Day 8 - Tutbury to Shrawley - 80 miles

We had a very enjoyable dinner last night in the Dog and Partridge in Tutbury with Granville (our mechanic) and his wife Marie. The last time we saw them was last Monday morning in a very wet Glencoe while sprinkling the first of Dad's ashes, so it was great to see them again and catch up - seeing them really brought home how far we'd come.

Each day has been the same for us since starting really, the only real difference being the weather and the place we've slept in, so the days have all merged into one, full of unfamiliar places, hills, rain and pedalling - but seeing Granville and Marie last night meant we are deep into England now, and almost home! Well, not quite, we still have another 230 miles to go, but it felt like we'd almost finished.

So we ate pies and burgers washed down with Young's Olympic Gold (a nice golden ale with plenty of flavour which somehow reminded me of Caramac - not sure why, but that's the best tasting note I can provide) - we had initially opted for pints of Red Dwarf, brewed locally in Burton, but it turned out someone had just emptied the barrel before us.

We woke this morning to fluffy clouds and blue sky, and although our initial joy was tempered by the weather man telling us that showers would develop throughout the day, we decided that we were happy with 'showers', which sounded much less wet than yesterday's weather. So, with a route that barely registered on the climb chart we were surely in for a good day's cycling.

We headed down for breakfast, and once again we both had a full English as I was first in the saddle. The lady serving us had spotted the Moggy earlier, and us in our lycra, had put two & two together and thus cooked us an extra large breakfast to fuel our journey! The breakfast was very good: nice sausages, and the first plum tomatoes of the journey - my favourite when it comes to a full English - but this plus was cancelled out by the hard, 'toast-shredding' butter. Nevertheless, it was still a top 5 contender in the breakfast rankings.

This was the first place we've stopped at that offered us no cycle storage, so we locked the bikes to the rack last night and so were very relieved to find them still there in the morning (not that Tutbury seemed like the kind of place to harbour light-fingered criminals - in fact, the whole area seemed to be littered with well-to-do villages with grand old buildings; there must be interesting history around these parts, maybe associated with Burton's extremely successful brewing period: Burton became the centre of the the beer brewing world during the height of the British rule in India and was responsible the creation of the India Pale Ale style of beer, this success was credited in no small part to its water being high in Gypsum content, brewers today still 'Burtonise' their water before brewing - but I digress).

On our agenda for today was a visit to Mum's, as we circumnavigated Birmingham just east of the M42 before heading out into Worcestershire - so if seeing Granville and Marie last night didn't quite feel like we were home, today definitely would.

I was soon on the road heading towards Tamworth. It was fresh, but dry and bright, and the roads for the first 10-15 miles were country lanes so a very pleasant start. The usual posterior pain didn't start in earnest until 10 miles in, so all was going well and throughout the rest of the ride I was able to spend enough time out of the saddle to give me some relief.

Before I knew it I was rolling into North Warwickshire. It's a funny county, Warwickshire, it never ceases to surprise me: it's always larger than I expect it to be, and it starts both further north and further south than i think it should - it almost feels as if it's secretly extending its borders while the surrounding counties aren't looking. I shortly arrived on the outskirts of Tamworth, the former seat of Offa, the man of Dyke fame and former King of Mercia. Apparently Tamworth gets its name because it sits on the river Tame and had a 'worthig' type of fortification (if I've remembered that correctly) on its banks, courtesy of the aforementioned King.

After getting slightly lost in the centre of town and having to take a short walk through the pedestrianised centre I picked up the route and headed out of town. Tamworth looked quite nice by the way, and I'd have liked to have spent a bit of time looking into the history of the place, but our schedule didn't allow such indulgences.

After a small climb out of town and completing my first 26 miles of the day I met up with Lee, just as the rain was starting. We swapped over and Lee headed off, soon to be in very familiar territory following a route we've used numerous times to get to the NEC when the traffic on the M42 was bad. I headed off in roughly the right direction, but trying to navigate with an atlas and so many roads and junctions to contend with made it impossible to keep on track so I headed to Knowle and then Dorridge where I filled up the car, again!

I knew I was back on the right route now so I found the next available place to stop, picked up some bottles of water for re-filling en route and started today's blog while waiting for the 'Redditch man' of newspaper fame to pass by. At this point we were only about 4-5 miles from Mum's - perfect timing for a lunch break.

After Lee passed by I gave him 5 minutes then headed off in the direction of Kings Norton. Five minutes later I was pulling onto the same driveway in Greenacres Road that I'd departed from eight days earlier. I was greeted by Mom, Millie and Lucy (Lee's daughters), together with flags, bunting and paper chains!
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It was lovely to see family again, and I knew Lee would be pleased to see the girls as he'd been missing them for the past few days. Lee rolled up shortly afterwards, having completed a 28-mile stint, and we headed inside for sandwiches, pork pie, cake and tea - by far the biggest lunch we'd had all trip (and very nice it was too). Dave Boucher came over to see us too - we hadn't seen Jean and Dave since Glencoe either, so it was nice to see him again (Jean couldn't put in an appearance as she was on grandparent duty).

After an hour of catching up and showing photos I felt I was getting far too comfortable and the thought of going back out was becoming increasingly unappealing, so all too soon I had to get back out on the bike and head towards Worcestershire, with just a short 13-mile leg ahead of me.

In Alvechurch I turned off into country lanes again, and although a little hilly it provided much more pleasant cycling and after an hour's dry pedalling I heard the now familiar sound of  the 'Moggy' approaching from behind. Lee parked around the corner and we swapped for the last time today, about five miles from Droitwich Spa (a 'Historic Brine Spa Town' if the signs you pass on entry are to be believed).

Droitwich Spa is only a small town so we were soon out the other side, where I stopped at the Holt Fleet pub on the River Severn, which looked particularly magnificent. After snapping a photo of it, and Lee when he passed, I set off in search of the Lenchford Inn, now only a couple of miles up the road in Shrawley. I pulled into the car park to find it sat on the bank of the river - a lovely spot, and the sun was even making a bit of an effort for us.

Lee arrived soon after, as did friends Sarah, Potter (no, not the one with the scar on his forehead and the broomstick), and a little later Grogan. We caught up over a couple of pints of Otter Ale. Sarah had attempted to get the local paper and the BBC interested in our efforts but neither were here to welcome us (is there something else going on that's more newsworthy?!), we appreciated the effort though.

Both Lee and I had managed to sneak off to shower in shifts and we were able to relax a bit and regale our crowd with cycling stories about near misses with sheep (I have a video which I'll post once I've worked out how to edit out the expletive).

It was a fun few hours, but you know what they say about 'all good things' and one by one they left. Then Lee's wife, Claire, arrived with the girls, which made his day, followed by our friend Adrian (making a cameo appearance to cycle with us tomorrow). Adrian had already cycled 18 miles from Worcester train station, having got a bit lost en route and having ended up re-tracing his steps(/pedals) in order to find the correct road out of town (I'm now even more thankful we've had the Garmin on the bike for our trip).

Lee went and found a table for dinner with his family while I kept Adrian company with another Otter Ale. We ate, and nursed a pint of Doombar before bed. Although I attempted to finish the blog before bed, the beers had taken their toll and I promptly fell asleep - not that i could have posted it anyway as there was no internet access.

The Lenchford Inn has seen better days, which is a shame considering its fabulous location, but it now seems to be earning its keep as a stop-off for tradesmen crossing the river after work. Lee thought the place had more than a whiff of Pontins about it, which I thought was very well observed, but our room was clean, spacious and comfortable and believe it or not the beds have won my 'most comfortable bed' award, for now at least, thanks to the mattresses having an integral 70mm memory foam top.

I woke at 6am (after only 4 hours of snore-free sleep I was informed - my wife will sympathise with Lee on that score) to finish the blog. The weather forecast for today is WET! So far, though, it's only the roads that are wet. Long may that continue. I've just seen Lee and Adrian cycle off into the distance, in the wrong direction, I blindly followed - not a good start, so I'd better go and find them now to make sure we all head in the right direction of Bromyard.

NEXT STOP: Stow on the Wold - 64 miles, a bit hillier today than yesterday, but nothing compared to recent days' terrain... I hope! Only five cat 5 climbs and a cat 4 just before Stow.