day 3 Megasaurus

Thursday 23rd

Reading to Chippenham forecast 55mile actual mileage 65.

In this picture you can see we haven't got lost and ended up at Checkpoint Charlie but leaving the safety of Reading Central's Premier Inn where superstar Toni Barber manager at the site was so supportive donating her own precious pennies to support us. Phil and I were surprisingly up for it, Phil had refuelled on pasta at his cousin's house and was feeling chipper, his shorts were still illegally tight but we had hoped he'd lose some weight over the course of the day so we couldn't see his vegetables.  This isn't footage recorded by Glen Mulcaire but actually my wife, David Bailey look out. We set off feeling jolly ambled out through the town of Reading and along the Kennet and Avon canal towpath. We headed out to Theale and then Newbury heading to Malborough by lunch. sadly that's not what happened Phil and I bowled along at a hideous pace with Phil shouting "Squeeze" periodically, which means cycle faster. 

By "lunch" were at Kintbury we sat in the ground of a pub with dad and Caroline who had parked illegally at a nearby mill. I was at an all time low to be honest, I was questioning whether I could carry on, just internally. To everyone else I was just extremely moody and down hearted so I don’t think anyone noticed. We pushed on but we were off the towpath and Phil wasn’t happy about the hills. We saw lots and hills and eventually we went into Savernake Forest, a wonderful place if it were not so bloody rolling and with speed bumps. We negotiated that and started to get frantic calls about “lunch”  in Marlborough as it was nearly 3 pm. I was frazzled and we knew where we were but not how it would take to get to Marlborough so I just shouted we were trying our best. We got out onto the main road and rode down a 1 mile long hill at 30 plus miles an hour straight into Marlborough with 4 mins of my hissy fit. We “lunched” at Marlborough with the rest of the gang, then Phil and I decided to head for the major roads and quicken up the pace so we could get in a bit earlier.

That went well except as soon as we left Marlborough we found Avebury Mount, an impressive Neolithic structure on a another bloody big hill, lots more bloody big hills but then we began to grind our way towards Chippenham which we arrived into in good time. We were lucky enough to have Brewers Fayre on site doing an all you can eat curry night. I had Gammon and Egg as a starter and Helen had the all you can eat curry and I had everything she could eat, i.e two meat curries. A cold bath, a bottle of Hobgoblin, Newcastle Brown Ale (don’t it’s the only ale Brewers Fayre serve) and another ale I cannot remember, a cracking night’s sleep and that’s the end of day 3.