The Chocolate and Caramel slice looked very tempting as I walked out
through the adjacent bread shop – so I decided to buy one of those in case of
an emergency later on! Previous Chapter Return to Tony's Home Page
After
another full English breakfast I started cycling along the back road into
Uttoxeter passing the Uttoxeter Race Course on the way.
Then, ending up in the centre of Uttoxeter and not following the signs
round the ring road, I got lost again. Another
case of a town centre not being well signposted.
After one failed attempt at leaving the centre, I eventually found the
Today
I had decided to stick to the A roads. It
was Bank holiday Monday and hopefully there wouldn’t be too much traffic
around. I was hoping especially that
there wouldn’t be too many lorries. There
were some alternatives using minor roads if the traffic was bad, but these took
to the hills and were to be avoided if possible.
The roads were very quiet to about
I
ended up in Leek at 11.30 and started to look for refreshments and a postcard.
I found the postcard at a newsagent and they directed me to a café in
the centre of the town where tea and crumpets (yes - plural) were on special
offer at £1.95. “Yes please.”
“Sorry sir we haven’t got any crumpets.”
So a pot of tea and a round of toast sufficed.
The Chocolate and Caramel slice looked very tempting as I walked out
through the adjacent bread shop – so I decided to buy one of those in case of
an emergency later on!
The main church in the centre of Leek was having an open weekend. I decided to go and have a look. As well as displays on various subjects including a video on the planets which was showing, the main activity was a craft area where youngsters were building models from egg boxes, cereal boxes, toilet rolls and the like. Their creations were very good. I especially liked an ‘eggosaurus’ and a model of ET. The church tower was also open throughout the day but unfortunately was closed while I was there as the bell ringers had taken over. Outside the church there was a display of English owls (Barn owl, Little owl etc) and one or two foreign ones as well.
It
was time to move on to Macclesfield. There
was a bit of a climb out of Leek t
o pass the Rudyard Reservoir – very close to
Barnswood where our scouts quite often camp – but after this it was fairly
flat all the way to Macclesfield. The
day was brightening up considerably. In
the first hour I had sheltered under a tree for a few minutes to allow the worst
of a shower to pass. Now the sun was
beginning to poke its head out from behind the clouds.
The temperature was still on the cool side but that didn’t bother me.
It wasn’t long before I arrived at Ellen and Mike’s house.
It was only 1.15 – there was the whole afternoon to relax in
preparation for the long ride round Manchester
tomorrow. We soon demolished the
Chocolate and Caramel cake between us!