I decided on Sunday to do a truncated version of the DIY200 I did recently, lopping off the loop to the north, which includes the last and biggest hill (there are only three in total and they're far from alps!), giving more time for touristy stuff. I'd leave nice and early for that reason. But I didn't leave till ten because of reasons or maybe they weren't even reasons.
Normally my first stop in this direction is at Highworth but on Sunday I fancied a slice of cake at Malmesbury. Tasty as ever at the Summer Cafe but also slow as ever. No hurry though so no matter. And I'd have something more solid at Coleshill, just after Highworth, which always looks attractive. So I turned off the eponymous hill about halfway up, following the signs for the cafe and shop, only to find it closed. A man working on a building next door said it had been closed all day and suggested the pub at the top of the hill. The Radnor Arms, never been in there but it always looks attractive and the sign mentions Otter beers.
Up the hill, there it is, look the sign says food all day, and... oh, it's closed. On a Bank Holiday Sunday afternoon. Perhaps they've got something better to do, like ride bikes? Never mind, I'll go back down the hill and take a quick look at the church. Which turned out to be locked. So go back up the hill and this time there's a man standing outside the pub talking into a phone while a woman wanders round with a small dog. Turns out they've booked a table... So that's Coleshill. Pretty but closed.
I headed off to Lechlade as that was my intention anyway, and just after joining the main road I saw a pub, The Trout, which clearly did food. I leant my bike against an old horse plough repurposed as garden sculpture (does that make it art?
), turned around and scraped the skin off my right knee against a bench. Ouch! And this was before I'd got to the bar! In fact getting to the bar took some time as there was a huge queue, and when I did get there – no food at the moment, "The kitchen looks like a bomb's hit it and we need to clear it up first. That's going to take about three hours." So I had a packet of Mini Cheddars and headed into Lechlade itself, where I found first a Londis that had Magnums but nothing savoury and then the Old Swan that had, wonderfully, a kitchen with a cook. It also had a jam session in the back room. You know how sometimes you might go in a pub or cafe and feel a bit self-consciously underdressed in your lycra? Well I reckon this place, a cycling jersey counted as formal. If I'd taken off my shirt and just worn bib shorts I'd have fitted right in with the jammers, in their worn out shorts, grubby vests, floppy hats, only lacking gum boots to feel like a bunch of Kiwi farmhands! It was also the only pub where I've ever seen a motorbike – well, a Yamaha FS50 – parked next to the bar. Unfortunately it wasn't the barman's commuter, it was some sort of "exhibit". The food was very good.
Now the proper touristy bit started. Unfortunately I was several hours later than planned but hey, it's summer and I've got dynamo lights. Through Kelmscott, which managed to stay just the right side of National Trust twee, probably by dint of having inhabitants (and the Manor being closed by the time I was there) on to Langford (curious tabernacle things built into the wall of the church next to the altar) then an impromptu diversion to Eastleach Turville/Eastville Martin to have a look at the "twin" Norman churches and the clapper bridge. And the swan, floating swanlike around the bridge, evidently thinking I had some food for it.
Then it was time to head for home, round Fairford air base, past a curious bridge to nowhere over nothing (course of Severn-Thames Canal), and through Cerney Wick. It was dark now and starting to get cold, especially when anywhere near water; and it's not called Cotswold Water Park on a whim! Noticing those little differences though – cold air in a dip, warmer air in a village, that kind of thing – is one of the attractions of two-wheeled travel. Anyway, there's a bench by the roadside just outside Minety, so I stopped, opened the packet of fig rolls I'd bought in Lechlade and put my arm warmers on. Now my arms were definitely warm but it was no good, my body was suffering wind chill and I had to stop again, take the arms off and be glad I'd brought a jacket "just in case".
Nothing further happened. It stayed dark and I ate a Chinese takeaway in Malmesbury; a good town for a takeaway not because of good food but because you can sit in the butter cross (covered stone structure in the small market square, presumably butter was sold there in medieval markets) to eat it! It's good to have somewhere to sit and a roof... When I got home I looked at the distance on the bike computer; truncated ha! It came in at 202km!
