Day 6 and day 7, nearly in heaven!!! (D’ya think?)

So here we are two days on from my last blog…sorry about that but we had an interesting day yesterday.  Well more last night actually. 
Day 6 ride was good, uneventful and pretty flat.  51.5 miles of recovery ride from the big one the day before.  We stopped at the Lazy Trout for coffee/hot choc in the afternoon, and on to Whitchurch for our ‘half’ day recovery. 
I was quite excited because I was due to meet Caroline, and old friend, at our stop point Thursday night.  I should have got a clue when she advised us to carry flee powder with us if we stayed at The Raven Hotel near Whitchurch.  Though there was a possibility it was an exaggeration, unfortunately it was not.  Suffice to say that after Caroline and Amy arrived, we went to the Indian restaurant next door and at 1:00 am I went to the camper van to sleep due to excessive noise in the next room!   It was however an experience not to be missed, and added a lot to our tales of the journey, and they did give us the price of my room off, some consolation.  It was fantastic to see Caroline again, and she didn’t say told-you-so once!  🙂

Anyhow, we went to the local truck cafe for breakfast – we thought we might give The Raven a miss-  and set off for Preston.  Wow, that far North already!  I can’t believe it! 
We set off in full rain gear as the forcast was not good but after a short while it was pretty warm, stopped to take layers off.  We also had two early stops to  adjust mine and Alex’s bottle racks and several photo ops.  We were pleased when we found the Welcome to Cheshire sign and caught the Welcome to Shropshire sign across the road.  (We hadn’t found one of those the day before!) 
Naturally having taken layers off, the rain started, so back on they went.  The scenery was beautiful as ever, and we all pointed out interesting things to spot as we whizzed past.  It’s just a shame we can’t photograph it all for you. 
What a fabulous place we live in. 

It was to be a long day, so three shortish stops were planned and after 20 miles-ish, John found a super garden centre with a really nice coffe shop in it.  By this time we’d had a bit of rain, nothing like the other day though, and we were grateful for a sit-down.  Good spot coach, this place was great.  The cake was yum too!   I’d post you a picture but I can’t seem to download any at this stop.     Doh!  
At least the Wi-Fi is working, so I can catch up, but I had some fun pictures to show you today.  sorry too to Ann and Deirdre as I’ve been trying to email you pictures too, with no success.  
So off we set, rain gear on and looked foraward to another stop in another 20 miles.  It was very flat again today – I even heard myself saying ‘is’nt it good, it’s been all flat today’, just after a long drag up!  We passed through a set of traffic lights but Jackie didn’t quite make it, so we waited….the lights changed and Jackie set off, the boys set off in front and I looked round to see if Jackie was through ok.  I saw the most extraordinary thing – something exploded off Jackies bike and bits were strung across the road. 
I calle dback to stop the others and ran to gather the bits………….it was only Jackies saddle that had come off.  The bolt holding it on had sheared!  Well that was an unexpected event for sure!!!!!
Jackie was fine and we just had to call on the back up – Coach John – to come and rescue the bike.  He had got a long way ahead so it took a while, but he came back and changed the post and fit the saddle back on.  The sun had been out for our intermission and we were by a garage so we were able to get snacks, drinks and the like instead of our lunch stop, so it could’ve been worse, but we now had to get a bit of  a move on.  We stopped a little later to take layers off again as we began to overheat.  We passed through two big towns –  I want to say Warrington and Wigan – would that be right?  they were both well kept and looked like interesting places to stop and visit.  I don’t know why that surprised me.  Before Preston Jackie spotted a dear little coffee shop with two tiny tables outside for us to stop for our afternoon coffe break.  Two older ladies lept on the outside tables as we were taking helmets and the like off, but they were quite chatty.  I had the most delicious ice-cream while the others had coffee and shortbread and it really set us up for the last 20 miles of the day. 

Nearly finished another long day in the saddle,  satisfying to think we are nearly halfway there and it’s gone so quickly!  The day was getting overcast and it was good to have our lights on (we do all day) and as we rolled up to The Barton Grange Hotel just the other side of Preston, John was waiting and waving in the road.  Hurrah another day done. 
Oh, and those three 20 mile legs actually added up to 70 miles in the end.  What’d’ya know!  So 70 today, 50 yesterday must put us at around 397 miles so far??  And the weathers been pretty kind to us, so far at least.
Even though I’m logging stuff I’m kind of losing track of days, miles and places.  All a bit of a blur.  I see a lot of great places and things along the way too that I then forget the name of….I need a dictaphone or something.

So day 8 approaches and another long day in the saddle, wish us luck….and continued thanks to all of you who have commented, keep those comments coming in, they really help us along our way.

I do hope tomorrow’s wi-fi, if the is some, will let me send you some pictures, keep an eye-out,

Beth xx