Great Malvern to the NEC, Monday 21st

Great Malvern
Maybe I've got a bit of a prejudice about towns, but when I got up and went down to my bike, I noticed a rush of pleasant relief; it was still there!  The thought that somebody might do it harm as it sat there all alone in a not-very-secure car park beside the hotel, within sight of a fairly busy road, had obviously been nagging away at the back of my mind.

I had a nice chat with the hotel manager, a youngish South African.  While checking out, I told him what I was doing and why.  I did my now well-rehearsed spiel about the Crab still coming to get you even years after you give up smoking, but that getting it in the throat is the best sort to get as it doesn't spread and is easily zapped - well, usually, and certainly for a sold-his-soul-to-the-devil merchant like me.  Then he told me his wife had died of breast cancer a couple of years ago.  That's another of those moments when I wish the earth would open up and swallow me.  But he was OK with it; in fact, he felt it was very positive that we could talk and swap experiences.  I recommended the Macmillan website which, while absolutely not a good idea for sufferers, is an excellent place for carers (who get the worst of it, I often feel) to compare notes and support each other.   When setting up the charity site dangling off this blog, it was a tough decision whether to ask for donations to Cancer Research or to Macmillans.  Both do excellent jobs.  In the end, head ruled and I opted for cure rather than comfort, but if you have any loose change in your pocket when you next pass a Macmillan tin, I'd say it's a jolly good place to put it.

A rainy start to the day.  Not that this is a problem for motorcyclists; we are equipped for the wet weather almost all the time.  It does make it difficult to capture a good picture or two from the top of the Malverns, though.  Which is a pity.  There is one of those fake 18th century illustrations in the hotel showing the views from the top of the Malverns.  It shows views to the South all the way to Chepstow, which seems a little optimistic to me.  I wanted to compare that with what I could actually see.

Not much chance of a view on a morning like this, but I road up through a cloud to the viewpoint anyway to check.  If Chepstow were visible, it would be roughly between the two furthermost trees.







Curiosity satisfied, I rode back down the hill and pulled over at a well I'd noticed on the way in last night.  A lady had been filling up a carboot full of various containers.  This time, there was a gentleman in a van similarly tanking up.  He told me this was one of several wells dotted around the town and people make full use of them.  (If you're reading this, sorry for the anonymous 'he.'  I forgot to ask you your name.)  He himself came from some distance for a supply.  I thought it must be good stuff and had a taste.  I got a definite straight-from-the-well taste, but also I thought it had a hard flavour as you'd get from a limestone spring.  That's probably my zapped tastebuds not quite getting it right, since this water emerges from a lump of granite, and only a few hundred feet thick from peak to well at that.

This isn't me.  It's the gentleman in the van. ...but I do notice that my hair and beard are starting to grow since I took a sip this morning.










The Bike Show
Next stop was the NEC in Birmingham.  A bit of a gotcha when going to a show like this as part of a motorcycle tour is that your panniers and topbox are already full.  (At least they were for me on this trip; I'll probably get the hang of travelling lighter on future trips.)  There's nowhere to stash one's riding gear while walking around the show.  I solved that one by passing my bike chain through the wheel, through the full face helmet and up one sleeve of my one-piece suit, folding it all into a tidyish bundle on the floor.  Luckily, it was dry and more or less clean underfoot!
I also had to make a mental note not to buy anything bulky ... like a James Dean style leather jacket that I might have had a hankering for, say.

Not the first to arrive, by a long chalk.












As it happened, I didnt find all that much to interest me in the show.  I spoke to a gentleman from Watsonian, the sidecar people, about the ins and outs of fitting a sidecar to a motorcycle, and checked out the Triumph stand to look at their retro-style Bonneville models that I thought would make a handsome match with a Wallace-and-Grommet sidecar.  Otherwise, though, the only bike that I felt compelled to stand and stare at with open mouthed desire was exactly the same as the one I had arrived on.

Even this big cruiser didn't appeal, but I thought Mrs S might like it so I made a down-payment.  It arrives Thursday.










OK, I checked out the leather jackets, but the only really James Deany ones were a bit pricey for something I don't really need.  I can do better than that somewhere where the retailer isn't paying out thousands for a pitch at the NEC.  In fact, I might know just the place...

Centre of England, I and II
So having 'done' the show by not long after midday, and the weather having cheered up, I thought I'd go to a couple of places I'd thought to visit tomorrow.  Another item on my must-go-there-some-time list is the geographical centre of England.  If you look it up, you'll find there are at least three, two of which I went to.
The first was Meriden, just along the A45 from the NEC.  Appropriately enough for a bike-oriented sort of day, this place is also the site of the factory of the previous, utimately unsuccessful, incarnation of Triumph Motorcycles.  There's no sign of that, but a gentleman in the local charity shop pointed out the stone cross and accompanying plaque on the village green that marks the traditional centre of England.

A much initial-carved, weather-worn, broken stub of a sandstone cross marks the centre of England.  Oh dear.






























I also noticed an unusual war memorial.  It's dedicated to cyclists who died in the world wars.  My mother tells an anecdote about how she saw a flying bomb come down while she was on her way to school.  Not knowing what it was, she stood and watched in awe, not noticing that her better-informed friend had dived to the ground.  I suspected that this memorial was not just to cycle-riders who turned out to be a little less lucky than my mother, and the charity shop gentleman confirmed that it was in memory of cyclists how served as despatchers.  The annual rememberance ceremony attracts a large crowd of cyclists, he said.

Among the most unsung of unsung heroes, I susepct.











With just enough daylight left for another visit, I went on to the competing historic centre of England marked by the Midland Oak in Lillington, a suburb of Royal Leamington Spa.  A youngish oak, said to be decended from the original Midland Oak, stands on the spot.  I couldn't resist doing the hippy thing and talking to it while I stroked it and walked around it a couple of times.  (Hey! I had my helmet on; nobody could have recognised me!)

A fine young oak marking the centre of England?  That'd be nice.























As I did my arboreal circuit, though, I noticed another obviously planted tree nearby with a boulder beside it such as might bear and inscription.  It turned out to be a memorial to the Royal Horse Artillery.  Good for them, I thought; dulce et decorem est ... to recognise heroes.  Then I spotted another tree with another plaque at its foot.  This one was in rememberance of a local vicar.  I begin to suspect this town, having done the Midland Oak, has a bit of a thing about trees.

More memorial trees.  I wonder if there's a committee that thinks up people to commemorate with a tree?

And back to the NEC
With evening coming on, I back-tracked to the NEC where I'd already booked to stay at one of the corporate hotels on site.  Comfortable and fully equiped as these places are, they are soul-destroyingly sterile.  It reminded me that I had promised one generous contributor to my charity drive that I would included the words "it's not as nice as Cotterdale" somewhere in this blog.  But comparing this place with Cotterdale is fairly faint praise, I'm afraid.  It deserves a better plug, so if you're familiar with corporate hotels, Google 'Cotterdale Town Head House' and you'll see what I mean.