Christe, B.C. & A.C.

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I discovered today that there are two Christie's.

Christie B.C. (Before Coffee) is currently a morose, unenergised, tired and crabby person. Christie A.C. (After Coffee) is a chatty, happy, speed demon ... As much as I love the coffee we've been getting at Costa's (the mugs come with two handles, one either side because they're too big and heavy to lift with one hand) I think the caffeine is having an effect on Chrisite, and until we get our morning hit, things aren't the cheeriest.

The other problem this morning (other than the return of the overcast skies and ever present headwinds and rain) was that Christie, barely slept all night (for the second night in a row) and woke with a headache and runny nose. Suffice to say that the undulations which yesterday were zippy and fun, today became a chore we had to grind up, half way to Dumfries, where we planned our coffee break, the skies truly opened up and the grind just became harder.

We entered the outskirts of Dumfires, both of us a bit testy, and I caught a green light that Christie missed. Somehow she didn't see me going around the corner, and I didn't see her cycle past and so we both spent the next 15 minutes frantically cycling around and around in circles trying to find each other and getting increasingly frustrated. After finally catching up with each other, I wasn't the nicest person in the world, and had Christie, B.C. (who was feeling quite run down) in tears. It was only after coffee that Christie A.C. emerged and things became right again.

The cycle out of Dumfires was grand, and even when the skies opened we were still joking and commenting on how fun it was ... at least for the first 30 minutes of rain ... by then the cold had soaked into our fingers and bones, the headwinds had become a gale and we were just ready to call it a day.

Thankfully, the cycle route went right through a campground, so we pulled in, booked ourselves a tee-pee for £30 pounds, had hot showers in the best camp showers so far (Christie even refilled her shampoo bottles from the dispensers), and we then just lazed around for the afternoon. I read and Christie slept.

We wandered over to the local pub that night and had a slap up dinner which restored the spirits further, as did the fact that we found a brochure of a big discount outlet at Gretna where we planned to do a bit of retail therapy the next day.

That night we went to sleep to the sound of rain punding against our nice, warm tee-pee.

DISCLAIMER: Christie completely denies that Christie B.C. exists and believes she is a figment of my imagination.

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