more than he is.

I have a second Stella, although it isn’t very pleasant and smells foul. The stuff in the bottles is much nicer. It’s still only just past 11pm. As I'm hoping to pad the evening out to midnight, I agree to a third. It's all on expenses after all. The barmaid is getting ready to go home and has her coat on but she still serves us.

After that one has been downed we have a fourth, the night porter is now serving us because everyone else went home long ago. I realise that it’s now past 12.20, so I've missed the highlights.

After a Brandy it’s almost 1.30. So much for being in good shape for the meeting tomorrow. Unable to find the porter we help ourselves to the roasted nuts machine. My colleague even gets himself a top up of Stella.

Stagger off to my big empty bed.