“Morning all. Anyone fancy a ride to Sledmere via Thixendale?” asked the Admiral back on the “bridge” once again. “Route to follow”. Ooh we love a mystery tour. Version one of the route included two possible coffee stops and such exotic places in the frozen north such as Duggleby and Kirby Grindalythe. Ooh that’s a lot of hills. Having had time to reflect overnight, the admiral then offered a couple of options avoiding North Grimston.
Ten Knights assembled at Manor House in much cooler temperatures than we’ve been used to recently. “Right folks tell me where you want to go.. ” said the Admiral before adding “.. and I’ll tell you where you are going”. That’s what we need, decisiveness. “It’s 0945 come on weigh your ‘anchors’, time to get going”. With the wind filling the sails we set off towards Cherry Burton and Etton before continuing through South Dalton.
On reaching Holme-on-the-Wolds we stopped at the junction of the B1248 where we had to traverse the short section of the main road to reach Lund, making our way in smaller groups in between the traffic. Michael was invited onto the “dance floor” by a passing biker. “You dancin’?” he intimated, “You askin’?” thought Michael. As they shimmied their way along, Michael doing an impression of the foxtrot while the biker wanted to do the quick-step. The mismatch resulted in them tripping the light fantastic earning a hurl of abuse from the biker “judges”. Strictly not necessary.
After passing through the sleepy village of Lund, we made our way to Bracken Lane and continued northwards to Kirkburn.
The next leg of our journey saw us heading uphill directly into the wind as we “tacked” our way around the potholes between Tibthorpe and Huggate. At this point James and Barry left the fleet to “return to port” while the rest of us carried on upwards and westwards along the York Road. The views from this vantage point are worth the effort as the countryside can be seen for miles around.
Turning north towards Thixendale, progress became slightly easier as we meandered downhill. After regrouping we set off with the wind now astern following the Thixendale valley to Burdale. The joy of having a slight downhill with a following wind was somewhat ‘tempered’ by the shocking state of the road. Our ‘fun’ came to an abrupt end as we encountered the “mountain” leading into Fimber. Next up was superb race down to the roundabout before a steady climb leading up to our cafe stop.
During lunch at Sledmere, we were chatting about various subjects when Sharrin started to tell her version. “When I want something I get thing….” There was a brief pause as we all looked around expecting to see the “hand” from the Addams Family crawling around the corner but no, Sharrin’s face began turning a shade of red as we realised she was referring to her darling husband Stephen who responded with a look of resigned stoicism.
Having sat outside, the cold was beginning to creep in by the time we were ready to leave for home. As we left Sledmere, the climb up to the Monument soon had us warmed up again. Over the top and it was a long descent down to Garton-on-the-Wolds. Pugwash took to the front maintaining that position almost all the way down except for the last 100 metres when with a whoosh, whoosh, whoosh everyone started to fly past like sprinters coming out from behind their “lead out man”.
On reaching Garton-on-the-Wolds, Mark left the fleet, returning to port in Driffield while the rest continued to Kirkburn to retrace our steps over Bracken to South Dalton and home via Etton and Cherry Burton.
