More cycling and Guilty pleasures

I went out for my second post-accident ride yesterday - after a day's rest. It is great to be cycling and the cycling relatively pain free even over the bumps however my shoulder was a bit sore the next day and and the rest of me was a bit unused to cycling. The second time out was much easier though as I was a little bit quicker and definitely pleased to be out. I stuck with my Wicken Fen route and once again took the Marin bicycle (hybrid). If anything the weather was murkier than before but it was less windy - which is always a good thing when cycling.

Spring is creeping in on a daily basis, hedgerows are getting greener more trees are coming out in leaf. Here is a composite picture (made of two pictures) showing one tree in leaf and one still in winter mode.

The soil quality (and colour) varies greatly around here on the edge of the Fens - in the Fens it is very dark, black and peaty. In some fields the crops are already evident, with some yellow flowers on fields of Oilseed rape. Apparently the names derives from the Latin rapum - meaning turnip. Although apparently the variety here are actually swede rapes with bright yellow flowers. (www.ukagriculture.com/crops/oil_seed_rape.cfm) In this picture you can see a finely tilled field with a Traveller campsite on the far side on a little used road. When farming was a less mechanistic affair the influx of itinerant workers were important to the local economy. Nowadays there is less work and less tolerance for that style of life so the Travellers end up being constantly moved along.

I mentioned the crops that are grown are varied from year to year; in this field there are onions which can be quite pungent when cycling past. As East Anglia is one of the driest parts of the UK it is also common to see irrigation being used a lot, even when there seems to be rain in the air. As this is very low lying land which requires drainage there are networks of drainage ditches around the fields which are used to supply the water.

In this picture "turf" is being grown and being irrigated by a slightly different contraption.

I mentioned guilty pleasures - when recuperating one of mine was that I started watching some programs I would not normally watch - The Jeremy Kyle show being one such program that seemed to feature a lot of DNA paternity testing and lie-detection tests to determine well paternity and fidelity. I also started eating chocolate cakes/biscuits made by Gu (www.gupuds.com) with my mid-morning and afternoon coffee - not surprising I put on weight given more food and no exercise - so I have cut those out as well.

Finally one unexpected pleasure - it was my birthday last month and my son got me Bjork's Greatest Hits. I like female vocalists from Lily Allen to PJ Harvey but always viewed Bjork as somewhat more outlandish (Icelandish!) - but it is a really great album.