I've been missing both my night rides and also riding in the rain, so decided to get my fix of both this evening. Sadly it stopped raining within just a few minutes of leaving home, so I had to settle for second best.
I stayed reasonably local, and ventured into a piece of woodland that used to be a regular haunt as a child, and later in my late teens when I helped manage the woodland. I used to hate the place! It used to be a monastery, and water mill, and the feeling that the place lets off can be quite nasty. When working there, sometimes it would feel fine, then other times I wouldn't even get out of the van. Interestingly I recently bumped into someone else that work down there many years ago, and they said exactly the same, that sometimes that they would get out of the vehicle and went to a different area of the woodland to work. I've yet to meet anyone that has anything nice to say about the feeling of the place.
All but one of the mill ponds have now gone, and I recall falling into one of them as a child, sinking down below the water, then nothing. The next thing that I recall is standing up, on the bank and soaking wet. To this day I have no recollection of pulling myself back out, and I certainly couldn't swim. The mill pond sadly also took the lives of two children in just one day. One in the morning, and one in the afternoon.
Anyway, it was kind of good to be back there again, and for once the place felt fine, even if now very overgrown and run down.
My nemesis. I've been trying on and off for three years to get through this ride section, and still haven't made it!
It's actually narrower than it looks, and I get psychologically beaten before I have even started, as there is a drop to side of some 5 metres or so. I'll make it one day.
Good to be out in the dark.
