What I Did On My Holidays

Gosh, someone's actually interested! Oh well, here goes then. . . .


Faced with the need to attend a family wedding in Dorset and a desire to visit my father on his 93rd birthday four days later Hil and I decided to make a holiday out of it by turning it into a mini cycle-camping tour.
We loaded up the touring bikes, my Dawes Super Galaxy ("Diana", geddit?) and her adapted racer-cum-tourer "Dennis" (so called for his red-and-black livery) and put them on the train to Banbury. After leaving Banbury station we set off alongside the Oxford Canal for a while before cutting across country through some improbably pretty villages. We crossed the Thames on the Eynsham toll bridge four times looking for a non-existent campsite, saving 5p each time by not being in a motor vehicle, before finally finding a site eight miles further on. 
Days two and three took us into Wiltshire, over the downs to Pewsey calling at Crofton Beam Engines on the Kennet & Avon Canal, sadly 30 minutes after they had closed for the day. We went past the "Health Protection Agency"'s (ahem!) site at Porton Down (very secure), skirted Salisbury, rode into the fringes of the New Forest and made it to Christchurch on the afternoon of Day 4 after about 160 miles of cycling.
That evening we attended the pre-wedding celebration (!) in a local pub, making our way back to the hotel on one of Bournemouth's super-efficient yellow buses that are actually operated by the municipal transport authority of Paris! (We call it "privatisation", they no doubt call it "knowing a good thing when you see one")


The wedding went very well, especially as keen football fans were excused the evening disco to watch the European Cup quarter-final in a nearby real-ale  pub and I discovered a hitherto dormant interest in the game!