Empty

Empty is the only way to describe how I've felt today. Back late after another long day I felt no desire to write up this journal or post a photograph. This is being written twenty-fours on. Being fed-up in myself was rather put into perspective by the news of a fatal accident on Sunday, the one which closed the roads when I went out riding myself. I had a horrible feeling about it at the time and my worst fears have been realised.

It turned out to be a local cyclist who was killed in a collision with a car. I don't know the details but I do know the bend on which the incident happened, and it's hard not to speculate. I've ridden that road hundreds of times. It's on the lead out at the bottom of a hill and he could easily have been doing close to 30mph. I love taking that bend myself at speed. I will be more circumspect in future. I can't get out of my head the fact that he left home on his bike for a ride out to Kettlewell, said goodbye to his wife and three young children, and never came back. Someone had to tell them that he was never going to be coming back. How do you find the words? It still makes me feel sick to the stomach. It could have been me or any of a hundred mates of mine who ride their bikes around the Dales every weekend.