Half a mile in, and my legs had turned to jelly already. Not a good sign. As I clutched my bike and wheezed for breath, I had half a mind to turn back for home right there and then – after all, I was putting myself through this torture of my own free will.

But I pushed on. And actually, after that first half-mile and a slow uphill stretch, I was fine. I was whizzing along little country lanes, the wind whistling through my hair, no bugs appearing out of nowhere to zoom into my eyes… it was great. I did start to flag a bit at one point, gradually losing speed until I was dragging myself along at a pace that would shame a snail, but then something happened.

We had turned into the entrance of a large field to take a rest, and that was when we saw them in the distance: a herd of what must have been at least a hundred wild deer, grazing peacefully in the middle of the farmer’s grassy field!

I felt so lucky to have been able to watch them for those few minutes, ad also quite annoyed that I hadn’t brought a camera; I had wanted to see them last year but hadn’t had the good fortune to come across them.

We stayed for a few minutes more, then decided it was time to move on when a car drove up the nearby road and the herd started to move away. For the ride back there was a lot of downhill cycling which I much preferred to cycling uphill!

I’m definitely going to try and cycle more often now that the weather here in the UK is starting to feel more like spring; there’s nothing quite like riding along a quiet country lane for getting in touch with nature.

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