Day 5 Crediton - Glastonbury

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This is written a bit later - but in all honesty a bit of a desperate day. It started off very well woke up in the B&B and after cooked breakfast - off on the road again. A nice day weather wise and cycling through vaguely familiar territory (since this was where my dad was from). A few hills as I left Crediton but all served to slow the pace down and the silence after a car passed was amazing - i.e. the lack of noise after the rush of the car accentuated all the animal and bird noises etc.

Up a valley by a river to Tiverton, a short rest by a main road, then 8 miles or so on the busiest road so far - not much fun but got me closer to where I needed to be. After a windy route ended up in Wellington, Somerset. A bit weary I reached into the bit where I keep my wallet and its not there !!! Panic but surely its there in the bag somewhere - I must have spent 20 minutes turning the bag upside down and checking other things- but no it wasn't there !!! I still cannot understand it - it either dropped out at some stage or was taken as I walked through Wellington !!!

Cycling onto Taunton lunchless (since no money) I became convinced it must have come out when I was taking a rest earlier by a main road and so made the decision to go back to that point and see if it was there - this involved a train from Taunton- Tiverton (involved effort in itself since with no cash I had to get them to give me a fare where I agree to pay in 10 days time - not easy), then cycle back down the A road 8 miles to arrive at the place where I thought I had left the wallet - was it there? was it there? NO. I couldn't believe it and spent about 10 minutes searching about 5 square metres not believing it wasn't there and then also that I had gone back to look for it !!!

Cycle back down the A road I was on about 5 hours earlier to Tiverton station and the train to Taunton to start again and with time against me due to the setting sun I had to make it to Glastonbury. A Quick hello to my cousin Peter who lives in Taunton and I was off. This was possibly the first time I had to really go on the bike and the bike did magnificently - it was helped by the fact this was the Somerset levels so all flat and I went as fast as I could so I could make the hostel before nightfall. Despite the nagging in my mind about what I fool I had been losing my wallet somehow (?), it felt good ploughing through the miles and not much traffic on the road.

Made it to the hostel/pub at about 8.20pm very relieved and then checked into a very friendly pub which looked like it stayed open until 2am !!! Managed to get some money via a phone call to Louise and despite that nagging feeling again that I shouldn't have lost it in the first place felt good about things.

The pub/hostel was excellent but this was my time sharing a room with others and with others in Glastonbury was even more of an experience. Being now an old man I was obviously in the old man room - but I think it could have been renamed the ''eccentric/weird old man room'' (myself excluded of course). Anyway the other inhabitants were a mad haired man from Belgium who was in Glastonbury researching his ''real work'' - i.e. the spirits and various spiritual forces of Glastonbury. He was very nice and entertaining but at the same time did make some unusual claims that took some accepting. Anyway I had only just come to terms with him when in walks a tall American fellow with a little beard listening to a radio 4 programme re psychology - not quite as eccentric as the Belgium fellow but certainly approaching him. With the 3 of us in a small room it was like we were in a play or something (or even a joke somehow!!). The following morning I met the fourth inhabitant who like the others did not disappoint and gave me a good impression of Glastonbury. It certainly is a place of eccentrics and worth a revisit even out of festival time when it gets maximum attention.

My night was spent getting some food, visiting a few of the pubs of eccentric Glastonbury and then settling into my own pub/hostel for a few Guinness's before retiring to bed,

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