The last day is, in fact, a very short one. I do not really feel like riding much, and after …
Day 8: Back Home
02 sabato Giu 2018
Posted 2018 Cotswolds, Uncategorized
in02 sabato Giu 2018
Posted 2018 Cotswolds, Uncategorized
inThe last day is, in fact, a very short one. I do not really feel like riding much, and after …
01 venerdì Giu 2018
Posted 2018 Cotswolds, Uncategorized
in
The day begins very early and not in a good way. I wake up after midnight with a light headache and go down in the kitchen for an Aspirine. Suddenly a lens falls from the spectacles. The tiny screw which held it in place is still on them, though. I put myself to work trying to re-screw that tiniest of screws in place, with the lens in it, without any fitting screwdriver; actually, I will have to use my nails.
As I am working on this with the due amount of patience, on a level space above what used to be the fireplace, the thought flashes to just switch to the reserve spectacles…
and on the very moment when I realise that the reserve spectacles are, in fact, in Oxford in the pannier of the bike (and it is therefore absolutely capital that the tiny screw is not lost) the little bastard falls and goes God knows where, very likely ( I know that because I have searched everywhere else like a madman) somewhere behind the old cast iron stove, in a region totally inaccessible to me with either hands or implements and very, very dark.
I feel somewhat distraught as without sight correction I am functionally an invalid. That the screw of the spectacles should… screw me just when the bike is broken and the reserve spectacle are 40 miles away is just the ticket. How are the odds….
I keep searching in the faint bulb light, but it is clearly a desperate endeavour. I go to sleep again after more than one hour feeling like a cripple, wondering how I could let the screw fall (I know the answer: they are so damn tiny!), and whether it is legal to drive with, basically, only one functioning eye.
In the morning, I first inform myself about the legality of driving with one functioning lens, which is fine if I can read a reg number twenty meters away with the good eye. I go out for a walk and the test is amply passed, which is excellent news. However, a 40 minutes walk is enough to give me a headache as my brain struggles to adapt to the new conditions and “strains” the lens-less eye.
I then go to the landlord in the nearby pub, and he kindly lends me some sellotape to try to fix the second lens as I can. The view is impaired by the sellotape (it is officially “clear”, but when you put it on you realise it is yellowish and rather opaque), but it is still better than having only one lens, and one can hope that the headache will cease. I need to drive to get to Stroud, but again I am now, in a way, “equipped” to drive with a sellotaped spectacle lens if needs be. I plan to ask an optician whether he can make me some kind of emergency spectacles with lenses he has in the shop, as I do not hope that they will have the screws for no-name spectacles bought on the internet years ago, and very likely from China.
Very happily, it turns out that the tiny spectacle screws are…. standardised!
A huge “thank you” goes to the local Specsavers shop, where I hoped to be told “we obviously don’t have spare parts for your internet-purchased spectacles, but we will have your new Emergency Spectacles ready in the early afternoon” and get told instead “Yes, it’s only the screw missing. Can you please wait here?” and after less than ten minute receive perfectly repaired and clean spectacles. They don’t want any money, they positively refuse when I insist in offering. Not for the first time, I notice they are excellent people, Specsavers.
I drive home with a newly-found eagle eyesight and in a state of semi-euphoria, have a wonderful lunch, a small rest and then get in the car heading for Oxford.
No problems and no dramas there: the wheel is not damaged, the Nazi electronics is (and I quote) “sorted”, the bike was even washed! The new rear tyre, including everything, comes to £215, which I find very fair for an official dealership. They take care of the rental car.
At 3:45 p.m. I am again in the saddle of my BMW, around 28 hours after the puncture, with everything fine and some of the missed time actually not really missed because of the heavy rain I would have had to endure anyway. Not so bad after all. The old tyre had 11,000 miles with me only, plus the miles with the first owner; therefore, not really a loss on that front, either.
I visit more villages, ride through a fairly “deserted” landscape at times (like between Charbury and Burford), find the usual mess in Burford, enjoy all the Rissingtons (there are several of those), Lower and Upper Slaughter, and then stop for a walk and a beer in Bourton-upon-the-Water. I am now in an excellent mood as in non-invalid mode, with reserve spectacles in the panniers, a functioning bike and a nice, fresh beer in front of me. From Bourton I head home via Cold Aston and sit in the garden, on a beautiful evening, writing travel notes. Strangely, today – for the first time – there is no constant droning of bumblebees at all. Perhaps they are all away for the weekend.
Learning point: always, always have your reserve spectacles with you.
And some sellotape…
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