The River Exe at the Fisherman's Cot, Bickleigh

Today we ran the Bideford Half Marathon and on the way home we stopped at the Fisherman's Cot at Bickleigh. The photo was taken in the pub garden. It was our first club outing and first race with our new club. Great race, and good company. Moverette ran well and beat me easily.

At the start of this race runners were encouraged by the swing of the kilt and the skirl of the pipes from two pipe bands, the Bideford Youth Pipe Band and the Tarka Pipe Band. I could have been faster if I had not stopped to listen as well as peer through the windows of the Bideford Carnegie Library (opened 1906). The half-way point is The Puffing Billy (very appropriate) where runners turn and run back along the Tarka Trail, the old railway line along the River Torridge. There is a tunnel en route where some 'modern' runners panicked when they lost their GPS signal. In the semi darkness I nearly tripped over the ten mile marker. There were some lovely little welcome signs every now and again saying 'Jelly Babies Ahead' and great encouragement from an old Devon Salt near the end, "Well done boy, its aisy now my boy, almost there". Before crossing the river again at East-the-Water you see why Charles Kingsley called Bideford Little White Town. Charles Kingsley is said to have stayed here while writing Westward Ho!, and he is commemorated by a statue at the North end of the promenade.