Rest day in Glasgow

We spent our second and last rest day in Glasgow. The highlight was meeting Martin and Adam's sister Becca and her husband Vince, who by happy coicidence were in Glasgow on business.  We spent several hours with them, having a slow and boisterous pizza lunch and idly shopping for things we needed, principally extra pedal bolts... Dales, on the outskirts of the city centre, may be a contender for the country's most glamorous bike shop, a claim that we can make with some authority.

Back to Alison's, and a takeaway Indian meal, including the gloriously eccentric Haggis Pekora. As Vince mentioned earlier, you could generously call this fusion cooking, but really it's more a case of 'where cuisines collide'.

On the subject of eccentricity, we promised you a few more examples, and in fact Indian restaurants have loomed large.  I believe we've already mentioned the Jaipur in Market Drayton, where they brought us our table settings and naan breads only to take them all away again without explanation.

We also had the Golden Temple in Bodmin, where the owner greeted us by barking at us by saying, "there will be a delay" before slapping all the cutlery on the table for us to sort out and the shoving the order pad down in front of James and saying, "you fill it in, it will make it easier for me." It turned out he was hassled by having three tables filled with customers. "We're not used to being busy." You don't say?

Then in Tiverton we had the sight of a man trying to get through town by sitting on a skateboard with two dog leads attached to his border collies in front and trying to get them to act as a team of huskies. Heroic failure.

To Bridgnorth, and the old gent who got chatting to Martin about his bike. "I've got a bike exactly like yours." "Really?" "Yes, only mine has an engine." Right. That'll be a motorbike then.

But the top two prizes go to encounters a bit further north. A blazered ex-military type engaged James and Tom in conversation about where they were going. On being told, he said, "Well guess where I'm going? I'm going to my nice little house. And guess what I've got there? I'll tell you. 600 cricket balls." And with that he was off.

Perhaps the piece de resistance was when we were trying to fix Tom's saddle in the middle of the moors without the best type of spanner. There was a car next to us with two ladies in. Through the open window, Adam asked if, by any chance, they had a spanner. The older lady held up a bottle of Listerine and said, "You can use this if you want." Adam thanked her for the offer.

We can only hope for more of these to share in the final week.