As we’ve ridden along today we’ve passed through corn fields speckled with bright red poppies. They remind me of my mum who loved poppies – she’d have liked pictures like this one. The poppy also makes me think of the First World War. We’re not quite far west enough to be in Flanders’ fields, but it isn’t so far away. We’ve passed lots of war memorials as we’ve cycled along, each very poignant. Ninety years ago people had little inkling of the carnage that the first mechanical war was about to unleash. My grandfather (my mum’s dad) fought in the First World War, but had the fortune (in other circumstances it would have been misfortune) to break his ankle the week before the Battle of the Somme. He was lucky to be in hospital rather than fighting in the blood-bath of the Somme. If it hadn’t been for that broken ankle, who knows I might not even be here.