Greetings from June 2023 here in the UK, where the "cost of living crisis" is rumbling on – in notable contrast to our booked Penzance train from Paddington, which was not rumbling anywhere, having been cancelled ten minutes prior to departure, much to our dismay.
Evidently keen to demonstrate that they can't be relied upon even on those rare days when their drivers and signalmen are not on strike, we cursed our national rail "service", and resigned ourselves to letting things pan out however they might.
This turned out to be a couple of pints in the Pride of Paddington, followed by an uncomfortable, two-stage journey to the West Country which involved us changing at Plymouth, and then standing with one of our bikes in the vestibule of a packed train as far as Bodmin Parkway, occasionally apologising to other passengers as they tried to clamber past to get to the toilet. But at least we finally made it to our starting point at Penzance.
And on the positive side, the weather forecast was glorious for the week ahead. The absence of wind and rain makes all the difference when you're cycling, and I had a feeling that we would need all the help we could get to make it through some of the terrain that was stored up for us this week...