Lost in (a familiar) space.

Tuesday 21st June.

Cycled from Hawarden to Mold then headed for Ruthin but ended up in....Mold. Big fat two hour circle.

Set off at half nine, following a lovely eve with the Family-B, great chinwag with Mrs B and half a bottle o wine.

Anyway. Tues am the weather was grand, bike was ready and raring and I was dressed... best I can say for myself. I'd had a couple of late nights, had some booze (I am a light weight) and had sore knees. Set off though, with my Cyclestreets map directions clutched in my grubby mitt.

Cyclestreets are an online mapping service for cyclists. They give you a choice of three routes, busy, less busy and quiet (red, amber, green), will plan any journey in the UK and have a great logo.

I left Mrs B's. Oh, what a sap I was that morning. The wind was against me, my legs didn't want to work. Everything felt heavy: me, bike, panniers. I was pathetic!

In a nutshell (I won't draw it out) Cyclestreets sent me on a back road route around Mold towards Ruthin. I went down some very pretty, quiet areas which I had never seen before. Places I'd never been to in my life, despite the fact its only about 15 miles from where I grew up!

Following Cyclestreets, I got to the top of a hill outside Mold when the rain and mist descended. Couldn't see a thing, but I carried on following the directions. Two hours later I found myself in.....Mold.

Quite exasperating. Hmm.

No punctures though!

Not really had much time over the last couple of days to write blog, been catching up with family and friends. Hopefully will get more down this week. In the meantime, post Isle of Man visit I have added a link to a great song about motorcycles.

Enjoy!

Motorcycle song - Arlo Guthrie

Punctures - the new speed dating!

Monday - got the early morning ferry from the Isla Man and decided to cycle to Mrs B's in Hawarden.

Didn't want to cycle all the way aroouuunnnnnd the Mersey or under it so I got another ferry to Seacombe. £3.70 one way - bargain! Not as much of a bargain as the 1 euro crossing from Lisbon to t'other side, but hey. So, on we got - me and bike - and off we got on the other side.

Met a man in lycra and an illuminous top on the boat. Another nutter doing the Land's End to John o Groats. He was 'between contracts' and had decided to cycle North to South. We had a good chat about puctures and routes, luggage and blogs, visibility and sun glasses. It's amazing how many people are actually not working, redundant, between jobs or post-studies are cycling around the country. Next time you see someone on a bicycle take a careful look. They could be an out of work subversive!

Had a good cycle from Seacombe, all was going well until I put the brakes on and my back end started wiggling around. Puncture! My first real puncture of the trip - not too bad to have one in five weeks - so I set about fixing it. Grumpily (I couldn't be bothered) I grunted at bike and half heartedly aim a pathetic exploratory kick at the tyre.

'Are you ok?' A voice asked. I looked up to see blokeonabike.
'Yeah, puncture' I grumbled.

Blokeonabike leapt into action. Was I ok, did I have a pump, could I manage, did I have an inner tube, did I want help?????
'Bravely' (ha) I replied that yes, yes, yes, yes and no...I would be ok, thank you.

What a kind thing to do, I thought. He cycled on, I loosened the back brakes, flipped bike over and started.

'Are you ok?' A voice asked. I looked up to see Blokeonanbike2.
Same conversation, same drill.

I continued.

'Are you ok?' A voice asked. I looked up to see Blokeonabike too!

By the time I had finished no less than five kind blokesonbikes had stopped to offer help. So there you go ladies, if you're considering speed dating, forget it. All you need to do is stand next to an upside down bicyclette with a pump in your hand and men will be drawn to you. Instantly!

What's in a name?

Went to the cinema last night to see the TT (motorbike race) film 'Closer to the (h)Edge'. Have to say, I don't think I could quite beat them on the speed front. Though bike gives its all, its never going to top 200mph. It was a mad film, good though. In honesty I thought it'd be all about bikes, engines and mph - it wasn't. The human interest stuff was well intertwined with monologues from the hilariously honest Guy Martin, "I hate the word unbelieveable. I mean, what is unbelieveable? I mean, if I saw a bloke eating his own head I'd say, 'now that's unbelieveable'..." 

Watch the trailer... click here... go on!

Woke up this am to more rain. The heavy stuff. Being a fair-weather cyclist I wasn't about to go out in it so Sparky-Bro and I went off in the van, to the bike shop - next best thing?

On the way I took photographs to illustrate blog and demonstrate conditions...

View through windscreen, left.

View through windscreen, right.

View through windscreen, centre.

Got to the bike shop, Bike Style, where I managed to look a div by calling the owner Gary, Simon. I mean, it wasn't as if his real name 'Gary Burgers' wasn't memorable. Ok, ok so Gary Burgers is not his real name. Made me feel at home though, it's kind of a Welsh thing to have a post-name tag. John Cae Groes (denotes where he lives); Mick the meat (he's a butcher); Dai the leg (limps); Wayne Pig (I'll leave you to figure that one out, think worst case scenario).

Luckily Burgers (?) had already tweaked temperamental gears AND tightened head set on bike before I insulted him so all good. While that was being done I tried on some shorts with a -get this - detachable lycra padded inner pant bit, HA! I liked them so purchased I them.

Wet road.

 Then we were off to collect Super Sis from the airport. On the way I got me camera out.

Dave the Bike ?

Meanwhile, we 'spotted' roads where the TT took place, roads and had seen in last night's film.

Bit of the TT section wooooooo.

This man was not an entrant in the TT.

Then it was back home for curry and another film. Life on the edge!!

Train spotting type facts. Hate history? Look away NOW...

Went on a little circular cycle ride consisting of 27 slightly hilly miles around Douglas today. The roads were mostly quiet and the scenery pretty, there isn't much else to say about that.

Was looking for a bit of a story or theme which I could write about. The one thing I noticed regularly were churches: Methodist, Wesleyan, Catholic, C of E, Baptist. And each one had a grave yard. After passing at least ten churches and almost upon arriving back at the house I thought I'd stop at one for a nosey round Kirk Braddon. Mostly on account of their signage...   

Authorised burials ONLY? What's going on there?
Are the Manxcunians slipping them in unannounced?

View of the cemetary.

A photo.

I know this may sound a bit mawdling... I started to read the older graves around the church.


What startled me was the number of graves from the late 1800's which had three or four (one had five) infants listed on the stones. I started to wonder if the number of churches were a reaction to the number of deaths, and maybe lack of heath care on the Isla Man at that time. It must have been very isolated, probably without (m)any trained doctors on the island and possibly with generally high mortality rate.


If you think about it the late 1800's were only two hundred years ago. If you know someone who is in their 80's it could be around the time of their grandparents youth. Curiosity roused, I decided to investigate....

So, when I got back to the house I got online and searched infant mortality on the Isla Man during the 1800's.....


Here's the history lesson.... I found this:


(Bear with me, this gets better)


Economic, Social and Medical Background

The Manx Economy - Read more here - woo hoo!

Conditions on the Isle of Man in 1878 were deplorable. Just how bad they were was disclosed by a commission which began to sit in October of that year.


The Commission found a community of some 50,000, half urban, half rural, without a compulsory poor rate, so that the indigent and sick, many of them malnourished and alcoholic, had to depend on private charity for relief; an island where there was one small hospital in a dwelling adapted for the purpose in 1850 and capable of accommodating comfortably only 14 patients (although during the smallpox epidemic of the previous winter as many as 23 patients had been crowded into it, there being no fever

hospital); an island where the only nurse who had had any formal training was the hospital matron; and where, as Dr Ring reported to the Commission: "I am afraid that many deaths have occurred in Douglas from want of a lying-in hospital, and especially from the want of proper food.

This is what I call 'starvation'-the blood is starved. I have known cases of women who have been confined, dying from want of accommodation and proper food for them at such a time." (Dr Ring's evidence must not be taken to imply that the women were worse off than the men.)

In 1878 the inhabitants of the Isle of Man were beginning to recover from a hundred years of impoverishment: between 1765 and 1866 the United Kingdom Parliament had retained the duty paid on goods entering the Island. During this period "the Island was, in fact, without an insular revenue, without an annual budget, and without resources for development".

In 1866 the Lieutenant Governor persuaded the UK government to adopt an arrangement whereby the Island was allowed to keep most of the Customs' revenue. Thereafter began the capital expenditure needed to build up the tourist trade on which the prosperity of the Island so largely depended until well into the second half of the twentieth century.

The Quality of Obstetric Care, 1882-1926

Registration by the General Medical Council was not obligatory for a doctor wishing to practise on the Isle of Man until 1899. Of the 57 maternal deaths recorded in the Registers of Death... 1881 10 were registered by "some person present at the death, or in attendance during the last illness" and not certified by a doctor.

During this time many women could not afford to pay a doctor to attend them and, without motor cars, the number of parturient women doctors could reach was limited. Doctors, however, were called in when catastrophe threatened, for it was they who signed most of the death certificates.Thus the majority of deliveries were at first in the hands of untrained midwives and handywomen living near by. This practice would have been all the more likely because many of the Islanders spoke only Manx and when ill they tended to turn to their own folkdoctors.

Dr Clague, himself a native Manx speaker, called these doctors 'charmers' because they relied heavily on the recitation of charms to effect their cures. "It [the charm]was a secret [silent] prayer to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, or to the angels,or saints, to heal the man. They believed that God would do it if it was His wish, and it was indeed faith-healing."

(HENCE ALL THE CHURCHES?)

The numbers of trained nurses and of midwives on the Island grew only slowly. In 1884 it was arranged that a nurse from the Hospital should visit patients in their homes in Douglas. In 1892 it was stipulated that the nurse should be "skilled". By this time the patients had been moved into a hospital of 42 beds built by a prominent businessman, Mr Noble.

Although there were Manx bone-setters, the Islanders were averse to anything amounting to an operative procedure. In the year ending 30 June 1896 no operation more severe than a tracheotomy was performed at the Hospital and the only major operations performed before then were the amputation of shattered limbs.

Dr Clague recounts how a man was brought to him by a folk-doctor who had failed to stem the flow of blood from a wound by the repeated recitation of a charm, reputedly effective on such an occasion. Dr Clague asked the charmer to repeat the charm and he did so, several times, but the bleeding did not stop. "A bandage properly put on stopped it at once."

Well then, that explains a lot. Further reading revealed many more facts, the mortality rates were just for starters. I then got on to Manx laws and historical information about marriage...
That the Manx married young was noted by many writers - one observant comment is that by Hannah Bullock (1816):

I do not, indeed, consider the Isle of Man as the abode of Cupid; in general, the marriages contracted by the natives, (though they take place at rather an early age) are founded on prudential calculations, no man, however youthful, marries merely for love; yet, as soon as any one is established in business or housekeeping, he naturally looks out for a wife as a necessary appendage to his domestic economy, and in his choice is influenced by parity of circumstances, by early associations, or some such motives, independent of the tender passion: in general, the same quietude of sentiments actuates both sides, yet are these marriages, in most instances, fortunate in their results; a couple thus united live together on the best terms, they co-operate in their pursuits, habit soon gives them an undeviating conformity, and permits their lives to pass

" A clear united stream."

Waldron gives a description of a wedding feast in the 1720's:

Having spoken of the Manks frugality, or rather sordidness, in the way of eating, I must not omit making an exception to this rules at three several times, which are their weddings, their christenings, and their funerals.     

As to the first, twenty pounds is a good portion for a mountaineer's daughter, and they are so exact in the marriage bargain, that I have known many, who have called themselves hot lovers, break off for the sake of a sow or a pig being refused in the articles. Yet, notwithstanding this, a stranger cannot be invited to one of these nuptial feasts, without believing himself in a land of the utmost plenty and hospitality.


The match is no sooner concluded, than besides the bands of matrimony, being publickly asked in the church three Sundays, notice is given to all the friends and relations on both sides, tho' they live ever so far distant. Not one of these, unless detained by sickness, fail coming, and bring something towards the feast; the nearest of kin, if they are able, commonly contribute most, so that they have vast quantities of fowls of all sorts. I have seen a dozen of capons in one platter, and six or eight fat geese in another; sheep and hogs roasted whole, and oxen divided but into quarters.    

They have bride-men and bride-maids who lead the young couple, as in England, only with this difference, that the former have ozier wands in their hands as an emblem of superiority: they are proceeded by musick, who play all the while before them the tune, the Black and the Grey, and no other is ever used at weddings. When they arrive at the church-yard, they walk three times round the church before they enter it. The ceremony being performed, they return home, and sit down to the feast; after which they dance in the Manks fashion, and between that and drinking pass the remainder of the day.

I love that! 'I have known many, who have called themselves hot lovers, break off for the sake of a sow or a pig being refused'

The article continues with a very long list of laws on who one cannot marry. I can only assume these lists are born of necessity.

	A Man may not marry his
1	GRANDMOTHER,
2	Grandfather's Wife,
3	Wife's Grandmother.
4	Father's Sister,
5	Mother's Sister,
6	Father's Brother's Wife.
7	Mother's Brother's Wife,
8	Wife's Father's Sister,
9	Wife's Mother's Sister.
10	Mother,
11	Step-Mother,
12	Wife's Mother.
13	Daughter,
14	Wife's Daughter,
15	Son's Wife.
16	Sister,
17	Wife's Sister,
18	Brother's Wife.
19	Son's Daughter,
20	Daughter's Daughter,
21	Son's Son's Wife.
22	Daughter's Son's Wife,
23	Wife's Son's Daughter,
24	Wife's Daughter's Daughter.
25	Brother's Daughter,
26	Sister's Daughter,
27	Brother's Son's Wife.
28	Sister's Son's Wife,
29	Wife's Brother's Daughter,
30	Wife's Sister's Daughter

A woman may not marry her:                                                                    

1	GRANDFATHER,
2	Grandmother's Husband,
3	Husband's Grandfather.
4	Father's Brother,
5	Mother's Brother,
6	Father's Sister's Husband.
7	Mother's Sister's Husband,
8	Husband's Father's Brother,
9	Husband's Mother's Brother.
10	Father,
11	Step-Father,
12	Husband's Father.
13	Son,
14	Husband's Son,
15	Daughter's Husband.
16	Brother,
17	Husband's Brother,
I S	Sister's Husband.
19	Son's Son,
20	Daughter's Son,
21	Son's Daughter's Husband.
22	Daughter's Daughter's Husband,
23	Husband's Son's Son,
24	Husband's Daughter's Son.
25	Brother's Son,
26	Sister's Son,
27	Brother's Daughter's Husband.
28	Sister's Daughter's Husband,
29	Husband's Brother's Son,
30	Husband's Sister's Son.

HA! So, there you have it. Manx laws and history in some detail. Tonight I am off with Sparky Bro and Glam girlfriend to see a film about a motorbike racer called Guy Martin. The film is called 'Closer To The Edge'. I think someone should make a film about my cycle travels and call it 'Closer To The Hedge' any takers?

Injure not this stone!

Made it to the Isla Man without a hitch. Train from Lichfield to Liverpool was painless, ditto the ferry across, though it was a bit strange wheeling bike below to car bit. Have to say, people are generally super friendly and helpful, from man at Stafford train station who helped lift the panniered back end of bike, to immaculatly coiffered and faintly orange ferry team in Liverpool.

Sparky brother met me on his chopper and we cycled to his together. As the TT happened only a week ago he jazzed up the 20 minute cycle back to his by pointing out the numerous scenes of serious accidents. Jolly.

Got woken up early this morning by Sparky bro who gave me a work-related lift to Laxey. The plan was for me to cycle a 'leisurely' 26 miles to Douglas. So I did.

Started by going up the painful Laxey Hill. Eurgh. Ten days off the bike have reduce my professionally athletic muscles to mere blobs. Luckily, I spotted a sign which presented me with a suitable reason (excuse) to stop, wander and take photographs. Three cheers for King Orry. Hip hip!

Am travelling to the Outer Hebrides at the end of the summer, so I shall keep King Orry in reserve, in case I encounter any tricky hills once I'm there and need an excuse to stop and make like I've investigating the scenery.

Sign details secret tunnel - oooohhhh

King Orry's stone.

Once I got that out of the way it was plain sailing....for a bit....I made it to Romsey through leafy glens and country roads. Bliss :-) Thought I'd reward myself with a mid-morning snack: Pate, croissant, chocolate, pineapple and nuts. After I'd popped to the Co-op I tried to find a well-placed bench where I could sit and stuff my face. DISCOVERY: The Isla Man has a serious deficiency when it comes to thoughtfully placed benches. I decided to sit on the verge of a river. Grassy, leafy, 'it'll do me' I thought. It did. Whilst I was sitting there an older man came up and admired bike (who wouldn't?). We got chatting, turns out he hails from (my small North Walian home town of) Ruthin. Small, small world.

Frank and wife Clare gave me directions for a not very short but scenic cut and I was off once more. If you are looking for a good place for a little walking, cycling holiday with a difference, you could do a lot worse than the Isla Man. It has decent scenery:

Scenery - Selby Cloddagh campsite.

Quiet routes - provided you don't go at the beginning of June when the motorbike TT races are on.

This is an A road on the Isla Man - honestly! The A14.

It has quirky things to see:

May pole in June.

 More quirk:

Yurt.

Life sized woman carved in wood.

Quality quirk:

Wizard

Bizarre quirk:

Six metre high 'collage man' made of stuff.

I cycled on. The road was long and steep. It was punctuated with smile-worthy snippets - such as the aptly named 'Windy Corner', but mostly it was long and steep. After I'd spent an age going up I was able to come down again and - basically - arrived home.

On the way I encountered the dire warnings:

I don't want to do it down but the 'ancient monument in question was a stone. Plain and simple, no frills or flounces. A stone.

Once I had proved that I was worthy (I did not injure the stone). I was allowed to graduate up the monument checklist:

More exciting! Rampart AND ditch...

And finally, got a shot of the wildlife...

Why did the chicken cross the road?

So that's it, basically. Turning in now at 27 miles planned tmw and, as you well know, my body is a temple. Pffft.