Seventeen miles and never a puncture

They did it – The Owen family took part in the Norfolk Churches sponsored cycle ride last Saturday.

The managed to visit 8 churches in the Broads area and cycled 17 miles. Never mind about the ancient camera man (that’s me by the way) – remember the Owen crew which consisted of Ruth Owen (age not disclosed), Eleanor – often known as Ellie aged 6 and Joshua definitely aged 3.

Ellie was on her new bike for the first time and managed the distance (17 miles) without any trouble. You need to know that when we started

Ellie had to be taught and get used to the fact that the new bike had 8 gears – for her something of a new phenomenon. There was a sort of quick lesson from mum after the first church and Ellie soon got the hang of it (not bad for a 6 year old).

We went to Neatishead, Irstead and at least six other churches. They were mainly new to me. I just had the job of being “tail-end-Charlie” – yeh I know more Charlie than anything else. I just issued a warning when tractors and trailers roared up behind us. To be fair the agricultural drivers were terribly patient – so too were vehicles coming in the opposite direction.

I suppose looked at from their point of view what they saw was a lady with an arm waving 3 year old on the child seat behind her, a six year old who from time to time wobbled a bit and a lunatic at the back who was riding a bike and managing no less than 3 cameras.

But they did it- and the sun shone – not a drop of rain and they managed to raise £355 in support of Barton Turf Church (their local).

My thanks to those of my readers who dug deep into their pockets for the cause. Personal thank you expressions are a bit difficult because a number of donations were anonymous, but we were all delighted with the outcome.