A Ride on the Backroads...

I'm constantly reminded of my good fortune when I take to my mountain bike and hit the hills behind my house in North Cornwall. On a Cornish summer's day life doesn't get much better. The little country roads are inviting with the variety of flora growing simply beside the trail and around stone hedges which disappear under luxuriant greenery. Wild garlic, nettle and dock leaves, scabious, tormentil, buttercups, foxgloves, campions, the timeless fern all abound but what I like most is the heady smell of moist soil and moss evoked by the summer heat. The dappled sunlight rains through the canopy of trees producing cavorting fairies on the ashphalt. Its good to tour the back roads, despite the fact that British hedges obscure the view of the fields and countyside behind. Sometimes the simple pleasures outweigh all the gold in the world - alas, summer's don't last long in Cornwall...or so it seems!