There was a dad in the pool yesterday afternoon, who was being just great with his young son and older daughter, maybe 3 & 6 years old? He was teaching the son to jump into the water, encouraging him to count down 3-2-1 to pluck up the courage to launch himself in, and telling him not to drink ALL the water in pool (which I remember saying to our Sam & Jacob when they were little). In between these bouts of leaping the dad was throwing his daughter as high in the air as she’d let him, and she was screeching with delight, totally relying on him being there to half-catch her in the water every time. I chatted to him about how much fun kids had at the campground, and he seemed to me to be relishing his time with his little ones. The thing about him, though, and what stuck in my mind, was that had a great big tattoo across his back in gothic blue ink, stretching from one shoulder to the other, which said: TRUST NO ONE.

• Today’s Distance (miles): 32
• Time in saddle: 2h 44
• Max/min temp – in sun (°c): 23°/21°
• Climbing (feet) : 1,868
• Calories used: 2,107
• Today’s 2nd Breakfast: none!
• Cafe time: 1h 01 (spent in a Garden Centre looking at the rain)

Everyone told me that the breakfast at River Bend Cafe was excellent, but that it only happened on Sundays. Luckily, everything worked out on that front today – I was leaving on a Sunday but didn’t need to rush as I didn’t have that far to go (more on that later), I’d managed to pack up my life into four red bags during a two-hour lull in the rain, and I ate in the Pavillion whilst yet more rain thundered down on the roof and streamed off the marquees. It felt like just about the best way to be outside in the rain.

You’re probably tired of hearing that it rained during the night, but, well, so am I! I also picked up a new level of weather warning to drive home the unusual nature of the summer weather here:

I only had around 38 miles to cover, because I’d arranged to stay with another Warm Showers host this evening. He’s a keen amateur violinist and lives right next to the lighthouse in New London, at the estuary where the River Thames (ha!) meets the ocean. It’s also only a few miles from the Cross Sound Ferry that I’m taking tomorrow over to see Long Island. As a rule of thumb, 10 miles takes 1 hour on this bike (sometimes a lot more, sometimes a lot less!) so it should be a 4+ hour trip. As I write this I’m just sitting out the worst of it in the dry, taking my own sweet time. Since I’ve got some time on my hands, here’s a Long Island story for you:

In 1997 I was on a world tour with the fantastic Israeli-American violinist, Pinchas Zukerman and the English Chamber Orchestra. The day after our Carnegie Hall concert, Pinky (as everyone calls him) invited us out to his Long Island home for a proper rest-day lunch party by the pool. So off we went, with the coach driver telling us he knew where he was going. Pinky was already there, folding paper napkins and making the floral table arrangements (not). The driver, it turned out, had almost no idea where he was going. We just got to roughly the part of Long Island where we all knew Pinky lived (some of the older members of the orchestra had been invited to his house several times before), and stopped. This was still pretty much pre-cell-phone era, so we were a bit stuck. The driver tried a phone box, but it didn’t work. Then the tour manager, Malcolm, had a brain wave: we all knew that Pinky adored sushi. There was a phone book in the call box. He looked up local sushi. Malcolm called the restaurant and said ‘Do you know a Mr. Pinchas Zukerman?’ ‘Sure!’, said the sushi man. ‘Mr Zukerman is a regular customer’. Malcolm went on to explain our predicament, then asked, ‘Where does he live?’, grinning at us all as we watched him doing his brilliant-tour-manager thing. The man gave Malcolm pinpoint directions, memorised from having delivered sushi to him on so many occasions, at any time of the day or night (Pinky lives in a world of permanent jet-lag time zones). We were there ten minutes later. As we came through the door to a wonderful welcome from Pinky, he waved at the tables by the pool outside and said, ‘Come on in guys, and dig in – I’ve ordered sushi!’

RAIN: After waiting in the Pavillion for around four hours (if you include eating breakfast) the rain was still coming down pretty strongly. Deciding when the good moment was to leave was becoming a bit of a challenge. The loudest rain was at precisely 12.51pm. Then it got outdone by the rain at 12.59pm. And 1.47pm.

I like to post the occasional video of sea swims, but today I thought it would be more appropriate to include this instead. After five hours of waiting, writing, messaging and watching Mathilda, The Musical on my iPad, I thought I’d do something to show my gratitude to the Pavillion for keeping me dry. It didn’t make a huge amount of difference, but it passed the time:

RANDOM PHOTOGRAPHS INCLUDED BECAUSE I’VE GOT TIME TO KILL:

When I talk to people about the charity I’m raising money for on this trip, Humanity & Inclusion (I even like typing the name; those are two words I value very highly), and if the conversation gets round to their work in Ukraine helping innocent victims of missile strikes and the unimaginable tonnage of ordinance (land mines) that the Russians have left buried as they retreat, I’m really struck by how engaged with this particular conflict the average American appears to be. Certainly more than I’d expected to find. It might be a case of the aggressor being their old cold-war enemy of Russia, or that it’s such a shameless example of land-grabbing, but it’s still big news here. Historically, all of the western world is on pretty shaky ground when it comes to land grabbing – we’ve all done it, for hundreds (thousands?) of years. It still doesn’t make it right. This morning I had two such conversations over the Pavillion camp breakfast, and the promises to support the charity gave me a welcome lift.

AN AFTERNOON ON THE BIKE: The afternoon of cycling began when the rain said so – it kind of stopped, for want of a better word, so I left. The first forty five minutes were fine, except for one thing: I had another encounter with a big crazy dog. I’d just passed one of the many farms along the backroads I took, and saw two large white-haired guard dogs romping around on the front lawn. Both of them started barking – nothing unusual about that. But then the bigger of the two (of course) seemed to move up a gear of aggression and start barking and snarling, and running straight for me. Who knows, maybe he was just a great big friendly snarling barking softy, but I felt it was unlikely. He dropped his head and started running after me. There was a big dip in the road coming up followed by one of those ascents I was talking about yesterday, so I put on some speed, thinking, no way he’s going to keep chasing me that far. But the barking continued and he seemed to have some very impressive staying power. I got to the top of the hill and he was still coming. Another dip and hill appeared, and my heart was pounding by now from the alarm (see photo below) and the effort but I went for these two with maximum effort, just in case this dog was really going to go for me. I got to the top of the next hill, thinking the same ‘he cannot still be following me after all that’ thoughts, but stone me, there he was, pounding up the second big hill towards me, still barking. With little rational thought left in my head, I had just enough to think that maybe getting out of sight was the priority. I rounded the next bend and the next, which reached a big junction with a highway, and turned round, to find he had gone. I had my heart rate monitor on at the time, and have just noticed the crazy peaks!

The rest of the ride was in torrential rain for most of the way. I abandoned temporarily when I reached a Garden Centre, but after nearly an hour I decided to just get very wet again. Thankfully my wonderful host for the evening, Richard in New London, offered to meet me at shopping mall a few miles nearer, as the bridge I was planning to use had recently been damaged, and bikes were no longer permitted. I drank a cup of hot tea until he arrived, we threw my bike in the back of his pickup truck, and were eating pasta and meatballs within the hour. Betsy and Richard gave me a wonderful evening, which included a once-over for his nice German violin c1850, and some suggestions for getting it into better shape (clean the strings, Richard, just imagine it’s a bike chain).

Now I’m done. Short day on the bike, but exhausting and full in every other way. From my sunroom window I have the sea lapping almost within touching distance and two lighthouses flashing. (I thought I’d taken a photo but found nothing!). It’s a truly amazing location to spend an amazing night in America.

AMAZING AND UNEXPECTED WAVE OF CAMPING-THEMED SONG SUGGESTIONS: Firstly, many thanks to Jake R for sharing this beautiful Civil War song, Tenting Tonight On The Old Campground

Next is this exquisite number from Bing again, Where My Caravan Has Rested, suggested by John Mills. As he says, the violin obligato is as beautifully played as anything you could think of .

SIGNS THAT ARE FUNNY: