What a disaster. This day was meant to see me across the Manchester Ship Canal and be my springboard to make it to Scotland by Tuesday night. A solid day's touring without luggage was called for, as this was going to be my only day with a support vehicle. But it was not to be.

Things started well enough. The weather was showery, but not too bad, and we went to have breakfast, packed and checked out at about eleven. Not exactly early, but not bad. But as I checked out the receptionist called the manager. Oh no, I thought, what have we done to upset them? It turned out the manager had bad news for us. Somebody had smashed their way into Arlette in the hotel garage during the night. Arlette was the only car to be broken into - she was the only car not covered by the garage's CCTV camera. The thief(s) had made quite a mess, there was glass everywhere, but all they had stolen was my sunglasses. Well, they were jinxed anyway (I had already sat on them once before, and they had never recovered fully from this). At least they left me my lens cleaning cloth! They had also discovered an old pasta salad which I'd forgotten to remove before going away. Served them right! I asked the hotel staff for a dustpan and brush, so I could get rid of some of the glass. They said I didn't have to do that, they'd send someone over. He duly swept up all the glass around the car. Hm, not quite what I had meant!

We went to report it to the police, for what it was worth, and then tried to arrange for the damage to be fixed. Autoglass said they could get someone there by 8pm, but it might be faster to go to their workshop. I took directions, and we set off there in convoy. I had the details, so Sabine had to stay behind me. In some places this was quite awkward for me, as my instincts would send me through gaps, etc. At other points, I'm sure we were holding up traffic, but fortunately nobody hooted at us, as I was not in the mood right then and could well have lost my temper. We found the place, and the guy slotted us in quite soon. For some reason he fitted a tinted window, so Arlette is gradually being upgraded…

Every End to End is unique. But I believe I achieved new levels of uniqueness on this trip. How many unsupported solo End to End cyclists have ever been delayed by a trip to Autoglass?

We finally got going at 3pm. This was not good. I had to shorten my target for the day by some considerable distance - about 25 miles in fact. The shortened distance, coupled with the fact that we had lost time, resulted in me flying across the flat Cheshire plain. I had finally developed the necessary recumbent muscles to power along quite impressively. I covered the last 11 miles from Whitchurch to Nantwich at an average speed of 17mph, riding into a slight headwind.

When we got to Nantwich rain was threatening, so we decided to go for a B&B rather than camp. I got carved up badly by some stupid bint on a shopper who pulled out of a supermarket car park without looking. A bit further down the road we stopped by the Tourist Information sign, and she came up, puffing and panting, enthusing about Mercury. She turned out to be a very pleasant lady, so not really a stupid bint. She did have all the road sense of a depressed toad though.

Next, we were heading towards a particular inn we had seen marked on the tourist map. A chap in a Morgan overtook me and then pulled in. As I went by he asked if I'd mind stopping for a moment. I thought "Why not? More recumbent celebrity work!" he came over and took a good look at Mercury. It turned out he owned a Vision himself (my first encounter with a fellow 'bent rider this trip), as well as a Double Vision recumbent tandem, and the reason he had stopped me was because he didn't know of any other Vision riders in the area. He hadn't had a go on a suspended Vision before, so I let him take Mercury for a wee spin. I had been wondering how much good the suspension really does. Quite a lot, apparently!

The first inn we tried was full, but there was another across the road, the Malbank Hotel. It was pricey, and the room wasn't that nice, but they allowed me to bring Mercury into the room, so we took it. I didn't much fancy leaving him out the back of a pub overnight. Arlette would have to grin and bear it though. The restaurant choice in Nantwich was not that great. In fact, for a Saturday night, I thought the town quite dull. In the end we settled for an Italian restaurant, OK but not spectacular. My food was fine, but Sabine's pasta was too oily, and she ended up leaving most of it. Seeing all that pasta going to waste made me feel guilty - I should have eaten it as an energy reserve for the following day! After dinner I was curiously tired, considering I had only done 33 unladen, flat miles.