1993 Biking Britain

Flora & fauna

The summer flowers, both wild and cultivated, were a constant joy. I even bought a Collins Gem guide so that I could stop and identify them along the way. White cotton-tails and bindweed; irises, dandelions and buttercups in sunshine yellow; mauve heather and thistles; meadowsweet the colour of clotted cream; foxgloves and rosebay willowherb in purple-pink; harebells and cranesbill in blue; water-lilies and Indian balsam and honeysuckle.

Hanging baskets choc-a-bloc with a many-hued variety of flowers outside every pub and home, and along the canals and roads. Gardens large and small, public and private, ablaze with colour, rich with colour, come rain or shine.

Also a pleasure, on the whole, was Britain’s animal life. Rabbits and squirrels would hop, unaware of my silent approach, onto the road in front of me. And then with bugging eyes turn tail and dash for the safety of the roadside bushes. Once I saw two red deer, alert on a hillside, that fled across my path and disappeared into the valley below. Highland cattle, incurious under their fringes; black crows a-peck; silly sheep that would ignore the passing of noisy trucks, but take exception to me and, bleating and scolding, sheep-stampede away.