Carlisle & fame

T minus 17 days.

It was a sad day yesterday as poor old sticky had to be decommissioned (a new gear cable was fitted). He is now taking it easy on the window sill, but could be brought out of retirement at any time... I had some business to attend to in Carlisle yesterday, and as is usually the case with me, rather than taking the train all the way, I got off early and rode the remainder. It was another north to south affair, although this time ellipsoid; starting from Lockerbie, through Ecclefechan, Gretna, Kirkpatrick Fleming, Annan (the last two are pictured) in Scotland and across the border to Longtown and on to Carlisle. It was good to start in the country, as opposed to my home near the centre of a big city, and apart from the Carlisle area, there wasn’t much traffic. 67 miles in total and there was even half an hour of sunshine.

This morning a photographer took 61 pictures of me in various attitudes, but always with my bike and holding a Scrabble board. Some of them stationary, holding the board with spelt-out words such as “America” and “Seattle”, and others with me riding down the road, holding the box under my arm. As he said, the paper (the Scottish Sunday Express) will probably use one tiny headshot and all his artistry will be for nothing, not to mention my aching arms. He had never played Scrabble!? Maybe he was a crownbingo guy? What a waste of a life…