Lovely.

Since digging out my bike and pumping up the tyres, I have managed to get out every night for a quick cycle.

Yesterday evening was *wonderful*. I asked Tim if he'd mind me shooting out for a few minutes, so he looked after Ellie whilst I went out on my bike. My village is essentially a big circle with entrances from two places on the main road. There is also a back way out of the village which takes you through the kind of countryside that Scott once described as "every D&D campaign I ever played". It's a single track with high hedges on both sides, occasionally broken by a gateway or footpath leading off into heaven-only-knows-where. Because it's such a small road, it is rarely used, and you're more likely to run into joggers and cyclists than a car. I cycled down it last night in the early evening, with my back and legs warmed by the sun, and mistle-thrushes rising from the hedges as I cycled past. The only sounds were birdsong and the gentle *thrum* of my wheels on the dirt.

I stopped a couple of miles outside my village and pulled into a field, where I just stood and looked at the countryside for ages. There was my village nestled into the side of the hill just as it had stood for hundreds of years, with the church spire rising above it and fields, green with young wheat spilling out from it.

I rode back home, up the gentle hill which made my leg muscles burn, and got home, feeling thoroughly exercised and centred.

I still feel good about it today :-)