In the busy market town of Bigger, Scotland, (this means there is more than a church, pub, and village store), between the green hills of Bloughton and the green hills of Thankerton, we met a group of mates/blokes/chaps getting ready for an afternoon bike ride. They were chatty and friendly and I asked them the question I have asked several mates/blokes/chaps who interchangeably refer to each other with these jaunty nouns. How do you refer to people who are not men? One immediately said, “My wife is a lady.” Not suggesting otherwise, I pushed on. One bloke, after a thoughtful pause said, well you could say “lass” and another, looking at Jo and me said, “well if you stretch it a bit…” I took that as a compliment.

We came upon a statue in the tongue-twister town of Ecclefecham heralding their local claim to fame, Thomas Carlyle. The description of his life does not even once refer to him as a bloke, mate, or chap. He was a CRITIC OF LETTERS.

Although Thomas Carlyle kicked around quite a bit in his career —he thought about being a minister and a lawyer – and ultimately was an “essayist, satirist, historian, teacher, and critic of letters…,” he had purpose. He wrote, “A person with a clear purpose will make progress even on the roughest road. A person with no purpose will make no progress, even on the smoothest road.”

Smooth roads are definitely overrated.

When not stopping to fix tires (tyres), or meet the locals, we are riding. And riding. And riding. Past sheep and more sheep, and cows and more cows, and green and more green. Scotland is spectacular.

The “romantic poets” were inspired by the lush landscape of Westmoreland, Yorkshire, Cumbria and surrounding counties. The last several days’ green hillsides (emphasis on hills) seem exactly as Wordsworth would have viewed them- just not from a bike!

Just as we were about to hop on our bikes after our castle exploration, this Tractor Parade emerged from a side road with nearly 200 tractors of every size shape and color imaginable. We were very glad not have been in front of them!

We are not far from Liverpool and the Beatles’ heartland. The Beatles (John Lennon) wrote Rain “about people who are always moaning about the weather all the time.” I like rain. The actual thing. And I also like the Beatles song. Each morning, when we poke our heads out of our B&B, the light mist and puddles that greet us seems perfectly lovely for a ride in the UK.

Castles and pubs. We have seen our fair share of both!

Rain is always followed by sun— even in the UK! Today we hollered the Beatles’ Here comes the Sun!

When I imagined this trip with its “civilised” mileage averaging just over 50 miles/day, I thought we would have heaps of time to stop at cute little cafes, enjoy cream teas (tea+scones+jam+thickly spread buttery cream) and roll into our quaint B&Bs in mid-afternoon with time to stroll through the village. Not on your life. So far we are averaging less than 10 miles per hour, with as much time standing with our bikes leaning on farm gates, wondering if we go left or right at the horse, sheep, or cow. The good news of this slow pace, is that it is easy to soak in the landscape.

Each morning, we leave right after our English breakfast (or bowls of yogurt after one too many fat sausage, thick slab of bacon, pile of baked beans, fried toast, tomato, and egg). We determine which way is north, and begin to hunt and peck our way, cycling on lanes that most often are the width of a small car that doesn’t mind scratch marks.

We feel victorious when we arrive at our evening accommodation in 10 hours. Some inns are lovely, while others offer local color like the one in Wales literally located across from “booze corner” (Welsh for pub)?!

My friends and I were charmed by our southern friend, Cindy, who rides a trike with a jaunty flag and says y’all even in England. She proposed this trip to our group. The five of us from five different US states met on our cross-country bike trip in 2014. This time we are riding 1,100 from the bottom to the top of the UK over 22 days (with two rest days), carrying our gear, attempting to follow a route through small Villages, and staying in Bed & Breakfasts.

We are better in our second act, not taking ourselves too seriously. But when we all said, YES, we certainly didn’t know that Cornwall and Devon are England’s Rocky Mountains!

Cindy said that the LEJOG ride is famous. The four of us (and likely most everyone reading this) have never heard of this route, first walked by some blokes in the late 1800s. Since then, all sorts of people (Brits mostly) have done it, some naked! Given the temps, we don’t expect to become the next Calendar Girls (originally Yorkshire women who made a name for themselves as feisty philanthropists by delicately positioning flowers over their bodies, in a page-turning calendar that raised LOTS of money for a local cause).

One local woman upon hearing that Cindy was our impetus for this particular ride said, “Let’s hope she doesn’t get a hankering to swim the English Channel!”

My colleague, Joe Coughlin, director of the MITAgeLab, recently published an article in Forbes magazine highlighting research that demonstrates that socialization is good for one’s health— and that women have perfected this healthy behavior.

So here we are eating Nutella sandwiches, laughing, and hoping that we will still be laughing after 22 days when we arrive in northern Scotland.

Always on the lookout for signs that make me smile, I wasn’t disappointed on today’s ride from Tiverton to Cheddar. After climbing ANOTHER mountain (17 % grade) we swooped down into farm country.