I awoke to the sound of rain. When it stopped briefly, that was my cue to pack quickly and hit the road, not even waiting long enough to make coffee and porridge.

• Today’s Distance (miles/km): 59 / 95
• Time in saddle: 5h 30
• Max/min temp – in sun (°c): 22°/16°
• Climbing (feet) : 2,497
• Calories used: ? Didn’t record
• Today’s 1st Breakfast: Starbucks, Bath
• Today’s 2nd Breakfast: Other Side Diner, Portland
• Cafe time: 4h 25

Supper last night was not a sad, lonely camper’s Mac’n’Cheese, which I admit it may look like at first:

It was actually a homage to Brad Pitt, who plays stuntman Cliff in Quentin Tarrantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. Watch the whole brilliant clip below, or jump to 2’ 00. I’m living the Hollywood Dream here. I’m a bit fixated on just how good this film is.

I think it’s going to be a blog post featuring a lot of movies today. The poor weather makes me want to be in a nice, warm, dry cinema watching a classic film and eating hot dogs and popcorn. I used to live very near the Everyman Cinema in Hampstead and my perfect free day was buying one ticket then staying to watch as many as three different movies for the price of admission. In between you could pop out to the Polish deli over the road and get a massive sandwich and a beer, then run back in for the start of the second or third feature.

Has anyone else noticed just how often Brad Pitt is eating in the films he’s made? The zenith is his part of Rusty Ryan in Ocean’s 11 & 13 (I don’t count 12 because it’s such an awful film compared with these two). He’s even eating when he’s waiting to collect Danny (George Clooney) from prison. When I tried to find an example, I found out that a lot of people have indeed had the same thought.

My priority today was to get off Route 1 and try out the old State Road equivalent as soon as I could. The traffic noise on the main highway is awful when it rains. It was a good decision, and turned out to have lots of stopping places. This included 1st breakfast at Starbucks west of Bath, waiting an hour for the rain to let up a bit.

I kept following the plan and stayed off the ‘1’, and the country roads were lovely, if very wet and with no stopping places to speak of. The coast road through Falmouth heading for Portland was a kind of millionaire’s alley of luxury homes, with huge properties with even huge-r lawns and boats and waterfronts. No pics again I’m afraid, due to the weather. Except this, which is such welcome sight wherever you come across it:

I stopped for 2nd breakfast (I only had coffee and a croissant in Starbucks, after all), just before crossing Tukey’s Bridge into Portland. It wasn’t really a planned stop, more a voice shouting in my head ‘I WANT HOT COFFEE!’, and which turned out to also want a massive late breakfast.

A Canadian review I once received of my book said that the descriptions of WHAT I ate along the way were one of their favourite parts – so watch out…I’m going to keep my audience happy on this trip.

And here’s the sort of thing I spend time sorting out whenever I make stops like this one. Checking that I can actually get to where I want to be!

One last thing to mention from the lunch stop is that within a few hours of each other my eldest son Sam has arrived in Prague for a conference, my younger son Jacob has returned from a last-minute trip with friends to Poznan in Poland, and my wife Susie is about to leave for Stockholm to see her sisters. I’m the one barely moving compared with them.

The afternoon was an (almost) utter washout. Rain, rain, and then more rain.

I did manage to enjoy this greenway through Portland just after the diner. It was deserted because the road was closed and ran next to a lovely marshy inlet:

I pulled over to get out of the deluge at the Fairfield Mariott Hotel, checked their rates, laughed, then found a ‘cheap’ motel online and booked it. It’s amazing how my spirits recover once this simple task has been performed. Rain, do your worst, I don’t care, I’ve got a ROOM!

En route for the Sunrise Motel I followed the beautiful Eastern Trail for a few miles, where the rain held off just long enough for a picture or two. It was an incredibly peaceful and atmospheric spot, full of the sound of birds simply not giving a monkeys about the weather. Just like me. (I’ve got a room).

I saw flocks of what looked like sanderlings – do they have them here Sam? Or anyone??

So now I’m surrounded by drying gear once more, with the fan blowing warm air, and I’ve got endless episodes of Seinfeld playing on the TV. It feels so good to be out of the weather for a while. Things are looking up again. Let’s see what tomorrow will bring.

SIGNS THAT ARE FUNNY: This is from the ride into Bath this morning:

Yet another movie link sprang to mind today: