Home is where the heart is...

Well readers, I made it. One hundred and fifty miles, one puncture, one roast beef dinner, a steak and chips, roast pork, two fry-ups and 12 pints of Stella later (saldy no Cobra en route). Barry, road warrior, Newsdesk cycles on his stomach. I think I must be the only cyclist to gain weight on a long bike ride! arf, arf.

It was a great ride for so many reasons, first up having massive TV celebrity Julian Richards, out of Meet the Ancestors, asking me directions! Ha! Me. I was in the middle of Leicester at the time looking at a map. What are the chances?

Second, helping Wayne and his friend Sean honour the memory of their friend Rich Wildman whilst raising some cash for charity. Now I can walk past the charity muggers on Oxford Street without feeling a twinge of guilt.

Third though, and possibly my favourite bit of the journey was getting home and logging onto the Internet to see the AMAZING news that Mr Coleman came through his heart surgery in one healthy piece!!!!

How brilliant - Mrs C, over coming massive technophobia, even posted a blog comment to let me know her hubby was a-OK. I'm so glad everything worked out. Mr C is a keen cyclist it seems and his doctor reckons that really helped. Maybe next year Mr C will join us on the Tour de Wildman. There are some quite big hills on the way, Wayne and Sean can zoom off ahead, but I'll walk up them with you. I'll be the first to admit that I'm no Lance Armstrong.

I tell you another thing too readers, I've never seen so much roadkill in all my life. The highways and byways of the English countryside are postitively plastered with rabbit, rat, fox, badger and pheasant. At one point I thought I saw a pussy cat, but upon closer inspection it turned out to be an old gardening glove. lol :-)

I also discovered a direct correlation between population density and friendliness. The more people there are, the ruder they become. Honestly, people in the middle of nowhere would wave and say hello as we cycled past, but as soon as we got to anywhere a bit bigger, the friendliness stopped. It made me a bit sad for Mankind.

I had an epiphany readers. I think I might move to the countryside. I might sell my place (my place which is now almost completely over bloody run with Dan Bantam's gym paraphernalia) and buy somewhere out in the sticks. I could live off the land and be a farmer.

We saw a farmer who told us that there was no right of access through his land, but then we showed him the map which clearly showed the Oxfordshire Way going through his land - he conconcted some cock 'n' bull story about Google maps, the local police and hikers getting attacked on his land. We didn't back down though, and he let us through. It's called a Right to Roam!!! If I become a farmer I'll let people walk through my farm no probs. Guess I'm just reasonable like that.

Having said that, running a farm must be quite hard work, so maybe after the runaway success of Fur Wars maybe I should get into writing more stories. Writing seems to come naturally to me. I have a literally bent as it were.

Also The Secret Seed Society is running another competition. My tales of Marvelous Marvin Mung Bean didn't make the grade. This time though the society, led by the wonderful Peter Parsnip, are after a story about personified onion. I'm sure I can come up with a real multi-layered, tear jerker!!! LOL, ;-)))

OK - I'd best be off to think of some onion-based story fodder, until next time - au revoir!

Baz

ps. Mess dude - thank you for your email regarding your affairs of the heart. I think congratulations are due! Congratulations to you!! (And yes, I agree, Mr C would probably have some words of wisdom regarding your story). Be warned though, I fell in love with Amber not so long ago and it didn't work out. I don't want you to get hurt! But as Dave the roofer is keen to say, you can't win the raffle, unless you buy a ticket.