Today's weather is miserable ...

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If anything Christie was looking worse to me this morning, but my attempts to convince her to stay another day in bed came to naught. We were watching the morning show, and the weather came on. The summary of the weather for today was that it would be miserable , and that's not my words ... That's what the weather broadcaster said. Even this wouldn't disuade Christie from heading out, so we packed our bags, and set off out of town.

We'd decided to head towards the Northern Peninnes (Cycle Route 71) and after following a bike path along a canal out of Carlisle, we then followed a beautiful series of backroads towards Penrith, and then on to Appleby-in-Westmorland and finally Kirkby-Stephen.

I was in absolute heaven and really enjoying the route, but Christie struggled most of the day and just didn't have any energy due to her cold.

To top it all off, we'd been going through a series of small, steep undulations - pelting down one hill to get a good run back out the other side. I'd been leading most of the day, but Christie took the front towards the end of the day (probably impatient to get there). So there we were, pelting down this particularly steep hill when I came around a corner and saw Christie slamming into a river and catapulting over the handlebars. It looked ugly and I was worried. I ran to her, only to find her drenched, but thankfully able to stand. Sure enough there was a tiny little sign warning cyclists to take a small bridge and not go through this ford, but she just didn't have time to even hit her brakes. I felt so guilty.

We pulled into Kirkby-Stephen about 30 minutes later (5 minutes after the tourist information closed) and we found out that the local YHA was based in an old church. Given Christie's condition, we just couldn't resist another night in a building, so booked ourselves in.

We had a bunk room all to ourselves again (there were only thee other people there for the night), and after hot showers, a good cooked meal, and lots of chocolate Christie went off to bed to die, and I lunged downstairs on the couch and read an entire book cover to cover. The hostel was beautiful inside.

Strangely, other than the last 2 miles, the weather had been some of the best we'd have - overcast but with virtually no headwinds and no rain. So much for miserable!

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