If you celebrate Valentine’s Day, I hope that you were showered with attention and gifts. In our household, I am in the Jane Laverick camp and Henning is of the opinion that he’s my Valentine every day, so he doesn’t need to make a special effort on someone else’s say-so. None the less, we had a peaceful and mutual be-kind-to-each-other day. Mostly because we were exhausted after our adventure yesterday. But first today:
I glued together a batch of gorgeous little 1/12 scale boxes for storing miniature treasures. It is the perfect project if you need to sit quietly and not move too many muscles. They are made from a printy by Sandra Morris from Tower House Dolls. She has just published a book, Making Miniature Mignonette Toy Dolls. If you buy the book, you will be invited to the Facebook Mignonette Doll Club where we have hilarious fun. If you are into tiny dolls, I highly recommend it.
So, what happened yesterday? Henning said, won’t you be my Valentine on a bicycle? Let’s cycle to the river. It will be fun, he said. This is a man who loves anything on wheels and obviously I wanted to be loved on Valentine's day. That is how the adventure started.
The river is about 10km from our home. When we are fit and healthy, we can do the round trip in our lunch hour and it’s just the right distance to feel the breeze in your hair. Sadly, Henning has not been well lately, and we hadn’t cycled in a long while, so I was happy when he suggested the outing.
We hopped on our mountain bikes at lunchtime and set off at a leisurely pace. When we reached the river, we had a short break as we always do, then turned back for home. It was a lovely day. A few clouds high in the sky and just enough of a breeze to rustle the soybeans in the fields beside the road. On a whim, Henning said, let’s turn off the road and cycle on the sand track through the fields. It runs parallel to the main road and it will be an adventure, he said. So we did.
The soybeans were about knee high and brilliant green after the recent rains. They were also in glowing health because they’d recently been fertilized with the stuff that comes out the back end of farm animals. Soon, we were surrounded by a revolting pong and a black cloud of flies. We sped up to get rid of the flies and to our relief, the soybean fields gave way to corn and we left the pesky insects behind.
This late in summer, the corn is fully grown and more than two meters tall. By now we had traveled quite a bit further than we intended and the breeze was picking up but the track through the fields was level and sandy, ideal for off-road cycling. We knew that we were traveling in the general direction of home and although we had lost sight of the main road a while ago, our GPS said that it was just on the other side of the ridge running parallel to our course. I didn’t want to turn back for a second encounter with the flies and Henning reckoned that sooner or later the farm track would meet up with the road again, so we continued through the corn fields.
After another three kilometres, there was still no sign of the road, the skies had darkened with clouds, and the breeze had become a tremendous roar in the corn. I had no idea that corn could be so noisy. We realized that we would have to turn around or risk being on the road after nightfall.
Just as we turned to go back, the skies opened. We were caught in a downpour in the middle of an endless cornfield and the rain was coming down like bullets. Not only did it sting on the way down, but every drop seemed to ricochet and hit us from beneath with a lukewarm splash. We were drenched and muddy within moments but not only that, the rain instantly washed away our tracks in the path. We took a wrong turn, turned around when we realized our mistake, could not figure out where we had come from, and then we were properly lost. With corn taller than our heads on all sides and no sun to guide us we could only keep heading in what we hoped was the right general direction. It felt like hours later when we finally washed out on to the road like two drowned rats.
We were back at the river at sunset, bedraggled and tired, and still had to face a ten-kilometre trek home. It drizzled all the way and after dark it became quite cold in our wet clothes. I was ever so relieved when we finally heard the welcoming bark of the dogs at our gate at 8pm. Our lunchtime jaunt turned into a 50km ordeal and today, we can feel it in every muscle.
The story does not end here though. Just in case you are thinking of going on an adventure of your own, let me tell you the things the explorers do not warn you about.
Fifty million mosquito bites itch like crazy, and I washed a sand dune out of my ears. But the worst part is this; splashing mud seeps into every crevice. Cycling with sand in your butt crack is abrasive. It will be a few days before I stop my bandy-legged sailor walk.
If you are looking for me, I will be sitting quietly making miniatures.
