A prayer to the god of tail winds

As I lay awake on Tuesday night listening to the wind hurling rain showers against the bedroom window , I thought "B....r". Of course in the absence of snow and ice nature had to conjure up something to obstruct our plans for the first decent cycle in a few weeks. One of us is made of very strong Celtic stuff so , undeterred by a relatively feeble display of English weather , we set off in a steadfast North Westerly direction. The theory being that it is better to battle a head wind on the outward leg and have the luxury of the wind on our tails as we coast towards home and a hot bath/shower.
Wash Lane does a good impression of a mountain bike course without the mountains but despite its best efforts I stay united with my bike through the spoke deep mud and wheel swallowing potholes. At each junction my internal alarm screeches "feet" at me and I disengage in a very unsmooth and unsophisticated manner then lurch forwards with awkward foot shufflings and mutterings.
As we head up Cheney's Lane and on towards Wymondham via Tacolneston and Spooner Row there are times when I swear we make no forward progress whatsoever. It is like being the stationary car in one of those telly adverts featuring a wind tunnel. All we need is John Hurt to do a voiceover about our spectacular lack of intelligent design and failure of aerdynamism at that point. The wind is SO bad that are even a few stretches of road where we fail to keep up a conversation.
We persevered via Morley and then let our lowering blood sugar and caffeine levels guide us to the Station Cafe in Wymondham for re-heating and re-fueling. After a very civilised interlude and customary map discussions we head for home via a new to us dead end road with a footbridge over the A11. This brought us out to the east of Silfield and then on to Wreningham, Toprow, Hapton, Forncett St Mary and home. (We also discovered a new dog walk venue - Long's Wood Wreningham.)
My mileometer is on the wrong setting so distance covered has to be decided by a mixture of higher maths and wishful thinking - but we reckon we managed about 30 miles.
So the verdict on the pedals - there is something both pure and slightly sinister about being a part of the bike or it being a part of me (discuss?) It certainly feels more efficient and I can understand why they are necessary for proper cyclists who wish to average 30mph during their ascent of alpine passes. I will certainly continue with my attempts to conquer my fear of them.

And amazingly -splat count zero. Beginner's luck combined with sheer terror I assure you.