Jamie’s compassion

Last night there was a sheep stuck in the cattle grid. Dark, cold, snow on the ground and in the sky, we carefully made our way down the drive through the slush towards our abode and there it was, this docile and benign mound of wool just stuck there like some insane gatekeeper standing out in a blizzard to greet the midnight arrivals. We almost didn’t see it. Indeed we would have walked right past, were it not for its instinctive (and rather short lived) attempt to avoid us, which of course was thwarted by the circumstances. Can’t just leave it there. It could freeze, or get run over. So I went back up to the hotel to enlist some good men to help me help the sheep. After talking the situation over with the kitchen staff and realizing that none of us had ever handled a sheep, in walks Jamie (the new trial manager from New Zealand).
Jamie, I said. You’re from New Zealand, have you ever handled a sheep?
Yes. Why? He replied suspiciously. (No doubt my question reminded him of an unrelated matter I had mentioned to him earlier, wherein as a prank I had planned to acquire a sheep and put it in someone’s bedroom.)
There’s a sheep stuck in the cattle grid, I said.
That was all I had to say, he was out the door, didn’t even bring his jacket. And there’s Jamie standing at the end of the drive in a snow storm in his white shirt and tie lifting this sheep out of the cattle grid. An image forever burned into my mind. The night we learned of Jamie’s compassion towards animals.

The weather in this country is so incredibly changeable. Arctic winds from the north have brought freezing temperatures and snow back to us. We are being told these conditions should last for about a week. It has been snowing here for three days, before that the rain hadn’t stopped in almost 3 weeks.

The poor weather conditions are becoming increasingly more bothersome as we look to prepare for our cycle trip. Our aim is to get as much riding in as possible on our days off, but in this weather it is difficult. Weather aside though, we have been slowly collecting all the gear we need and planning the logistics for the beginning of the trip. We have bought a pair of new touring bikes off the internet; if all goes to plan they should be arriving in the next day or two. Also, we bought some regional maps covering the north of France to get an idea in our minds of the start of our route. They cover all the way from Dieppe and the Normandy coast down to the Loire valley. Nicki is pretty excited about cycling through the Loire. And, sort of by accident, it looks like we might be cycling along the D-day coast on the anniversary of D-day. So we’ve marked these maps up mostly with campsite locations to get us started and as we head further south we will buy maps and plan as we go.

The list of stuff we still need:

Panniers
Cycle gloves
Water bottles / holders
Cycle shorts
Tools / spares
Sunglasses
A repair kit for my thermarest
Dry bags
Travel pillow
Extra sarong
Extra bike lights
Extra loud bike horn?

We are thinking of leaving here around the 20th of May (ish), then doing some touring in Scotland before we head south. The tricky thing there is that a lot of our camping stuff is down in Brighton, and we have a few things up here we wouldn’t want to carry on the bikes. This means trying to fit an extra trip to Brighton in sometime in the next month. Also, there is an area of Scotland called Wester Ross. It lies in the far North West corner of Scotland, and comprises some of the most rugged and remote terrain in the UK. I would love to go there before we leave