Pet Hates on the Road

Well you might be forgiven for thinking that after 17 days on the road enjoying peace and solitude I would be becoming a more patient, easy-going person who is increasingly at ease with her environment and developing an inner untouchable calm.  But no, after 17 days on the road it seems I've had plenty of time to develop a series of pet hates; some of them relate to the weather, to technology, to people and to nature.  The question is where to begin...

• Perhaps the first one to start with is people, specifically when I approach a helpful looking individual to ask if this is the way to village X and they respond with horror, assuring me that village X is miles away - as if to say, 'you can't possibly want to go there'.  It takes a lot to bite my lip and not retort that I'm not interested in how far it is to X, and what business is it of yours anyway how far I cycle?  This has happened a number of times - clearly some people think that a woman of my age is not fit to be let loose on the countryside with a bicycle, and they may well be right!
• Another pet hate is roadkill.  Well, not roadkill in itself but more my morbid fascination with looking at it as I cycle past.  Now I know we've all done that as we whizz past roadkill in a car but on a bike it is a much more morbid thing to do. You really do have plenty of time to give the poor dead beast a thorough once-over and I think I must get rather bored at times because I catch myself trying to determine what it was when it was alive and wondering if it has left a family of little bunnies, hedgehogs, foxes, birds behind without someone to look after them?  I shall be saying a prayer for them next!
• Ok, so the next pet hate is road signs, or more precisely the inadequacy of national cycle route signs.  Now for those of you who are drivers you probably have never noticed these vital little signs which consist of a white number in a red square on a blue background.  When these signs are there, pointing you in the right direction you love them to bits.  They are enormously reassuring and enable you to speed along enjoying your surroundings.  However, I have developed the distinct suspicion that those council workers responsible for erecting these signs have a twisted sense of humour and like to play psychological games with cyclists.  So I have now taken to playing Spot-the-cycle-route-sign game and, like anything else, it's great fun when you're winning.  Now usually these signs are posted at cyclists' eye-level on lamp-posts or on signposts along with other road signs.  All well and good, you might think.  But just to catch the unwary cyclist out they are sometimes to be found way up towards the top of telegraph poles so you have to crane your neck to see them, down at pedal height, partially or almost completely obscured by overhanging greenery, set back from the road on a brick wall or simply nowhere in sight when you need them, inducing a torrent of unspoken abuse at incompetent council departments!

Well, this is by no means the end of my list but I don't want to shatter the illusion of serenity and calm in one fell swoop so I'll save my other pet hates for another day...