Saturday 23^rd July

I’m nearly packed and ready to ride up to Bath for two nights in the Lansdown Hotel which looks like an old pile. I can almost smell the carpet cleaner and hear the creaky floorboards now.

I took an enjoyable and sunny ride down to Lulworth Cove yesterday afternoon after writing until 2.30. The place was rather crawling with tourists but the coast is beautiful there and the sea stunningly blue. The ride over there was good too with lovely roads, though the ring road around Dorset always seems to be completely packed.

The writing has gone pretty well. It took a few days to build up concentration on it. I have written the final flourish and gone back over parts of the manuscript where there were gaps. I still have one of those gaps to finish but I have a map of headings for that and then finally finish another chapter. Then the whole thing is down. So many ‘events’ have happened during the writing of it, terrorism, the EU referendum, Jeremy Corbin’s rise and perhaps fall, events in nursing too. It seems the speed of news is increasing.

Last night and this morning my challenge was to eat everything that was left in the fridge and I have risen to that pretty well with only a couple of unfinished items to leave behind. The sky is heavy though rain isn’t forecast. I worked out last night, in a moment of inspiration, how to programme routes into my snazzy GPS so I am curious to know if it will work. My first stop will be to look at the Cerne Abbas giant, assuming he is still there. I have realised that the recreation of my fond memory of the ride in 1974 from Dorset to Bath by motorcycle won’t exactly work. What made that trip so memorable, or at least has made the memory of the memory memorable, is that it was a beautiful sunny Sunday evening when we rode. Today will be a gloomy Saturday morning (its actually getting gloomier) so not perhaps having the same magic. Still, with any luck it should be a good route and I am in no hurry at all.

Thursday

I rode in to Dorchester and after going round a few circles found somewhere to park. It was quite a practical visit. I bought magazines in Smiths (how I love Smiths) and stood outside Boots hanging on their free wi-fi to download to my phone notes about nurses on strike and the details of a couple of films I am mentioning that involve nurses – one being The English Patient, sentimental but beautifully shot.

Finally, after passing so many town centre coffee chains and tourist tea rooms, I found a great independent coffee shop off the beaten track just next to where I had parked and had the most delicious coffee before heading back. Does coffee really smell nicer in these places than in chains or is it just that I am thirstier when I go in?

I also found Waitrose Dorchester – in a huge huge new development of fake classical buildings to the West of the city. Every shop there seems to sell mobility aids or be a nursing agency. The demographic here is definitely on the oldy side. Those zimmer frames with wheels and bags attached are the common mode of transport on the streets here.

I am just starting to build up momentum writing. Look:

Today I managed to just about complete my chapter on critical theory, Marx and critique and to burn my legs in an hour lying on Chesil Beach. Apart from a telephone call with H just now I have not interacted with a single person today.

Miles 21 down through Abbotsbury to the car park by the beach and back via Dorchester Tesco.

Average speed 26mph

Maximum temperature 28 C – phew

I slept well last night on a slightly soft mattress. I love breakfast and have some delicious rye loaf and nice jam. And there is a toaster here that takes one burnt slice to work out how to set it just right. I wrote for about an hour and tried to summarise Marx’s ideas. After that I packed up the bike – it is so easy with all my stuff to hand and the bike just outside the door – and headed off. My aim was to find my way through the network of narrow winding lanes to Litton Cheney.

Its not far as the crow flies but the roads are enjoyable but mostly single track with tall hedges on either side. I vaguely remembered the layout of the village (from forty-one years ago believe it or not) and parked up in the pub that I remembered was next door, and over a small stream from the youth hostel. The building has been refreshed in the intervening years and a timber addition built on the left. I had forgotten that the roof is shaped as the top half of a cylinder. It is a very attractive building, with the front door left open as if inviting me to pop my head in and start to explain to whoever was inside: ‘Oh, I worked here in 1974…’

Having studied the photo of me posing on Edward Goring’s brand new BMW back in ’74, I recognised the stone wall backdrop and the railings on either side of a small foot bridge over the stream that appear in the photograph. I had wondered about arranging my bike in the same spot and then asking a passer-by to take a pic – but didn’t embark on this rather tricky manoeuvre – and anyway there were few people around. (I am tempted to try it)

I rode off down a lane toward Bridport, then turned off at Swyre to pick up the nice coast road with fantastic views down to Chesil beach and the sea. I did find one sloping gravel car park but couldn’t find a place where I felt the bike would stay upright so, rather uncourageously, left and rejoined the road. I kept going and found my self on a busy ring road around Bridport carrying traffic down from the A35 toward Devon and Cornwall – quite a shock to be a part of this heavy traffic and a little depressing. I headed west for a while then took a detour around Charmouth and headed back. There were quite a few motorcyclists on this road. Too many to nod at.

I carried on through Abbotsbury to Weymouth, where I am sure I have been before and just when parking looked impossible found a bike-only space next to the harbour full of bobbing boats. Once off the bike I realised how warm it is, especially with heavy motorcycle gear on. I crossed a bridge on foot and walked along the road crowded with holidayers and found a not entirely promising café where I settled for a pot of tea and a salad, surrounded by families, many with crying children. As a lone traveller you notice this. I am surprised how little some parents interact with their children apart from to tell them off. Maybe I was the same.

I headed back to my favourite spot – air-conditioned Tesco Dorchester and stocked up on tonight’s dinner and Chablis as well as the best granola I could find. Already the route back to the barn is more familiar and I ride with more verve.

Back here after a shower and a nap I wrote more about Marxism and its critiques. Its slow going but I am writing. I need to spend a whole day to build up momentum (as we Labour party members say).

Miles today: 61

Average speed 27 mph

I changed gear 442 times and applied the front brakes 233 times and the rear 734. How’s that for style?

My GPS tells me that the temperature varied between 20 and 22 C but I know it was warmer than that.

Nearly 200 miles from my garage in Cambridge to East Rew Cottage. I got up before 7 carrying my two bags down to the garage to squeeze into the panniers and headed off before 8am. Much of the ride is a little tedious but necessary, with queuing on the M25 and at the beginning of the M3 which is being turned into a ‘smart motorway’ according to the signage. Slowing to a crawl, stopping and starting again is tedious with heavy luggage on the bike. Coffee and cake at Fleet services (these services are always full of humanity-hardly surprisingly) and then a blast down here, arriving at Dorchester at about 2.30 to stock up on some food for the next day or two. Tesco Dorchester has an array of fountains outside. It must be the grandest Tesco I’ve seen, though inside it is identical to the others.

The road got attractive suddenly after Salisbury and stayed calmly twisty up until the motorway-like ring road around Dorchester. By the time I got down to Dorset I was a bit too tired to appreciate the lovely roads. I save that for the next six days.

Comments on Nexx helmet: I tried the drop down sunvisor for the first time. I think if all else fails it is helpful but it is not optically that great and does not come down far enough so I am very conscious of the lower edge in my vision. I don’t know whether other helmets implement this better. So this extra feature over the Arai Tour x that I also considered is not a winner. I also found it hot and the ventilation is a bit poor though with a head squeezed up against the lining of any helmet ventilation is never going to be great. The fact that you can fix a camera mount to a detachable plate is a plus though. BMW Ralleye Pro suit: again with so many vents in the jacket and the trousers and a basically light design makes it preferable to a leather suit/jacket in weather that got up over 25 degrees today (that’s just the south of England – imagine southern Spain in summer which is why they have made the jacket, that and African countries).

Dorchester is very close to here. It will be easy to go back there are look for some wifi to upload backups of my manuscript and download some information from the net for my writing. With no Internet here, and no radio, I just have to plough on with writing. Sometimes it feels like a hard slog. The weather until Wednesday is looking good and I am looking forward to some riding around these lovely lanes. The air is thick with the sound of sheep baying (or it is baaing?) and birds singing. And the sunlight is beautiful.

The cottage is good – simple, with very basic ugly stuff but fine. Just what’s needed – a simple kitchen, bathroom with an electric shower over the bath that is impossible to get at the right temperature and double bed with something frilly on top, Ikea wardrobe.

Miles: 197
Average speed 25mph (!)
Temperature: 14 C to 28 C

Tomorrow morning I leave for another motorcycle trip. This time there is a slightly different approach, less ambitious perhaps. I have a book contract due in mid September, my critique of the promotion of resilience, so have decided to rent a cottage and divide the time between writing (mostly) and riding ( two or three hours a day maybe). I am going down to Dorset to stay a few miles from Litton Cheney where I worked in a youth hostel after leaving school. This was also the ground where I first discovered the fun of motorcycles and part of this trip is to retrace the ride I had back in 1974 on the back of a BMW R80 (I think) from Litton Cheney to Bath. This time I have a couple of nights in a hotel there (and not staying in Royal Crescent as I did in 74) before heading home.

So out of the panniers go – all the camping equipment – and I am travelling still with panniers, topbox (it would be great to travel without it but it is too useful to pick up groceries and to keep a helmet in when I leave the bike) and tank bag, but lighter and with more space for computer and a few books.

Dorset is a beautiful, rolling county with some lovely coastline. Its about 190 miles away, via the dreaded M25.