Christmas Card to Clevedon 37

On a mission today.  I have a Christmas card that needed to be delivered to my daughter at Clevedon and rather than take the easy way out and posting it, why not hand deliver it and get a ride in at the same time.  The forecast is pretty good, no rain until 3pm (that was spot on), and fairly mild again on this, the shortest day of the year.

Strawberry Line

Took a bit of a gamble going 'off road'.  I was using my best road bike, a Specialized, with thin wheels, and although the surface of the disused railway track is pretty good, there is always a risk of thorns or sharp stones.  Turned out the biggest worry was horses!  These four nags were a bit skittish, not because of me, there was a pushchair heading towards them from the opposite direction.  They backed into a gateway and yours truly made a quick getaway.

Artificial Leaves

Seen at the roadside on the Clevedon side of Yatton.  More on this later, see YACWAG below

Wind swept tree

A rather extreme example this one.  It is on the sea front at Clevedon, near the pier, and is a bit of a natural landmark.  Caused by the constant westerly winds, hawthorn and yew trees are particularly prone to being sculpted by the wind.  Put this on because my mate Graham mentioned recently on a ride through Warwickshire that this happens a lot in Somerset.  It does but not as extreme as this one.

YACWAG

This stands for Yatton and Congresbury Wildlife Action Group.  Their aim, as a group of volunteers, is to promote awareness of wildlife issues in the area.  With lottery and other funding they have purchased small areas of land to help achieve this and these knitted squares on trees are to remind the community of the importance of leaves on trees.  They have my vote.

37 miles covered today.  Got back, cleaned the bike (long overdue) and it started raining.  That is what I call timing.