Day 6 part two.

Oops

Not so many photos here sadly, as during the cafe break, but after heading the hanging potted plant, Barry found out that his mobile phone had died.  One of Lee's friends visited tonight and said he had received about 40 emails a day with the updates however this has reduced dramatically since the phone death.  Those of you who know Barry will know that being without his phone is a bit like having an arm surgically removed so coping with it will be interesting.

Cross the border

Despite the pouring rain, seeing the sign below was very welcome.  We had made over 500 miles since the start.  Scotland was a long way away from home and telling me that I would have ridden here from home let alone driving a few hundred miles in the other direction first would have been unbelievable.

Why there is only Barry in the photo I dont know.  Why he looks quite so camp is really beyond comprehension.

Anyhoo, what you may not be able to see is the sign in the background which says "heavy rain expected Thursday".  If the weather we had ridden trough to that point had been "light rain" then the Scottish interpretation was obviously different to ours.

Last 15

We had lunch in Sainsbury's at Hawick where Lee told us that he had played on a particularly tough rugby tour before and hence knew how to pronounce the name of the town and then on towards Perth.

Now we have noticed that the last 15 miles of the trips have been the hardest on all of the days.  You could say this is stating the obvious however there always appear to have been events that happen at this time such as a big hill, Barry getting us lost or rain.

Had this ride stopped at 85 miles, it would have been an excellent day.  However it didn't and we had to battle on for the final 15 miles which seemed to take a long time especially as it started once more to rain.

This really got me thinking about the cause of why we are doing this and how deep people struggling with their child's illness must have to dig when the think they can take no more.  I realize this is a bad comparison and our extra 15 miles pails into insignificance but there are times towards the end of these days where you do think about whether you can continue and you have to dig.  One pedal at a time.

Hydro

As it was Mr Williams senior and Mike Shelley's last night with the team we were staying away from our usual travelodge at the Peebles Hydro spa.  After arriving, we all headed to the pool for some time relaxing our aching legs in the pool/tub/sauna and this helped to ease some of the miles out of our legs.

Dinner was excellent in the restaurant and a surprise came in the form of Bob (Barry's dad) arriving just after we had ordered.  Now Bob was expected as he kindly volunteered to take over from Mike with the van duties but we had been busy planning how we could hand over the van as Barry's phone had died.   Turning up a day early sorted this problem nicely.  (Given the events on the rail network today (28th) even more so!).

The dinner was great and there were some toasts in honour of Mike and Barry for their company over the preceding days and generosity in supporting us in a number of other ways.  There had been many laughs shared and both of them had contributed massively to our effort.  Thanks.