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So! Here I am in Carlisle and what a great day of cycling it was indeed, mainly thanks to the Castros in Blackpool! Top speed of 37.7mph, and a distance of 95.1 miles was today’s result. My overall mileage so far is 542.1 miles.

Mr and Mrs Castro cooked an amazing pasta meal for me, and breakfast was a highly carbo charged bowl of porridge, a plate of rice with a fried egg and good wee cup of coffee! Mrs Castro even went to the trouble of making me a packed lunch and a packet of seeds/cranberries. This was such a great accompaniment to the new music playlist created especially for me by young Simon Castro, great music which included the formidable track, “Star Guitar” by the Chemical Brothers (thank you Julie for the iTunes gift as well!). I was eating very regularly an drinking as much as water as possible and just feeling amazing mentally and physically (despite a tingling pain in my Achilles tendon).

So, some of the highlights from today was cycling through Shap Fell. A beautiful part of the country and also a famous route for having one of the highest roads in the country, at 1,410 feet! This was such a great climb in perfect weather, and just after this I met a lovely old couple while I was en route to Kendal. They noticed my accent and we had a great wee natter about Glasgow, as it’s one of their favourite cities. The gentleman even taught someone art at school who ended up doing an MA in fine art at the GSA! Later, whilst munching on a baked tattie in the square in Kendal, I got chatting to this old fella from Spain. He was about 60 years old, and was in company with his great wee Brompton bike. It turns out, that around 1971, he used to live in Milngavie! This is the small suburb of Glasgow that I was brought up in, and he taught Spanish at Bearsden Academy. Small world eh?

Tomorrow, I’ll be crossing the border, and planning on arriving in Irvine or Largs. I’ll get a train back to Milngavie for a night, then back to Irvine/Largs the next morning. If anyone would like to join me for a wee cycle up the coast, or say hello to me in central station on Wednesday morning at around 8am, that would be delightful!

Can’t wait to get this journey into Scotland!

Awrabest!