The situation of our house is surprisingly quiet given its location by a main city thoroughfare. No one is about this Saturday morning mercifully, as a wheel my bike out of the front door, clad in tight Lycra shorts and top complete with clicky shoes.
I head for the Great Central Way, once a good route out of Leicester, and now offering the same to those on two wheels. As I ride across Victoria Park, I see a similarly attired man of a certain age. He has a big bushy beard, currently in vogue again after 100 years. I jump when seconds later, he's up beside me. I had imagined I was way ahead of him. "Are you riding with Leicester Forest?" he asks, and I guess the accent is ...Greek. "No" I say, a monosyllabic cyclist, but think perhaps I should be. Do they have a team for very slow cyclists? These thoughts are dropped as I have now joined up with the tracks and have built up a head of steam.
Reaching Blaby, my choices open up. But a village, I wonder why of all places it was chosen to host one of Leicestershire's six districts. Once Nigel Lawson was the MP for Blaby: surely a rotten borough.
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| Blaby District- Lucky Blaby |
My route is along the Sustrains cycle route 50. Who every they are, they have chosen well. I head due south towards the bottom point of Leicestershire's heart shaped map. Here, the quiet country lanes play with the brutal sweep of arterial motorways. The road nips over, then curls round and dives under, the roar of the road briefly quiet. Someone has dumped a red velvet sofa under the M1. I wonder how long it will be there before disgruntled council works clear it. Perhaps it might have time to become a home to a family of mice?
This area has also been given over to wind turbines. Today they are mainly still. From time to time they start up, but only half heartedly.
My goal is Stanford Hall, a William and Mary Mansion set in a beautiful valley. It appears to be rarely open, and sits in it's place of privilege, speaking of entitlement. I muse 'what if everyone were able to live like this', and remember that from a world context, I do.
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| Stanford Hall - Leicestershire (just) |
I view the King Charles Bridge as I pass over the brook into the village of Stanford and Northamptonshire. Apparently it had its part in the English Civil War.
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| King Charles Bridge- definitely not Prague however |
Soon I am across the boarder again into Warwickshire. I have viewed this area with intrigue over many years flying by on the M1. Now I am weaving through these rural villages, spoilt only by the fact they have been seen from a monstrous motorway. Lilbourne, a pretty village, has a remote church, hidden behind two mottes. there is no indication of what these are at the site, though research tell me...they
are castle mounds.
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| Mottes and Lilbourne Church |
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May have been guarding Watling Street
Now it's the M1 |
I returning now, and am delighted to see a bullfinch flying next to me and up into a tree. Returning I surprise a walker with a ping of my bell. She jumps out of her skin. And then it's my turn. A much older man than me in a Europcar team shirt speeds by with a friendly "Hi'ya".
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| Bullfinch |
