Nil Satis Nisi Optimum

The Moos and I have been in Merseyside today. It is lovely to ride on roads that go up and down as well as along, though I am far too tired to enjoy them. Yesterday I rode the Cat and Fiddle, also known as "the road to my dad's house," at about 35mph. I am not really in the best of mental shape to be riding a bike but Hortense is still bolloxed. "Oh, a Deux Chevaux!" said Patrick, in the sushi bar. He is a proper Frenchman and remembers seeing 2CVs heading in convoy every year to Morocco for a Rally Raid. He does not want to buy her.

I digress. It is peculiar to be riding the roads I grew up on. I did not ride a bike when I lived here, I drove a long low and mean green Ford Capri. But this is the landscape which looks like landscapes should. I have lived in lots of places but there is always that slight dislocation. The flatlands have broad skies and beautiful wind-sculpted waves, but they do not have green fields edged by white metal fences, or semi-derilict mills, or the joyous sound of tyre on M6. Or lots and lots of cows. And trees. I do miss the trees.