Just over 20 miles in lovely sunshine and lots of rape in flower.
I hoped to hear a cuckoo and went to the places I'd expect him to be, but no luck. I explored a "development area" near Gunners Park, saw some turnstones on the beach, found myself on the wrong side of a fence and had to be let out by a security guard, with whom I had a pleasant chat. He admired my beard (
) and opined that it must "cost a lot of money" to grow a beard like that. I said that I thought it was probably cheaper than the alternative.
I very nearly had a clipless moment when going down a kerb, having unclipped on the left but not on the right, and that was the way the bike chose to go. I just extricated my right foot in time.
There were quite a lot of other cyclists about, including a rather untidy peloton from the Essex Roads club, who were belting along Shopland Road. A few of them had time to exchange a hurried "Good morning!"
There was a green woodpecker at one point, and lots of whitethroats and skylarks doing their stuff.