• Today’s Distance (miles): 36
• Time in saddle: 3h 21
• Max/min temp – in full sun (°c): 39°/24°
• Climbing (feet) : 282
• Calories used: 2002
• Today’s 2nd Breakfast: Coffee and an apple juice (yup, that’s it) at Island Bagels, Carolina Beach NC
• Cafe time: 2h 56

I woke up to find that the City Cafe had posted a photo of my visit yesterday on their Facebook page, plus a couple of shots of my card to encourage donations – many thanks for the support ladies!

I thought I’d post another of my mum’s poems today. Her book is keeping me company on this trip, and I missed the chance to post this one, Chafer’s Wood, on Yorkshire Day. It’s set in 1949, in a beautiful wood next to the house in Yorkshire where she spent many years living as a child and teenager. (The beautiful house, Cliff House, Ebberston, is now a holiday let, and Mum booked it for a family holiday a year or so ago. The memories just poured out of her the whole time we were there, and Susie made a beautiful film of her reminiscing).

There’s another reason to be posting mum’s poems today, but I’ll come to that later on.

More synchronicity ensued. It was as if by mentioning my mum’s book here I had created a connection elsewhere. As I arrived in the old town part of Wilmington, a blue building caught my eye:

I was staggered at the coincidence: my mum was very interested in the Japanese theory of Wabi-Sabi – which you could sum up as being concerned with appreciating both transience and imperfection in all things – so the thought of a Wabi-Sabi Wharehouse art space appearing out of nowhere like this was too good to pass by. The pot on the cover of Mum’s poetry book was created in the spirit of Wabi-Sabi by her friend, the potter Elspeth Owen. If you look on the back cover…

…you’ll find the same pot deliberately broken, or made imperfect. As I took these two photos, a woman who worked at the art space was just arriving, so I called out hello. The result was a fascinating conversation about film and art and Wilmington which extended to a visit inside and the chance to meet the entire staff of the WSW:

Old Wilmington was absolutely charming, very quiet, and often c-o-b-b-l-e-d (that’s me bouncing on them). Let’s try a gallery (click anywhere to scroll through):

Then I set off for the ferry over to Southport, which was about 15 miles south, along gorgeous bike lanes!!!

It even took me on a cool and unusual route through the main container port, which was fascinating. I love ports, I even love the word ‘port’, but if you just add the word ‘air’ in front of it, I go right off it. Containers were stacked high along the wharves, rail tracks ran into the road at risky angles (for bikes!), and there was lot of old, rusted metal on view.

I stopped just after the big road bridge that took me over the Cape Fear River (such a great name, derived from the many shipwrecks off this Cape, I believe), first at a bike shop who sold me two inner tubes for an exorbitant amount of money (my road bike tyre size, they told me, is a little unusual here), and then at Island Bagels for coffee and a sit down, and to write up the blog (these 2nd brkfst stops are where much of the writing work gets done, if you haven’t figured that out already). I sat in the cafe for ages typing and route planning for the next few days, only packing up to leave when they were closing at 2pm. We all got chatting outside as I packed, where I discovered that the two women who ran it were from Chicago and New Jersey, so that led to lots of stories about the winters up north, etc. Then before I set off they very kindly gave me a bag of the last three bagels left on their bagel-wall, all cinnamon and raisin. (I ate one whilst waiting for the ferry later, and it was superb. The ones I buy in supermarkets here are very mediocre by comparison).

I decided to aim for the 2.30pm ferry, but possibly the 3.15pm if I got distracted along the way. Which I did. Another gallery?

My host for the evening was Sally – an old friend of my parents’ neighbour Oriel – who used to live in the same village of Linton, Cambridgeshire. She had travelled the world for work after being raised in California, but had now settled in North Carolina near her brother, in a stunningly restored 1870s house in the old part of town, right beside the old city jail and very close to the water! She and her brother had done the restoration themselves. She made me feel incredibly welcome and cooked me a wonderful meal, making me miss those happy times spent in a normal kitchen. We arranged to have some breakfast together first thing in the morning, before I set off on the long ride to Myrtle Beach, and state No.12 South Carolina, which is the next stop on this long journey. It feels like we’ve been in NC a while after all of those whistle-stop states, doesn’t it? We’re going to need a new map…

I felt so lucky to have been the recipient of such generous hospitality, and of such interesting company. Thank you so much Sally, you made this place a homely oasis in my trip. Now it’s bedtime – could be some weather tomorrow. Luckily, there’s nothing I can do about that except get some sleep. Bx

LOGOS THAT APPEAR SPONTANEOUSLY IN NATURE: Susie was the first to spot the strange coincidence in the close up of my lost AirPod yesterday – it was nestled right beside an exact depiction of the Apple logo, complete with the small bite out of the right hand side. I promise I had nothing to do with it – I enjoy a bit of a tease, but this was just extraordinary synchronicity.

And in case you never spotted where it had landed…

SIGNS THAT ARE FUNNY: