Rain from the break of day; we sat and read in the porch at Garth Cottage for a while, but the weather didn’t clear up.

There’s a good bike route on a disused railway between Symonds Yat and Monmouth; it runs through the forest so that gave us a bit of cover.

Lunch in a nice little cafe in the centre of Monmouth - they gave us hot soup while we sat and dripped.

A signed bike route runs down towards Raglan, parallel to the main road on the north side; it’s a pleasant road and quiet, but we were getting wetter and wetter all the time. We crossed the main road before Raglan heading for Kings Coed and planned to return via Usk.

But at some point, the front wheel started to make absolutely horrible noises, George massaged the bearings a bit and we got on again, but the dreadful noises resumed almost immediately.  We decided to hitch and by some wonder, we spotted a skip lorry at a junction ahead - we waved and they waited for us. The skip lorry was accompanied by another truck: they put the tandem on the truck, Jean rode in the cab of that truck and George with the skip lorry driver. They took us in to Usk.

We phoned a reluctant taxi company who eventually agreed to bring out a mini van; we had to take the front part off the tandem, but he got us to Newport before our train was due to leave. We even had time to change into some dry clothes.

When we arrived in Paddington, we walked home, pushing the tandem because we didn’t feel it secure to lock the bike to a rack until we could come back with a spare wheel.

We’re having a new wheel built - there were very few bearings left in the axle.

Pouring rain and then the bearings went on the front wheel.