Oh how I was wishing yesterday that I could join my collegues at Glastonbury but oh how this morning all those left in the office are sniggering.
This is the best photo I have seen so far from Glastoblog
Turns out after 75 miles of cycling over the Mendips and round the Somerset levels the only thing holding my bike together was the front pannier rack. Luckily the forks only decided to give way about 50m from Tom’s house and luckily I have a dad with a garage of bikes so I am still able to go to go cycling in Norway. I am now the proud owner (well loaner) of my dad’s mountain bike, the new must have touring bike apparently, freshly washed by my mum who also provided a delicious meal from her garden to complete the swap.
The camping season started well and served as a good practice for cycling the North Sea Cycle route in Norway.
Despite there being a very high percentage of rain in Norway I am hoping it doesn’t rain too much as with my rain covers on my panniers my bike looks like a fairground ride. My front pannier covers are bright yellow, my back ones green and if I take my handlebar bag that has a red cover. So fairground ride or traffic light. Oh and I did I mention I also have red flashing lights?
The campsite was great. We were the only campers. It was a small organic farm in Broughton with a small farm shop to match.
We camped in a field next to some chickens…some jumping chickens. Did you know chickens jumped? They were very free range and ranged in a field with bushes. The bushes obviously held some delights for the chickens because they would crouch down and then lauch themselves like cats at the bush and try and catch something. Even when we weren’t watching them we would be accompanied with the soundtrack of jumping chickens. They were also surrounded by an electric fence – as Tom found out when he tried to take a picture of the chickens and got a little shock. Unfortunately the chickens don’t seem to have very good memories and seeing a chicken get a little shock (probably quite a big shock to a chicken) is a little disturbing.
Our bathroom was in a little glade and included a tap and an outdoor solar powered shower. Unfortunatly because there wasn’t really any solar power to be captured this weekend the shower was a bit cold and a bit drafty. Nice power shower action though. The privy (that what the farmer called it) was a little wooden hut at the end of the field with a lovely view of the farm. As there were no other people around many a sit on the privy was enjoyed with the door open looking at the view.
As a practice camping cooking weekend it was very successful. Friday night Tom cooked carbonara – very good for camping due to the minimum preparation required. Saturday night was lovely steak from the butcher in Stockbridge, John Rob’s. He employs 11 butchers and it certainly was crowded. Then we had salad made from lettuce from the farm we were staying on, tomato, olives and feta. Finished off with pan roasted jersey royals. All cooked in our new pans, with the aid of our home made stove wind break. It matches the utensil case.
Breakfast this morning was sausage and eggs. Sausage from John Rob’s and eggs from the chickens in the adjacent field. We asked the chickens to look away while we ate but they seemed to be happy just jumping around.
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