...So I went shopping instead.

Not wanting to waste such a lovely sunny Bank Holiday Monday, I determined I was going to cycle over to Hampton Court and visit the Palace this afternoon. I got the Transport For London journey planner to give me a cycle-only route – although because I didn’t want to print out a twelve-page PDF of the route, I had to make do with the written instructions I copied and pasted into a text document.

It was a disaster. I was fine for the first mile, but when I got to Wimbledon Common and had to guess which of the numerous tracks and trails was the ‘Horse Ride’ listed on the instructions, it all went to pot. There is a horse track across the common but it’s forbidden to bikes. The various maps which they provide aren’t terribly helpful (there’s no ‘You Are Here’ marks) and none of the interior roads and tracks are signed so you have to guess which one you are on. There are also plenty more tracks in reality than are shown on the map, which further adds to the confusion.

I suppose I failed because I was ill-equipped really; the mini-AtoZ that I carry in my pannier only partly covers the Common and I hadn’t been able to find the separate map book that does cover the area between Wimbledon and Kew, so I couldn’t even navigate my own route to the next named destination.

In the end, after an hour trekking back and forth, I gave up and went home.

A bit later I went to Sainsburys and did some grocery shopping.

That was my Bank Holiday.

Hmm.