Bike Route: None
Walking Route: Annex to grocery store and fish-and-chips shop, and back, about 3mi
Accommodation: Comfortable two-bedroom annex (Airbnb); hosts Non and Ian.
We were so ready for a day off. It was nice to just lie in bed, drink coffee, and rest our legs. But we did eventually make it to the kitchen, where we discovered our food supplies were pretty low. After I spent a few hours working on the blog and catching up with mail and bills on the computer, we strapped on the shoes and backpacks and hiked down the hill to the grocery store. On the way back, we passed a fish-and-chips shop and stopped for lunch.
Full disclosure here: Two days before we left for the UK, I had my annual Medicare wellness visit. A few days after we arrived in the UK, I got a message from my doctor saying the results of my cholesterol test were back and the readings were quite high. She suggested that I go on medication, switch to a Mediterranean diet, and get regular exercise. I messaged back that I was out of the country and would need to wait a couple months before starting the statin, but I would work on the diet and exercise part in the meantime.
Well, the exercise part is not a problem (ha!).
The Mediterranean diet has been a bit of a challenge in the land of bacon, sausage, mushy peas, and fish and chips. But I have actually been doing pretty well--enough that Ken has complained just a little about not sharing gooey desserts and pastries.
What that all leads to is that fish is a really good source of protein, and it is super easy to find fresh fish at the chippies in almost every town. But fish-and-chips shops serve deep-fried fish, which is not exactly good for you. My solution: peel off the breading, eat just a bite or two of it to satisfy the craving, and then dig out the good, flakey, hot meat.
Really, my diet is not that bad anyway, and even at home when I'm lazy I get a couple hours a day of exercise. I don't know how I got high cholesterol. I blame bad genes.
Back to the annex after lunch, more rest, work on our bike routes and reservations a little, and pretty soon it was dinner time: salmon and stir-fried vegetable in noodles, from the grocery store. We were all ready to cook on the range in our kitchen, but the range was not working. Our host was not able to get it going either, so we microwaved our meal, which made it not quite as tasty but did the trick.
After dinner, we took a short hike to a burial site near the annex. Then it was back to our cozy bed, where we watched the evening news with Norah O'Donnell before falling asleep with books and YouTube.
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| This is what Ken had left in the food bag he carries on the back of his bike. We were doing pretty good on the snack items, but breakfast and lunch supplies needed to be replenished. |
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| About a 5-minute walk from our annex was the site of three burial chambers from about 6000 years ago. |
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| The stones covering the sites were large slabs that appeared to have been broken off a rock ledge just a few feet away. |
