While staying at Matt's friends's house in Manchester (many thanks to Roisin and Bella) I discovered a blog written by a local lass about cycling in the Rainy City - Naturally Cycling Manchester. In one post she writes about watching the shadows formed by her bike shorten as a way of knowing spring is coming, which I love the idea of. I started doing this yesterday and noticed I was throwing more than one shadow. My first thought was 'Vashta Nerada until reality set in, I remembered I wasn't in a seasonal episode of Doctor Who and I saw that the streetlamps lining both sides of the road were throwing a spanner into my shadow-play.
As we left Manchester this morning, such trifling thoughts seemed ridiculous when faced with the practicalities of dealing with the rain. The Rainy City has truly lived up to its name and delivered the first April shower of the journey; this is proper weather you can eat with a spoon.
My sturdy canvas panniers are not fully waterproof but they are well-lined so the contents should be safe - or at i thought so until I tipped the soggy contents out onto the hostel floor. Meanwhile, my beloved and battered walking boots have finally given up the ghost and let me down so they will need to be replaced sharpish (to everyone who told me not to cycle in walking boots I respectfully disagree - they are a pleasure to ride in).
However, my biggest concern is the video camera, without which there would be no film. We have no waterproof cover for it so we're having to improvise with a Tesco bag and a rubber band (Note to my co-producer Chiara - this is only a half-truth). The camera itself is safely bundled up inside a hot water bottle cover, a jumper and a dry bag (this is a highly professional operation) so as long as we're not using it it's fine. For interviews it looks like we'll just have to film inside or from a dry vantage point looking out on the rain.
Apart from these concerns I'm enjoying the change in the weather, which fits my natural despondency better than the relentless chirpiness of the previous few weeks. As we played hide-and-seek with the cycle lanes (I use the term 'lane' loosely, as the green paint seems to bubble up at random among the black tarmac and then disappear again before peeking out of the inside of a foot-deep pothole), I thought that this is how Manchester should really be experienced - ankle-deep in water. The city seems to come alive in the rain; the brickwork shines, everyone bundles into steamed-up cars or shuffles through the streets, the siren song of ambulances fills the air. I realise this is a little like using "Your eyes look beautiful when you cry" as a chat-up line but I mean it as a genuine compliment.
We made our way successfully out of Manchester, past the remarkably similar delights of Rochdale and on through the fantastically post-apocalyptic scenery of Calderdale, West Yorkshire, toward our current YHA hostel on the edge of the Pennines. Now THIS is a place made for and by the rain. The hills themselves were sculpted by water and ice, and then reworked by human hands; the moorish wastes are patchworked with fields, riddled with tunnels and dotted with disused bunkers and bits of machinery, and are best viewed, as we did today, through the billowing clouds that buffeted our bikes from side to side, and reminded us how small and fragile we really were.
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