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Sunday, April 15, 2007 

Newts to you too

Today I am mostly listening to: Calvin Harris – Acceptable In the 80's

I'm so glad the Mrs bought me my bike. I've used it so much lately. If she was getting a return on how much I've used it, she would have surely got her money back by now.

Today, after an hour in the gym & a quick rest, I decided to go on another one of my quick bike rides before going round to the parentals for a BBQ. You see, the other week I found this new area in my home town that I never knew existed. There were all these lakes public footpaths & tracks that I never knew were there. It was great! Obviously other people knew they were there because they'd kindly made tracks for me to follow, but it was all new to me. So after following one route last week, I decided to follow another route this week.

My first discovery was that we have Great Crested Newts less than 1 mile from my very own doorstep. Am I bovvered? you're no doubt thinking. Well, they're a protected species don't you know (or so a little sign told me). They even had their own little fences to protect them. So that shows they must be important. Not that I saw any, they're clearly too important to show themselves to mere mortals.

Secondly, I think I found the old railway. It was quite strange really, I kind of felt like I was in that film Stand By Me. It was all kind of deserted & there was this old railway bridge spanning the river that runs through our town. I stopped to roll up my trousers, but that was it. I didn't like to linger for too long in case I was being spied on by some web-footed fen-dweller who thought I was trespassing on their wetlands. Either that or the newts were about to pounce on me, so I quickly cycled over the bridge.



Next thing I know, I've come across all these parked cars & middle aged men with binoculars. I either found the local dogging hangout, or they were a bunch of birdwatchers. I'm going with the birdwatchers theory, but I could always be wrong because I couldn't actually see any birds (well, not of the feathered variety), and they just seemed to be looking into open spaces.

So yeah, after cycling round the local nature reserve, my keen sense of direction lead me to a quaint little pub in one of Cambridgeshire's picturesque villages. The only problem was I was on the wrong side of the river & there was no obvious way to cross it, well apart from swimming & there was no way I was going to do that however much I wanted an alcoholic drink. So, a quick U-turn & I was back off round the reserve to see if it was possible for me to cycle to work. I think it might be possible, but the tracks were a little too bumpy for my liking (and my bum's).

By the time I'd made it round to the parentals, my little bike computer announced I'd done over 9 miles and I was pretty chuffed with myself actually. And the BBQ was just what I needed after all that cycling.