Temp: 22C, humidity 40%, south wind, distance (by signpost as register on bike is playing up) 6 1/2 miles.
Long climb up the hill out of Ramsgate, walking and resting alternately all the way up. During a couple of minutes rest at the top my rescued pulse oximeter, photographed last night after its dunking in my tea, shows my oxygen level in my blood going up from 91% saturation to 96%, and my pulse coming down from 122bpm to 88bpm. Hopefully it's accurate.
Southwards along the cliff top into a headon wind and on along National Cycle Route 15, and the Viking Coastal Trail, past Pegwell Bay. This nature reserve encompasses a disused hoverport, a surreal eery place with wild plants re-colonising the space by breaking through the concrete grid markings of the hoverport's former carpark.
Last year a man with a dog told me the area's history and the legacy of greater unemployment since the hoverport closed. Showing through the trees up on the cliff above is a reproduction viking ship in perpetual grass dry-dock by the road I am taking.
I take the bike route which goes parallel to the A256 and there is evidence here of earlier unseasonal warmth: huge, sweet blackberries and in July, how strange! Further along the main road is a plum tree heavy with plums bursting out of their skins.
On past a paper recycling plant . . .
. . . past the heavily guarded Pfizers where some of our medication is produced . . .
. . . and arrive at Sandwich at 2.15pm.
After a chocolate icecream, but leaving the cone, I am collected and driven away to a secret location hiding so far inside my jacket hood that I look like Kenny from "South Park".
