The blowing stone challenge

This weeks Tuesday ride started at Sallys house and again Pollyanna joined the Three Amigos as trainer, she came bearing gifts of energy drinks and bars for us to try.



We covered a similar route to an earlier ride, and quite early on we reached blowing stone hill which defeated all of us the last time around, although Pollyanna wasn't there last time, she of course flew up the hill but confessed to feeling sick when she reached the top. The picture of the base of the hill doesn't look too bad really, but as soon as we see this view we know we are in trouble.
I made it all the way up without getting off although I was going so slowly that at one point Tim was overtaking me walking, but I stress he was WALKING!! Sally also stopped once on the way up.





The blowing stone itself lies at the bottom of the hill and is surrounded by much legend, if you are interested google blowing stone and you can read all about it.










I am sorry but I think I have uploaded the pictures in the wrong order but I'm not sure, anyway we went through the village of Uffington where the locals were selling various jams, and flowers outside their houses.








































Uffington is also home to the Tom Browns school museum pictured here.




We went over the downs around Lambourne passing the gallops at the top of the hill where the rain became very heavy and as we decended again we got very cold and wet, so we decided it was time to stop for lunch.





Todays pub was the Star ( sorry but I can't remember where it was)
Anyway the Star initially seemed like a bad choice, Telly on, no customers and it didn't look like there was going to be any food.
We asked the Landlord and he said " oh we can't cook anything as we have no gas, but we have an electric chip pan" so we said "chips are good" then he said" I can do you ham baguettes as well, its home cooked ham" we said " great 4 of those too"
After the food Sally and Pollyanna fancied a hot chocolate and the Landlord again obliged although it is not something they normally do. So the star gets a rating of 4.5 saddles for the chips, 5 saddles for the ham baguettes, and 5 saddles for hospitality.



We had intended this to be a 47 mile ride but as Sally was still aching from the inter Livery Sailing on the weekend we had already cut the ride short and after the rain we were all very cold and fed up so we ended up going striaght home after the pub, making this ride a measly 25 miles.
When we got back our official trainer Pollyanna showed Sally and I some stretching excersises which Sallys dog Lucy thought was great fun and decided she must lick all our faces while we were unable to stop her.