Aylesbury, 0 miles, 0 locks
Turns out that it's not too far away by bike, although sufficiently far that I gave up and turned back before I got there. It was only that I noticed a sign saying 'retail park' that made me turn around and keep going. Incidentally, Aylesbury seems to be having a cycling awareness year and there are 'Cycle Aylesbury' signs all over the place. A happy consequence of that is that they've turned a lot of their very wide pavements into cycle paths. This is great and even the motorists seem to respect it, stopping if you're waiting on a bike where the cycle lane crosses the road. I was very impressed.
Eventually found Halfords, but found myself inexorably drawn into the Tesco Extra at the back of the retail park. No-one had mentioned that there was a Tesco there but I needed milk so it seemed sensible to pop in. Of course, you can't just pop into a Tesco Extra for milk! I ended up getting 6 litres of milk, plus sweetcorn kernels (70p each, BOGOF), cheddar cheese, a dressed crab and a tin of Bouillabaisse (25p!) It was only when I got to Halfords that I realised that there was no room in the Brompton's bag for the 5 litres of distilled water or the anti-rust paint kit that Gordon had suggested I buy. Fortunately, by first decanting everything onto the floor at Halfords, I got it all in, but the ride home was quite twitchy (I guess I've never ridden with 11 litres of stuff before) and I got home just as the rain started again.
As you can imagine, dinner was nice: Bouillabaisse with half the crab meat, with a swirl of home-made rouille, home-made croutons and some grated cheddar; then Rigatoni with Pesto and the remainder of the crab, with a sprinkling of parmesan.
Dunno whether this is a healthier diet than previously, but it certainly tastes nice. All that crab must be good for you, surely?
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