Flat...flat...f-lat...

Storm boulders, the Cumbrian Coast

You may have noticed something about this blog of late...a distinct lack of hills. And that, dear readers (I am using the plural cautiously), is because I have been grounded. By my chiropractor, if the truth be known. Now it's a long story involving a festering yoga injury, much burning of cartilage at both ends, and a Welsh heirloom of a tendency to endure pain. But the long and the short of it is I have a stuffed knee. And I have been instructed not to go "up or down anything". Pretty bad news for a fell runner.

Still, we have to be thankful for small mercies. It's about as good a time as any to be out of action. And I can still do things on the f-l-a-t. And I'm not as yet crawling up the walls in frustration as could have been the case.

Today's f-l-a-t bike ride took in one of Cumbria's finest tea rooms. Allonby, a tiny, salt-washed collection of houses on the edge of nowhere, was the unlikely setting for what I can only describe as a mystical experience involving a scone. Yes, a scone. One hot summer day, we alighted outside a tea room set back slightly from the usual melee of ice cream joints and chip shops. A fat labrador was laid out on the grass, snoring. To one side of the large dog, a table was set, bone china glinting in the sun. We ordered tea and scones.

And then out came the silver tray. Scones, puffed to perfection alongside a glinting chalice, brimming with jam, and another of heavy cream. Sculpting great pyramids of jam and cream onto the wonderful substrate, we could almost hear angels. They were that good. It was what could be described in the language of Physics as a Scone Singularity: the coming together of antique bone china and Sheffield silver cutlery, flour, raisins, butter, jam and cream into a oneness.

But maybe we had just cycled a bit too far...

Anyhow, in homage to the great Allonby Scone, we stopped and ate another.