Passing Through

Juneathon day 16: cycle 14.6 miles 1hr 5min

There are some places you just pass through. Hemel is one of them.

An estate agent would say that it’s well connected and although that is true it is not really the point. It is a place people pass through on their way to somewhere else. It is on the Grand Union Canal, a major 19th Century link between London and Birmingham,then came rail and it is on the West Coast Mainline. The past half decade it has been the era of motorways and the M1 and M25 pass close by.

Even though Hemel Hempstead is not a destination, a couple of years ago I thought it was the most frequently mentioned town on the radio but solely because there were always traffic jams at Junction 8 of the M1.

I took the picture of the M1, just before Junction 8, not because of any interest in motorways but because these major trunk routes are big black lines written over my local landscape. The can also be surprising because you can be almost unaware they are so close. Today my cycle ride took me along some quiet, singletrack roads, with woodland either side and lovely dappled lighting as the sun filtered through the leaves. Suddenly it opened up and there was the motorway full of traffic scurrying along.

I looked at it for a few moments and thought of the rush and the pleasures I was having meandering. It gave me a couple of seconds of smug pleasure, especially as I knew that in a few hundred yards the M1 would once more be invisible and I would be alone on a twisty lane with high hedgerows, trees and the sound of birdsong.

Juneathon statistics 16/16
Run 11/16
distance 75.96km
time 6hr 59min
Cycle 3/16
distance 54.4 miles
time 4hr 03min
Gym 2/16
time 1hr 35min