Big Hills and Small Beans

It was good to sleep in this morning. I could tell that I'd had a few beers last night. As a light-weight, it wasn't enough to give me a hangover though. I lay in bed and edited the photo's I had taken and eventually got up for a bike ride.

Just as I had crossed the bridge out of the village, a small guy shot past me and I tried to jump on his wheel. Bad move! The air was cold and he was fast so I ended up with that burning feeling in my lungs. He went up over Monks with me heading through Simmondsley instead, then turning up Chunal. It's a relatively long and tough climb, especially so today as there was a strong headwind blowing. The legs were good today so I enjoyed it in a sick sort of way. Turning at New Mills, the advantage of the tailwind was minimised by more big hills! I was knackered when I got home, even though I had just averaged 20km.h with some serious efforts.

A quick break and then I headed into Glossop to get some pressies. Sarah in the deli' gave me a bit of cheese and said "tell me what that is?". "Hmmmm....cheddary but nutty and firmer. Ehhh.....it's a really good Gouda" I said. Get in! It was old Amsterdam Gouda! For once, Sarah was quite impressed and I was smug!

Then I headed to Manchester and just so happened to find myself in North Tea. Wayne was due me a bag of coffee but I was undecided between Deerhunter and some Workshop espresso. He gave me both. Feeling festive, I pulled out a bottle of the amazing Ticketybrew Dubbel http://ticketybrew.co.uk/our-beers/ from Stalybridge for Wayne's beer o'clock. I then got a rather fine, sweet and balanced Guatemalan on V60, expertly brewed by Jane and it was on the house too.