There are so many different carparks at Rutland Water that it took us a while to find the right one. We were after the one which rents out bicycles, because we were planning on experimenting with a tandem. This is the point at which I have to make a confession: I can’t cycle.

Rutland water

Since then, I have never been on a bicycle and absolutely certain that if I were to sit on one, my only reaction would be to fall off. Whilst Babel does not exactly look like the athletic type, and when I got home my mother later expressed surprise that he was able to cycle, he actually seems quite good at it. Anyway luckily the place at Rutland Water does hire tandems, although I hasten to add not at what one would describe as a cheap price, so we rented one for a couple of hours and Babel figured out an eight mile route which we could do.

When I got onto the tandem my first instinct was in fact to scream! I seemed very high up, and Babel immediately started pedalling rather furiously so that we sped off down a road at a remarkable pace. I tried very hard not to scream out loud, but I felt very unstable like I was going to fall off, and I didn’t think I was going to like this cycling business at all

After about fifteen minutes, however, when we had managed to find the correct cycle track, I was starting to get a bit more used to the fact that I was sitting on something which was moving beyond my control and in a direction I couldn’t see. You kind of have to trust the person who is doing the steering, because the size of Babel’s head meant I couldn’t see whether we were about to hit any pedestrians on the horizon, just notice them to the sides as we whooshed past, seemingly having missed them. I was fortunate in that I knew, however, that Babel was much better at steering than I was likely to be, and so it was that I don’t think we ran anyone over

Rutland Water

Or perhaps it was just Babel doing all the pedalling Nah, I was pedalling except for the times when Babel unexpectedly changed gear and then my feet came off the pedals because they were moving at speeds I didn’t anticipate and it took at while to get them back on again. At one point my shoe laces became caught in a chain sort of thing with the result that one of them is now shredded beyond repair That causes a slight problem because I’m going on holiday tomorrow and the chance of finding a shop which sells shoelaces open on a bank holiday is probably minimal. Luckily not a huge problem though, because at a pinch I can just about still tie the laces up, and I’ll hopefully be spending most of the holiday in walking boots anyway

I must just say what a beautiful place Rutland Water actually is. There are a couple of photos included here which Babel miraculously managed to take whilst riding the bike, and they hopefully give some indication of what a gorgeous location it is. It doesn’t look like it ought to be in England, it’s so attractive, and it really is a very large lake. We sat and contemplated it for a while whilst we ate lunch and Babel drank a very strange sort of pear cider, and then later as we were cycling we had a very scenic view as we went across a sort of dam.

Having cycled so far, we stopped for a rest and Babel was generous enough to treat me to an icecream. In what was meant to be a helpful move, he removed the wrapper from my Feast and put it in the bin, but with retrospect this turned out to have been a mistake as he had erroneously attributed the same icecream-eating skill to me as he himself possesses I was doing fine until I got to the halfway mark, at which point I became confused about the best manner in which to proceed without making a terrible mess. Before long more of my icecream was dripping itself over the table than was actually making its way into my mouth, so I was going to call it a day and put it in the bin, except Babel kindly volunteered to finish it for me, and somehow managed to eat the entire second half in about three mouthfuls and without spilling anything on the picnic bench at all!

All that now remained was to cycle back the way we had come, and second time around it seemed much less scary. It was really quite exhilarating to be on a bike and going so fast, and it’s certainly inspired me to want to learn to cycle for myself, although I’m still not sure I’d be terribly good at it. By the end my legs did temporarily feel a little wobbly but they were fine within a few minutes and the only thing which feels slightly sore this morning is my bottom I hope Babel is okay as he then had to drive all the way from Rutland Water to Birmingham and back to Leicester again, which must have been kind of exhausting in itself.

Soppy picture