Puncture too.

Yesterday I pumped out 40 miles, today it was 27, tomorrow I've only got 20 to sunny Lichfield.

Plan:

• Stay with friends this wkend
• Cycle to work near Bath, (140 ish miles)
• Start work next Friday

Heading southwards today I was aware there were a number of helicopters (max four) shadowing me as I pedalled along. Hmm, did they know someting I didn't? Had I offended someone by placing my towels in the bath that morning? Were they waiting for something to happen?

Something did happen - puncture.

This time, however, the road was pretty quiet and the helicopter folk didn't seem inclined to pull up (down?) and offer support. Puncture no 2, like no 1, was in the back wheel, it was also a small slit. Hmm. Suspicions raised I decided to investigate fully and, probing Kev(lar) found a wicked but tiny glass shard embedded in the tyre. I'm not actually sure if this is what caused the last puncture and if I'd been lugging it around, or if it was a new shard. It was really deeply embedded though, hard to find and needed pushing out with my Top Peak top tool. I finished filthy and perspiring, but with a fixed tyre and a rejected shard.

On a completely different note, B & Bs. If you want to get away and find cheap accommodation come to Staffordshire: £20 quid a night all in, get in! Not much else to say, no photos taken, no sights seen, no strange occurrences. Dim byd, de nada, de rien, zilch, chuff all, diddly squat.

Watching a programme on polar bears now, did you know they have 50% body fat and that polar bear milk contains 30% fat? (In contrast human milk has 4% fat and seals - P.B's favourite food - a whopping 60% fat.)

Their skin is black and their hair colourless. Well I never.

Wierdly, while the Inuit's diet consists mostly of seal, whale and polar bear meat and very few fruit and vegetables (in an isolated village shop one leek costs £3), despite this the average 70-year-old Inuit with a traditional diet has arteries as elastic as those of a 20-year-old Danish resident.

Well I never never.

Here endeth the lesson.

...Some time later...
Man on tv now squeezing polar bear poo from lower intestine into a tube to study the fat content.... Gillian Mckeith would have a field day!