Doggy tales

I have been a volunteer for the Cinnamon Trust on and off for the last few years. The Cinnamon Trust is a group that help people who are elderly or infirm manage their pets.

http://www.cinnamon.org.uk

When I signed up I had dreams of walking lively collies for jolly owners who couldn't quite manage the longer walks. In reality I soon discovered that dogs like these had plenty of offers for walks and what I got was elderly disabled dogs living with elderly and mostly lonely owners. The dogs become the most important thing in their lives and negotiating the terms and conditions for the walk is a trecherous business! Never-the-less I have had some good experiences including walking a small blind dog with heart failure that sniffed its way around the block and snorted loudly when it got out of breath! The owner would pick at a yoghurt and a glass of sherry for lunch and send me out with £10 to buy some prime steak for the dog. On another occasion I walked a very lively terrier for a very elderly lady who lived around the corner. She sadly died and I was involved in re-homing the dog to new (younger) owners in Kent. Her family suddenly appeared after she died and made a lot of fuss about how they didn't want the dog so I went to the florists and ordered a big bunch of the brightest sunflowers to send to her funeral and signed the card from the dog! I haven't done much for the Trust for a while but happened to be in when they called the other day. A local lady was temporarily incapacitated and unable to walk her hearing dog, Bambi (hearing dogs are trained to alert deaf people to sounds such as the door bell and the phone, although mostly they provide company and contact with the outside world). After a visit it soon became clear that the lady was having plenty of visits and the dog was getting plenty of walks (it had even lost weight because it was getting more exercise) but assistance was needed to take the dog to its weekly agility class as the regular helper was unable to make it every week. So, I went to my first ever dog agility class, sadly without a dog of my own. However, it was good to watch! Bambi is sadly not a young as she used to be and has poor eyesight. She can just about manage a few rounds of the low course, leaving out some of the more difficult items. Bambi will soon have to retire as a hearing dog but this will be a very difficult decision for her owner to make!

Post-holiday blues

Coming back home and getting back into work has been very strange this time. It is always difficult but somehow this year the irritations have been more irritating than usual, the tiredness set in almost as soon as I got back and I seem to be very much aware of the pointlessness of some of the things that I am required to do as part of life and work. The first major annoyance at work concerned the newly identified smoking areas. Over the summer it seems that a few people in the University were given the job of identifying suitable outdoor areas where it was permissible to smoke. It seems that suitable areas are supposed to be pleasant for the smokers and those taking on this role took this to heart, with little consideration of the effect of these decisions on the non-smokers in the vicinity. The 'therapy garden' which has been carefully created by students for the benefit of all, was chosen as one such site and without any consultation an enormous sign and a tiny ash tray was erected in the middle of it! Now, we use this area as a teaching space and I have to say we all took this decision very personally. There followed a barrage of emails (excerpts below) but as yet we have not had a response, not even a 'thank you for your comments but bugger off' type! You will notice from the emails that another smoking site is 'Leaf Hospital - area of rear lawn (hospice side)! Now, I know the hospice residents are not going to notice any long term effects from the smoke but I did think it was rather cruel to encourage smoking in front of the very people who may now be regretting the day they smoked their first fag!

"From: Bridge Kevin
Sent: 13 September 2007 10:16
To: uni info
Subject:Designated smoking areas
Dear colleague

Further to recent changes to the smoking law, the university has provided a designated smoking area close to most buildings. Smokers are politely asked to use these areas with immediate effect. Smoking is no longer permitted elsewhere on the university's premises.

The location of each designated smoking area is as follows:
Eastbourne
Hillbrow and Sports Centre - grass triangle adjacent to Gaudick, Denton and Carlisle crossroad
Trevin Towers - Rose garden at rear of building
Welkin and Bishopsbourne - Bishopsbourne barbecue lawn
Aldro - Aldro therapy garden
Robert Dodd and Greynore - H block garden
Leaf Hospital - area of rear lawn (hospice side)
Queenwood - area of Ward Hall lawn

University Centre Hastings - not possible

As you can see, it has not been possible to provide a designated smoking area near to some buildings and where this is the case, smokers are able to access the public street easily.

Thank you for your co-operation.

Regards,

From: Jim Jones (Health Professions)
Sent: 14 September 2007 12:19
To: h health professions staff;
Subject: FW: Designated smoking areas
Ironic that the Aldro smoking area is the Therapy garden! Does this have to be the case?
Jim

From: Lovely
Sent: 14 September 2007 12:35
To: h health professions staff; Bridge Kevin
Subject: RE: Designated smoking areas
no... I feel quite strongly that the Therapy garden should not be a smoking area! Whilst you might be able to make a perfectly good fertilizer from cigarette butts I don't think it is fair that those studying horticulture in the therapy garden should have to pick them out of the flower beds!

From: Bridge Kevin
Sent: 14 September 2007 12:51
To: h health professions staff
Subject: RE: Designated smoking areas
Dear all

The Therapy garden is the closest place to Aldro that provides a pleasant space for socialising (as specified by the university), whilst keeping smoke away from buildings.

An ashtray has been provided for cigarette ends.

Regards,

From: Jim Jones (Health Professions)
Sent: 14 September 2007 13.02
To: h health professions staff;
Subject: FW: Designated smoking areas
But surely as a teaching area there should not be smoking in it? - Is smoking allowed on sports fields which are also pleasant areas away from buildings?
Could this be reviewed?
Jim

From: Patsy Mcbride (Health Professions)
Sent: 21 September 2007 13.29
To: h health professions staff;
Subject: FW: Designated smoking areas
Dear Viviene and Kevin

Last week you informed us of the university's designated areas for smoking. On the same day, it was surprising to find an extremely conspicuous sign for the smoking area firmly in place in the 'Therapy Garden'. It would have been good to have some prior notice of this intention and an opportunity for discussion.

I would like to add to my colleagues' comments that this is an environment where students are taught and therefore not one where smoking should be sanctioned. Also on a practical level, I think it unrealistic to expect people to walk in wet weather across a lawn where there's no path, in order to use an ash tray. I believe it is far more likely that they will remain on the tarmac near the students' greenhouse.

Finally, while I would not condemn people to smoke around bins or in car parks, I see no reason why they should be encouraged into an area that has been painstakingly made into an amenity for all.

I hope there can be accommodation on this matter although I note the concrete fixing!

Best wishes
Patsy

WE ARE STILL AWAITING A REPLY!!!


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Strange how cycling weaves itself throughout my life

I suppose that it is just because I look out for other cyclists that I notice them but they do seem to appear everywhere I go! One day in the campsite in France a camper-van appeared and an older English couple got out. They saw Ian changing the tyres on my bike and immediately offered to lend us a track pump. As we cycled off Ian commented that they must know what they were doing with regard to bikes as they had pretty decent touring bikes with them. We thought they might be in their 60s and enjoying their retirement. Later that day we chatted to them, initially about cycling in general and then about bikes, then about where they cycled, racing and then about the Tour de France...I told them that Ian and I had been Marshals at which point they told us that they had been invited as V.I.P. guests to the opening ceremony but had declined as they had been on holiday! They were invited because he had ridden the Tour de France in 1961, when there were national teams. They had both raced with all the big names of that era and were personal friends of the Boardman's, in fact their son had been one of his mechanics. Turned out they were more like 70+ than 60! On a couple of days they road their bikes as far as we did in much less time! When they were talking about the Tour de France I lamented that they must have been riding in the days when the sport was not tainted by drugs. I was soon put right on that one. "Don't you believe it! The sport was full of drugs, everyone was taking it! We (the British riders) were all given something to take if we thought that we were in with a chance of winning although none of us got anywhere near!"

We met other cyclists as well. One of the builders had a trophy on his desk and when we asked him about it he said he had been the road race champion of Aquitane when he was 25, although he had to give it up when he started his business. Ian also spoke with someone who made iron frames (for the barn) who told him that he had been the French champion in the Madison (a strange track race where cyclists race round in pairs and propel each other forward at various stages!)

The wolf strikes again

Lupus gets its name from the butterfly rash that typically appears over the face and people used to think looked rather wolf-like. I mentioned in an earlier post that over the summer the daughter of a colleague of Ian's was taken ill, eventually diagnosed with lupus and died very suddenly at the age of 26.

http://myweb.lsbu.ac.uk/~fintan/seana

This link gives all the details better than I ever could. Ian sent it to me as he thought it might mean something to me. It certainly did and I could identify with a lot of the things they went through, especially her refusal to let anyone go with her to hospital (I certainly did that!) and the strange and insidious presentation of the disease with its sudden serious climax. I feel incredibly thankful and also a little guilty that my outcome was more positive. I think when the coin was thrown up in the air mine landed one way and hers landed the other as when I asked my consultant if I would still be here if I had waited until my appointment time before getting seen he didn't answer.

Best of times, worst of times 2

Well, my sister's life is certainly full of highs and lows at the moment. At the weekend Ian and I went to Hamburg to support her as she competed in the Triathlon World Championships. She had really worked hard to qualify to represent Great Britain in the age-group categories and was thrilled to get there (despite the fact that she had to fund herself, including buying her GB kit and race entry fee). When we arrived she was having a few pre-race jitters and we spent the day checking her bike with her, going through the course and watching her practice getting on and off the bike quickly. She had an 8.50 a.m. start the following morning and we just about got there on time to see her start her swim. We then ran over to see her get out of the water and cheered her and all the other athletes on as loudly as we could, waving the rattles that had been given out by the organisers. We then went to see her as she got off the bike and started her run and finally dashed across to the end so that we could see her as she came through the finish line. (We were both exhausted after that!) The atmosphere throughout was great. The athletes were enjoying the competition and the spectators (including us) got into the spirit of it and cheered everyone. My voice was hoarse afterwards! She came 38th out of 78 and was pleased with her performance but I think mostly she just enjoyed the experience of being there and taking part, which is exactly what I hoped for her. As Ian and I were waiting for the plane to take us home that evening I sent her a text saying that I hoped she enjoyed herself at the party that evening at that Dad would have been really proud of her representing her country and doing so well. She told my mum that it had been the best day of her life, that the cheering was great and that she felt really proud to be representing her country. As she crossed the finish line she was really touched that people came up and shook her hand. (The picture is of my sister and her friend at the end of the race)

As we were waiting by the swim start one of the competitors, a young Canadian girl, came up and told the organisers that she was really scared. The organisers calmed her down with reassuring words and we also said some encouraging things, but what I really wanted to say was that she was so lucky, to be there, to be representing her country and to be blessed with the health, fitness and abilities that she had and she should just go out and celebrate that and not worry about anything else!

French neighbours

When Ian and I were in France we got to meet our prospective neighbours! I seem to enjoy writing about my neighbours so here goes. The land that joins Ian's is owned by Herman, a sixty something Englishman who has lived in France for the last 20 years. Herman lives by himself (and his recently acquired dog) in the run down 'Moulin'. He keeps a few sheep, grows herbs and sells them at the local market and lives a fairly basic life with little money and company. The road and bridge into the Moulin were declared impassable to traffic 20 years ago and his one functioning vehicle collapsed at the strain of driving across what remains of the bridge while we were there. As we left he was contemplating an alternative exit through a 'chemin rural' (basically a bridleway) that will definitely not be passable in the rain unless you have a tractor! After his day at the market he calls into to see some of the other neighbours and enjoys a glass of wine or two before he staggers back across the field. We had met him before but on this occasion he started off by being particularly gloomy; telling us of how cold it is in winter, how hard it is to make a living and how many English people come out and then return. However, after a while he mellowed a little and we got a glimpse of his humour and more devilish side as he told us stories about the other neighbours. I think Herman is someone for whom the glass is mostly half empty. What I learnt from that is that if you are a miserable bastard in England you will probably be a miserable bastard in France. Mind you, I think that with Herman some of it is a bit of a dramatic act put on for visitors.

The house that borders the land near the road was recently bought by an English couple and we called in and introduced ourselves. Peter and Hazel run a successful entertainment business in the UK that they plan to continue with but are in the process of moving the majority of their life over to France. With them came their cat and Peter's 84 year old father Albert. When we met Albert he was a little down as he had just returned from hospital, where they had told him to stop smoking. After 60 years of nicotine he quit cold-turkey and it turned out that some of his moods and symptoms were caused by nicotine withdrawal. We met him a second time a week later and he had really perked up after getting some nicotine patches. Albert was probably the most alert out of the lot of us. He had been into cycling as a young man and told Ian and I about the bikes he used to ride (we turned up the first time on our bikes). He had worked as a master carpenter and his hands were badly arthritic (and had been for about 40 years) but it didn't stop him from doing anything! Peter and Hazel had finally decided to make a major change in their lives after Hazel's parents died and Peter had a potentially life threatening illness that had made him seriously rethink his priorities. In their business lives Peter is a record producer and one coincidence was that they had recorded many times in the studio in London that my brother has bought (and is hoping to renovate). It was strange to think that when Ian and I stayed there last New Years Eve we slept in the control room where Peter had sat and sweated many times!

Our holiday

Ian and I are off the France next week to see if we can find someone to build the house on the land and to spend some time getting to know the area where we may end up living. It's quite exiting. On the way back we are going to visit the llama breeders to see their llamas!

Best of times, worst of times

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

This is the opening sentence of A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, referring to the time of the French Revolution. My sister says it is like her life has been this year and she is longing for a time when it will just be normal.

Foot and mouth

One thing that I didn't know about llamas until today was that they can get foot and mouth disease. I had read somewhere that they didn't get it but was a little confused when the papers reported that llamas were susceptible to foot and mouth and that the Surrey hills llamas were being closely monitored for signs. (We currently have a foot and mouth outbreak in cattle in Surrey, possibly linked to the local drug company and agricultural research laboratory that produce animal vaccines for foot and mouth disease). I read up on it a little more and it seems that llamas can get foot and mouth and can transmit it but are not particularly susceptible, have few symptoms and recover from it quickly. They seem to have a natural resilience to most strains of the disease. I got to thinking about how awful it must be then to raise your heard of llamas over the years (these are raised predominantly as pets or breeding stock) and then have to face the possibility of them being slaughtered on your farm, especially as they are not likely to suffer too much as a result of the disease. I don't think I would be able to bear that and I can now understand how many farmers who lost their herds in the last outbreak became depressed and suicidal. I spoke to a friend this evening who lives near the area and we decided that in the Autumn we will go on a llama trek with the Surrey llamas so I will keep my fingers crossed that they are still there!

Aftermath of the fires

The fires on Gran Canaria encompassed all the areas and places that we cycled. It seems that they are now out but these are the pictures of the aftermath. They make sad viewing. One is of Ayagaures, one of palmitos park and one of St Bartolome de Tirajana.

View from Ayagaures

This was a picture that I downloaded from the Herald Tribune website taken of the view from Ayagaures yesterday.

Sequal to village day

I have just heard that the villagers of Ayagaures (see post 3rd May) have been evacuated as forest fires are destroying the whole of the area in Gran Canaria where we cycled in May. All those lovely tracks and trails and all the wildlife and plants are now smouldering away. One day we cycled up to Palmitos park. The hill to the park was amongst the steepest I have ever ridden up and even in May the temperature was 35 degrees. It is now over 45 degrees and windy and a land ranger who had just been sacked admitted to starting the fire that destroyed 65% of the park. I read that they set free a lot of the rare birds before the fire hit. Above is a picture of the park in May.

More llamas

I found his picture on the internet. I thought he was rather cute and somehow he slipped into a lecture I was doing on ethics the other day and he is now on my office door. Ian and I are calling in to the llama breeders on our way back from the land in August to look at their llamas. We are hoping to find someone to build the house before then! I have decided that the first male llama to be born on the farm will be called Serge after Serge Lama. According to Wikipedia Serge Lama is a French singer who was born in Bordeau in 1943. His most famous song is je suis malade (I am ill). The first female llama will be called Eleanor after Eleanor of Aquitaine. We may spell it the French way Aliénor . She was one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in Europe during the High Middle Ages and was married to the Kings of France and England in turn.

Drugs 3

I have to take drugs to stay well. There is quite a rigmarole to my drug regime. In the morning I must take my steroids with food, except for on Wednesdays when I have to get up earlier and take a tablet before the others. This one is to stop the steroids from giving me osteoporosis and I must take that on an empty stomach, with a pint of water and stay upright for at least half an hour. Mid morning I need to take my immunosupressant tablets one hour before food. I also need to take them again just before I go to be (also on an empty stomach, although mostly I don't manage that!)Once a month I have to remember to get e new prescription from my GP and then collect the drugs from the pharmacy. Once every two months I have to remember to have a blood test to make sure the drugs are not doing anything too nasty to my body. Long term the drugs may make me more prone to cancer, give me thin bones and type 11 diabetes. Short term I get numb feet sometimes and an upset stomach but I am well and able to live an ordinary life. The daughter of a colleague of Ian died yesterday after a stroke caused by her lupus so my drug regime is a very small price to pay.

Drugs 2

Why do people take drugs at all? One of my neighbours (Maud) asked me the other day if I knew of any inpatient drug rehabilitation centres where her daughter Jane could go. Apparently she had a heroin problem years ago but had been clean for sometime. She then got back in contact with an ex-boyfriend who has a habit and before long was back on it again (he was encouraging her as by keeping her addicted he can get her to do whatever he wants). She doesn't really admit to having a problem but her nine year old daughter was beginning to notice what was going on at home and when Maud pried a little deeper she realised that it had become quite an addiction. Maud took the daughter in to live with her but was concerned about Jane and was trying to get her to go and get some help. I found her the names of a few places but I am not sure whether it has had any affect. I haven't seen Jane for a while but that may not be a good thing. She has already had two deep venous thrombosis (most likely from injecting into her groin) she does not have access to clean needles as she is not a registered addict and is encouraged to steal and earn money for fixes through prostitution. I would think that using condoms is the last thing she thinks about.

Drugs

I can't help being a little disappointed about the drugs scandal that came to light in the later stages of the tour. I had just watched what looked like a fantastic ride by Alexandra Vinokourov, the pre-race favourite. In the earlier stages of the race he had been knocked off his bike and badly hurt but continued cycling with 55 stitches in his knees. He had struggled up the hills in the first stages in the Alps and looked all but finished but then as if by a miracle, managed to ride a fantastic time trial a day or so later and won the stage. It didn't do much for his overall chances of winning the race as he was already well behind, but seemed to restore his pride and his motivation. The first day in the Pyrenees he had seemed to be struggling again but the following day he was recovered, broke away from the main contenders (as he was no threat to them overall they let him go for a while) and won the stage again, finishing at the top of the Col de Peyresourde, an infamous haute categorie (beyond classification) Tour de France climb. I admired him at that moment for his determination, his ability to fight back, his ability to ride through the pain until a good day came and sheer bloody mindedness! I heard later that he had been sent home that night and his team withdrawn from the race because his blood test taken after the time-trial had shown that he had someone else's blood in him as well as his own! (Blood doping is the practice of illicitly boosting the number of red blood cells (RBCs) in the circulation in order to enhance athletic performance. Because they carry oxygen from the lungs to the muscles, more RBCs in the blood can improve an athlete’s aerobic capacity and stamina. You can use your own blood, collected a few weeks earlier or get it from someone else. This is more risky as it is easier to detect).

The blood taken after the mountain stage has also tested positive for blood doping and it turned out that what I had been watching was someone so determined to get his share of glory and his win that he was prepared to cheat. On the same day a Cofidis rider (maybe one of the ones pictured below) had tested positive for testosterone and his whole team were sent home (he at least had the courtesy to admit it when caught). Finally, Michael Rasmussen, someone who I have watched and admired over the years, was sent home by his team because he lied about his whereabouts in the weeks preceding the tour and so missed four drugs tests. So as well as some of the riders I feel a bit bruised and battered with disappointment by the performance of these big names. I don't know what makes such an athlete decide to risk the credibility of his whole career by doing one stupid thing. Some of them have lots of excuses (the most bizarre one from Vinokourov was that his earlier injury had resulted in his thighs getting filled with extra blood, although that doesn't explain why he had another man's blood in his veins) but mostly they are unconvincing. It was great to see one of the youngest riders, Alberto Contador, take the yellow jersey in Paris but I couldn't help wondering whether his ability to keep speeding up going up a mountain with more that a 10% gradient was just down to youth and natural talent or fueled by something else as yet undetectable. I am sorry Alberto if I have insulted you but you can't blame me for being a bit jaded.

My mother's new house

I visited my mother in her new house over the weekend. She is a little dazed and disoriented but seems to be settling in and enjoys staring out of her window at the comings and goings in the police station next door. She can't work out how to use the intercom yet but in two minutes had worked out how to use the TV remote for her new digibox!

Curse of the mountains

The Tour arrived in the Alps on Saturday. The Tour de France is really a series of races and battles within a race. There are riders that are good at riding out on their own and competing against the clock, riders that are good at giving it everything they have over the last few metres and racing for the line and riders that can ride up mountains. Very rarely do you get a rider who is good at more than one of these disciplines; and if you do they are the ones that will most likely to go on to win the yellow jersey and the race overall. So, for the first week of the race the sprinters have it pretty much to themselves as there are no hills to speak of, but it is when The Tour hits the mountains that the action begins. For the sprinters it is a case of giving 150 percent just to stay in the race. Many don't make it and retire or are eliminated and for them the race is over. For the hill climbers it is their chance to make their mark. However, the mountains are funny places. Some days you feel great and all the hours of training pay off. Your legs feel good and as you round the corners you have just a little more strength than the others and the mountain air spurs you on to the top. On other days your legs feel like lead and you can't get over the feeling of imminent death and collapse! In the Alps you could see the agony on the faces of those in trouble (on the flatter stages you can sometimes disguise your pain but the mountains do not take any prisoners). There is something about the high alps that tests your body to its limits and if there is anything there it will find it. The first symptoms of my connective tissue disease appeared the week after returning from a week skiing in Le Grand Bornand and my mothers illness was triggered in a similar fashion two years later. This year the first stage in the Alps finished in Le Grand Bornand after a 16km climb over the Col de la Columbiere. My brother was there to watch the riders as they sped past on the descent to the finish. After he had to visit my sister-in-law in hospital. The mountains had claimed another victim and she had been admitted the day before with what turned out to be appendicitis and peritonitis.

During my first trip to the Alps 18 months after my illness I cycled up the Col de la Columbiere (from the easy side). It took me two hours and I felt like I was going to collapse at several points but when I reached the top I did feel like I had gone some way to beating my own mountain curse.

The best view in the house

This couple had camped out all night on Westminster Bridge to get a good view of the riders as they passed in front of the Houses of Parliament. They got there at 8.00pm the night before and said it was a bit cold but that they had actually slept a little. I didn't get to see them afterwards to see if they had enjoyed it or got the view that they hoped for.

Le Grand Départ

Yesterday we fulfilled our duties as volunteer marshals on stage one of the Tour de France. Luckily, after weeks of rain, the sun decided to shine all day and although at 5.30 a.m. when we arrived at our meeting point, it was pretty chilly by the time the peleton passed through it had warmed up nicely. We managed to get a good spot near the start of the race on Westminster Bridge. From where I was standing I could see Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament directly in front of me and it wasn’t long before the tourists, visitors and photographers realised that this was a prime location. That said everything was very orderly and people were very well behaved. Our job was to make up the numbers (we had to wear bright day-glo orange tabards) and the only thing we really got involved in was asking people not to sit, step, and put their feet or any other part of their body into the road. (The reason being that with close to 200 riders and narrow roads they use up every bit of space going including the gutter and can easily hit anything that protrudes into their path; as happened later on in the race when a pedestrian got in the way of a British rider, knocked him off and ruined any chance he had of getting back into the sprint finish). We weren’t really needed as such but I suppose might have been if anything untoward had happened. At about 7.30 a.m. we could hear police sirens and looked up to see a convoy of British motorcycle police coming over the bridge, providing a formal ceremonial escort to their equivalent in the French Gendarme who had come over with ‘le tour’. The publicity caravan passed through rather noisily at 8.30 but at that point there weren’t many people around to see it; mostly people returning from their night out! After that various team cars and vehicles came through; almost all the passengers turned to look at Big Ben and took a photo and some drivers and motor bike riders stopped, got out of their cars and took pictures of themselves with Big Ben in the background (to cheers and applause from the gathering crowd). In the crowd we discussed the fact that the ‘carbon footprint’ of ‘le tour’ with all its associated support vehicles, publicity, team cars, buses, vans etc (the size of small town that gets up and moves everyday) was considerable! Finally, after much excitement and build up the riders came through. They weren’t actually racing at this point but gently riding (at 25miles and hour) around the sights of London. I think if the riders could have got off their bikes and taken a photo they would of and I caught this picture of two from the Cofidis team glancing over their shoulders to get a glimpse of the view. Our job was done by 11.00 and we headed off to watch the rest of the race in the sun, on the big screen in St James’s Park. Later that day Ian and I followed the route the riders took out of London, through Deptford, Woolwich, Erith and Dartford and they certainly got to see some of the very best and very worst sights although at that point I expect they were going so fast they didn't notice!