Looking for a place to eat,
When a passing guy in a flat-bed Ford
Says Oi! You can't stop 'ere."
It's not yet quite as famous as the original, but I'll keep trying.
I decided to head for Oxfordshire this time. It's warm, so a fairly lightweight trip. And no cooking stove, due to the fire risk, which saves quite a bit of space and weight.
Ride to Northwick Park and Metropolitan line to Amersham, about the 9th train to arrive after a long succession of Uxbridge trains.
Following part of the Chiltern Cycleway, typically lumpy and wooded. Heading sort of north towards Tring. 11s was a half-brick of bread pudding at Aston Abbots, and lunch was taken in the aforementioned Winslow. Winslow is blessed by having not only HS2 building work, but also East-West Railway building work. At least they will get a station on the EW railway.
Tea was at Tingewick, eating the remaining bread pudding on a bench, watching the ducks paddling in the nearly dry pond. Crossed into Oxfordshire soon after, and the Cotswold stone buildings and walls were immediately apparent. You knew you had changed county.
Only another ten miles to my planned camping area, some woods near King's Sutton. Bad plan. The woods were full of nettles and brambles, and surrounded by "no Cycling" signs. You would need to be fully covered even to walk in there.
So I'm a bit stuck. I've found a couple of field with verges I can camp in, but they're right next to the road. Not ideal. All I can do is wait till near sunset, and hope for the best.
This meant spending a couple of hours in the pub, which was a bit boring to be honest. I could have ridden further, but I wasn't confident that I'd find somewhere, so I went back to camp on the grassy margin of a corn field, with amazing views south west.
A warm night, only 5% chance of rain. I just had a bivi bag, and the sleeping bag liner, although I needed the sleeping bag later. No tarp rain shelter either, and it turned out I needed that too when the 5% rain arrived. The bivi bag is not enclosed, so I scrambled to cinch up the opening around my face, and that seemed to work OK.
Woke at 5am after a good night's sleep, and discovered I'd been sleeping on an ants' nest. They weren't happy.
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