SALLY...PART 211. I AM NOT GOING FOR A WALK AROUND WALLINGTON HALL !

"Right STOP working, it's 16*C and sunny, you've had a dish of Rice Krispies, I'll do you a box of nuts and make me a sandwich whilst you put the bikes in the Babe Magnet and we'll go and do the cycle path around Wallington Hall before I go mad going nowhere !"

You'll notice that my opinion was not sought !

"GLOVES ?" she spluttered contemptuously as she stared sneeringly at my attire !

"And  a scarf." I said timorously, more to myself than her !

She threw her rucksack overhand at me and the sheer weight of it carried it clean through my outstretched arms and straight into my face !

I daren't cry out for fear of being told to "MAN UP !"

In that rucksack along with her two litres of water, two pre-wet flannels, a spare pair of shoes, a large tube of anti thigh rub gel, two apples, three oranges, an extra large pomegranate, clear spectacles, her phone, her iPad, her sandwich and several boiled sweets for HER was a small box of mixed nuts for me...."Otherwise you'll just be whingeing on about being starving !"

We arrived in dull windy weather with the threat of rain hanging about us like an unwelcome house guest ! You get to an age when ALL house guests are unwelcome !

I untied and removed the bikes which hadn't moved one thousandth of a millimetre despite being forcefully told that they would fall over at every corner, heaved the rucksack onto my back and followed obediently through the endless gates that obstructed the route !

We headed into the dreariest weather imaginable, up slopes that defeated our lowest gears so that we both had to get off and push up dramatic inclines that even the men from The Ordnance Survey wouldn't have been able to detect !

I couldn't see a thing through my glasses because they were covered in a fine mist and couldn't see a thing without them on either as the cloud base was so low that the entire Wallington Estate had disappeared from view !

NOT MY IDEA OF A DAY OUT !

Now those who know my wife know that she doesn't do ANYTHING without checking at least a hundred weather forecasts from around the world before she's even taken her first breath each day so finding myself both hot and cold, exhausted and blind in the middle of I knew not where was not my idea of a day out !

It didn't help having a rubbishy old and heavy mountain bike, given reluctantly by a relative, with no mudguards, a worn out rear tyre and gears that I just can't make work properly but mine was state of the art compared to Shirley's 1960's three speed Sturmey Archer geared (she refuses to use them and cycles strongly in top gear with her fiercely independent Scottish legs) urban ladies example of an accident just waiting to happen which she rode in terror as the narrow, bald tyres had no grip whatsoever and the brakes made no difference as she hurtled down the hair raising slopes at speeds close to three and four miles per hour !

THIS WILL NEVER SEE ANOTHER HILLSIDE !

AND NEITHER WILL THIS !

It didn't help her confidence much either knowing that she had had a terrifying incident at the harbour three weeks before when she tried to ride over a wet railway line and had gone down in an instant heap of severely bruised flesh !

We didn't and I won't wear a helmet as ALL people who do look like utter twerps, especially men of my age and I would rather end up dead in hospital looking good !

We rode alone and didn't see a soul, except for a warden who warned Shirley in a gentle way that there was a road to be crossed in a half mile which required care but it turned out that it was little more than a farm track and he must have thought that we looked like a pair of escaped Care In The Community clients !

So an hour and two miles later we arrived back at the car shattered and starving !

"We'll just grab a mouthful and go for a walk down to Capability Brown's garden." Shirley said, again without referring to my wishes and I defiantly refused !

 "I am NOT going for a walk as I am done in !" I insisted, choking on a burnt almond !

"You ARE !" she retorted swallowing her ham sandwich in one bite, made with ham from a £1 packet of wafer thin chemically enhanced reconstituted meat product from Home Bargains !

"I AM NOT !" I yelled, choking on a burnt cashew !

"YOU ARE !"

"AND I'M TELLING YOU I'M NOT !" I yelled, choking on a walnut half !

So we went !