Day 12 over and out

We dragged ourselves away from the Mambo cafe bar around 3 looking forward to a 25 mile or so run to Tiverton and refuge. James noticed that Beryl's daughter's itinerary (she set off yesterday from Land's End heading for JOG) showed her staying at the Angel Guesthouse in Tiverton and it rang a bell. Quick phone call confirmed that we were booked in - bit of luck that.
Unfortunately once we hit Wellington the route got a bit messy. The A38 is a really busy road and we wanted to avoid it if possible and James had put some effort in trying to find an alternative using B roads but minimising hiills of course. We were trying to find the national cycle network route 3. James has done a sterling job of working out routes so far but I think he did this one when he was tired and it could be described as slapdash. Consequently we couldn't really follow the GPS dependably and spent 2 hours making 10 miles of progress. I was getting a bit fed up and probably showed it - apologies to James for this as he'd done it with the right idea in mind. We eventually found the canalside towpath that promised to take us on the flat to Tiverton but James had a minor trauma when his pannier caught on a post and with his feet clipped in he was spilt into the nettles. No wounds except his pride and a dislodged chain. We had a brief stop to refuel (thank you Beryl for
the rolls) whilst admiring the canal and listed lime kilns opposite. We realised that we'd crossed into Devon by now.
The towpath was good and promised a beautiful, quiet and leafy final 11 miles that would be flat (canals generally not undulating too much).
There was a lovely scene with two swans meandering serenely along the canal with their four cycgnets and followed at the rear by two ducks. I hope the ducks haven't been reading nursery stories as they're going to be awfully disappointed when they don't turn into swans.
Unfortunately the towpath turned muddy and whilst this would be fine for a Sunday run out on mountain bikes our tyres can't cope and mud absorbs too much energy (of which we had little) so we decided to turn to the roads. The last 12 miles were therefore spent on aforementioned busy and fast lorry laden A38, but at least it was quick.
We've now made our way to a very friendly Angela at the Angel Guest House where our room is excellent, clean amd spacious and I'm soaking my limbs in a piping hot bath - divine. When we first were shown the room I just saw a double bed. The image I had was of James and I sitting up in a double bed doing our blogging together in our pyjamas. Those who are old enough may remember Morecambe and Wise in similar circumstances (though if I remember correctly they would be reading a newspaper and not blogging). Thankfully there is also a single bed.
I'm paranoid now as when taking a photo earlier James said that my helmet is always on at a stupid lopsided angle. So every picture for 12 days and I look like a clown apparently. How would any females out there react if told by their partner, on the way home, that they'd had their skirt tucked into their knickers all night. My photographic record of the momentous expedition has been ruined.
Anyway, James has mislaid a glove so he loooks like Michael Jackson wearing one in an attempt to be cool.
By the way I need to make an apology. Sorry to Kevin, Hilary's neighbour, if I have made him appear in an earlier blog entry to have the unique ability to lay eggs. He saves the effort and cheats by keeping chickens to do it for him.
Today's largely relentless headwind, that feels like a gale when you're trying to pedal through it, was atrocious. It saps your energy and I reckon requires 50% more effort to go the same distance. I think I was going a little stir crazy while battling away and I started to have thoughts of retribution. The wind's pretty hard to take revenge on and the best I could come up with was to leap off my bike (well fall anyway) and kick the wind. That's poor.
I will look differently on those who've done the end-to-end from South to North, JOGLErs. If they just tied a sheet to their backs and spread their arms out they'd sail all the way without pedalling.
James wants me to put a positive spin on today's often depressive report so I suppose it could have been tipping it down whilst the gale was blowing us back oop North. And 12 days down only 3 to go, that's inspiring.
Ttfn.