Quiet as the Grave ...

Last week, for no good reason, I found myself having to pop down to Plymouth on business, taking a friend along for company. To be completely honest, there were two ways of looking at this trip. Either with a smiley face, or a grumpy one. My first thought was to jump in the car, pick up my mate, pootle on down, do what had to be done, then set sail for home as soon as humanly possible. No disrespect to Plymouth intended, by the way, just wanted to be back at home so I could spend more time with the grandkids. 

However, after doing some phoning around, I discovered that thanks to some busy kiddy schedules, I could afford to spend twenty four hours away from home with no loss of grandad / grandkid quality time. Which is all I needed to know. So, without ado, I packed an overnight bag and got ready to head off in search of seaside satisfaction. 

Which is when I had an idea. A rather cunning one, if I do say so myself. You see, seems to me that driving anywhere in a car is fine, mighty fine. But doing the same (or similar) journey on a motorbike, is nearly always bound to be better. Much better. Especially when the sun is shining and the skies are blue. Which they were, on this particular day.

Luckily, the mate I was travelling with is also a keen two wheel wanderer, so when I suggested we jump on the bikes for a couple of days blasting through the countryside, he was keen. Mighty keen.

So that is exactly what we did. I drove over to his place, we turned on our helmet comms so we could talk as we drove along, then we set off. Which is when something rather magical happened. My mate suggested that he should lead the way, using a new app he had just downloaded into his satnav. 

Long story short, this clever little piece of gizmo trickery is designed especially for motorbikers. So does things differently to a bog standard satnav. Normally, if you tell your satnav where you want to go, it takes you there as fast as possible, using the biggest, widest roads available. Which is all fine and dandy. But that is not what this little gizmo does. Oh, no. This one deliberately takes you along the roads less travelled. In particular, the twisty, windy back roads that you never even knew existed.

All of which meant we spent two of the most glorious days possible, sitting astride our two wheeled wonders, pootling along deserted back roads. Enjoying scenery and scenes that I didn’t believe existed any more in this ever more overcrowded little isle of ours. 

For long, luscious hours, we rode along twisty, curvaceous and sensational back roads, often without seeing another vehicle for miles. And, even more surprisingly, we often didn’t see any pot holes either. Which is practically unheard of, in my experience of English roads these days. But that is a subject for another day and another column. A long and rather ranty one, I suspect. So, moving on. 

Just in case all of those gorgeous, empty roads weren’t enough beauty to fill our tiny hearts with rosebuds, we also kept on coming across cutesy little villages, tucked away in the middle of nowhere, with the most charming chocolate box style churches taking centre stage. 

At one point, we stopped outside a particularly pretty old church, got off the bikes and went up for a closer look. Going inside we discovered that around the time of Henry VIII, the vicar of this place had kept a diary, which has now been turned into a book. A copy of which was on hand, so we could take a look. 

Won’t bore you with details, but it was quite juicy stuff, if you are into the world of religious politics of the sixteenth century. Main thing is, it brought home to us happy, but slightly weary, travellers, that this church had been around for a very long time. Hundreds and hundreds of years, in fact. 

We then went outside, sat on a convenient bench and did absolutely nothing for a few minutes. Soaking up the peace and quiet, drinking in the calm and reflecting quietly on the fact that whatever else may be going on out there in the crazy modern world. This sleepy little corner of the universe really has not changed all that much in several centuries. Which was strangely comforting.

So, if you ever feel you want the world to stop revolving, so you can step back to a simpler, saner time, can thoroughly recommend searching out an ancient church, and taking a seat outside. 

Until next time, all the best

Stan