A night on the NCN6
The end of another day on the National Cycle Network.
The pavement was dusty and stained by dog pee. Tidal marks of salt and dust were imprinted on my shorts and jersey and a damp patch of sweat marked the concrete slabs underneath me. I sat slumped chewing on a wrap, with my back leaning against the wall of a Premier shop whilst shoppers stepped over me disdainfully.
I retrieved my phone from my jersey pocket and opened an App which I use for booking a night’s stay. I entered the dates and details it required in order to find a bed in the town for the night. Within a few seconds, the seven choices all came up with the message, ‘Sold Out, try changing your dates’.
I should explain that this was mid-summer in the Central English Shires and that I had stopped in a small market town on a week day, some thirty miles from any city of note and many miles from the usual tourist attractions.
Sold out
I increased the search to a wider area, and increased the amount of money which I was prepared to spend for a night’s stay and still the same response. ‘Sold out’.
I tried another App.
I began to call places which were listed as sold out on the App.
‘I know the website says that you are full, but I wondered if perhaps someone may have cancelled and……. my voice drifted off as I listened to the familiar response. ‘Sorry, we are completely booked tonight’.
And then to a publican, many miles away, I asked why everyone was full here in the middle shires of England.
‘Silverstone,’ he replied.
I was in Northamptonshire on the weekend of the British Grand Prix.
Now what?
Then the ‘what am I going to do’? thought began to nag like an aching tooth. I had no tent.
Bus shelters were the next ideal. Those wooden ones with a bench wide enough to sleep on and a roof which kept out the weather. But they are not made anymore and bus stops are but a pole in the ground.
Ditches I dismissed as the weather forecast for the night ahead was not favourable.
At this juncture you are possibly expecting a person to approach me and my tale would continue relating acts of generosity and unusual kindness.
But no such person came.
A solution
Trains run reasonably regularly. And the market town was on the London line. I live in London. I searched the times of the trains and lo!
In fifteen minutes there was a train.
The station manager, having heard my tale and seeing me looking a little despondent at having to leave my route told me with a smile, that I could return in the morning to continue my trip, and on that information, he sold me (in good faith I have no doubt) a return ticket.
And so it was, that the next morning I was back at the mainline terminus at 06.00 to catch the train back to the market town. But the board above the platforms flickered this message; ‘planned engineering works’. There was no train back to the market town that day.
No one will ever know
A kindly ticket person standing at the closed off barrier told me trains were running to another town some twenty miles south of where I needed to be. I sighed and briefly told my story.
‘Ssshh’ he said soothingly. ‘Just keep quiet about it - say the ride between the two towns was uneventful and there was nothing to report’.
He added with a mischievous wink and a smile, ‘No one will ever know, except me.’
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