Sunday – Pentecost
Odometer – 1704 miles. Northallerton – Ampleforth – Selby (23+35 miles)
Today has been a superb day. I have reached Selby and am settled into a secret bivouac in a wood just off the bypass. No one has seen me go in, I’m sure, but I keep knife and phone (switched on) inside my sleeping bag.
I left the Station Hotel in Northallerton at 7am, spitting tacks. I had wanted to leave earlier but my bike was locked in the garage and no one could be found to open it up. Nevertheless, on a glorious morning, I covered the 23 miles and arrived at Ampleforth just in time to gather my wits, meet my son, Paul, with his wife and children and join them in the Abbey Church for the monastery and school Mass of Pentecost at 10am. I had cycled 103 miles since my last square meal but I couldn’t have been happier. After Mass, under Fr Chad’s organisation, I gave a 30-minute talk to 50 or so students and a few parents about what I was up to. People seemed genuinely interested and asked thoughtful questions. We then move to a barbecue lunch, overseen by Miss Fuller and cooked by the Upper Sixth in my granddaughter’s house, St. Margaret’s, which was not only most congenial but vital, being my only meal since yesterday’s breakfast. Fr Hugh organised some fruit, photographers and (the icing on the cake) three traditionally clad Bagpipers from St. Hugh’s. A dozen children from St. Martin’s Ampleforth (the prep school at Gilling) joined the farewell party. It was absolutely super! Here are some pictures:
I set off again towards York at 2:45pm with renewed heart, strength and spirit. There were some initial steep climbs and, before I left the valley, I stopped to take a farewell photo of the Abbey and campus, looking back through a hedge from high ground. Memories from 57 years ago came flooding back of borrowing a farmer’s horse with a friend when I was in the school and, two-up on the long-suffering beast, clomping along the same road to get up to no good. I arrived in York at 5pm and pulled into a pub for water. I ordered ½ a pint of beer to pacify the publican and chatted for a while with people at the bar. On my way out, people eating at a table stopped me, asked for my story and made a donation. It turns out that one woman’s son-in-law had just returned from Afghanistan. I encounter such connections in almost every town I stop in. I reached Selby bypass at 7pm and have now managed to transfer into cover without being seen. Good night on this day of the Holy Spirit!
