For some months prior to this trip I had been intending to travel to London to see some friends and business associates. But I hadn't booked the train, because I hadn't firmed up my plans around this date. And by the time I had, it was too late. The trains were too expensive. So it was a bus trip. A long bus trip through the night.
Although this probably counts as low level adversity, it also had it's up-sides. The bus company stopped at Loughborough University in the English Midlands. My alma mater. Edinburgh to Loughborough by bus takes some time. I left Edinburgh around 1700, and went via Glasgow arriving at Loughborough University at 0300 the next morning.
This combined with a free couple of days during the working week presented an opportunity. So I booked a night in cheap accommodation on Campus and made a plan for some visiting of family in the Midlands. The accommodation that I booked on campus by sheer happenstance, turned out to be in the same hall of residence that I stayed in for two of my three years at Uni.. There is something profoundly strange about revisiting familiar places years later.
I sometimes wonder what would have happened to the town of Loughborough if they hadn't upgraded the technical college into a University of Technology in the nineteen-sixties. It is famous for it's bell factory, Big Ben was manufactured in Loughborough; many years ago many of Loughborough's residents would have worked in one of a number of companies producing electrical equipment, such as large transformers, cranes, and locomotives. Some of those companies are still their; but I think their work-forces must be much reduced.
Loughborough University's catering service equipped me with a fine cooked breakfast to set me on my way. So packed my luggage onto the bike and headed for my relative's farm some fifteen miles east of Nottingham. The cycle-friendly minor roads are familiar to me because I used them for the same trip when I was a student. And whilst I fully intended to bring my Ordnance Survey map of the area, I also managed to forget it. So navigation was sub-optimal.
The landscapes of the English midlands other than the Peak District are - I think - underrated and much derided. I don't agree. I enjoy the rolling hills and the arable scenery. Also, the fact that these landscapes have been intensively farmed for hundreds of years can be advantageous to cyclists; it means there are plenty of byways.
I cycled around Loughborough and out on the north side of the town. It's a strange transition from an industrial market town into the pretty villages of North Leicestershire. The weather on that day was just about as good as it could have been at that time of year - warm with plenty of sunshine. I remember the A60 road which links Loughborough to Nottingham as a busy road when I lived in Loughborough back in the nineties. Not any more. But nonetheless, I turned right in Hoton and cycled through the prettiness, to the villages of Wymeswold and Wysall, where I turned left and headed back to the A60.
In years past I would have gone cross country through Keyworth, Plumtree and Cotgrave on small lanes with light traffic. But any regular readers of this blog will know of my fondness for cycling by rivers. And the route along the Trent from Nottingham to Radcliffe-on-Trent is irresistible to me, so I opted for the latter. I tend to glibly assume that the Midlands are fairly flat and easy for cycling. There's some truth in that, but the landscape is rolling and the pull up the A60 to the outskirts of Nottingham is a long one, when laden.
But the run into Nottingham is then easy, down through the affluent suburb of West Bridgford until you meet up with the river Trent. It's then a pleasant ride, which combines riverside paths, suburban back-streets and roads that are closed to motor traffic. You pass the National Water Sports Centre at Holme Pierrepoint and a few miles later you arrive in Radcliffe. It's then only a few miles to my relative's farm.
The rest of my day was pleasant, I had lunch with my Cousin, tea with my Aunt, and then cycled back into Nottingham to catch the train to Chesterfield to see another Cousin. I final late train took me to my brother's house in Coventry.
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