July 1 - Day 86 - 'Unreasonable haste is the direct road to error.' Moliere

This morning, for the very first time ever, I had to put my foot down quickly when I was overtaken to avoid falling off or being squashed. Now I don’t mean put my foot down in a metaphorical sense - though it would have been nice if a police car had been nearby to put their foot down about the driver’s understanding of road rules.

Stopping so abruptly also wasn’t because of the highland cattle pictured (this was a consequence of me having to stop). It was due to a lorry and I knew from looking in my mirror that the driver was determined not to slow down or stop and so overtook me on double white lines approaching a bend. Luckily there is a very small footpath and kerb at this point in the road so I stopped and put my foot down to get out of the way. If I had been going down hill at speed, I’m not sure what would have happened.

You may not be surprised that I beeped my rather loud horn for longer than was necessary but probably couldn’t be heard anyway by the driver who was already going off into the distance. As I really did and do want to be able to complete the remaining 1935 miles, I gave myself a few minutes before getting back on the bike.

There was then suddenly a rather large rustling and cracking sound and I turned round to see to my surprise a highland cattle munching very rapidly through what appeared to be the Hawthorne bush but could have been what was growing underneath it. It was very obliging in terms of posing a while for its picture to be taken and certainly managed to distract me from the events of the last few minutes - not least because the wall there is very low, it was very close and its horns were very long! Having decided standing so close probably wasn’t such a good idea, I got on my bike and completed the rest of the journey to work without any further incidents. Well… I suppose nobody can say this isn’t a challenge and if everyone continues to care about our clients welfare in the way that the events of today may well provoke people worrying about mine, then the money raised will be very much appreciated. I’m hoping as I pack my things together for the day, that the journey home will be much less eventful. I’ll let you know.