1001 challenge; sunday style

I know I’m biased but Anniemay always looks stylish on her bike.

We’re on an early morning bike ride in the middle of Milton Keynes. I often slag the place off, but then, on days like this, I have to remind myself how lucky we are to be able to leave the house and within a couple of hundred yards, find ourselves in what could easily be, quiet countryside.

We live in an old part of MK. Not the really old part - the medieval carp ponds and places of worship dating back hundreds of years - but an area that was part of the original design and concept; where estates were linked by cycle routes and green spaces.

The cycle routes are still here but the most famous green space - the Linear Park which originally ran from North to South for almost 10 miles - is but a shadow of its former self. New housing estates cover the places that only 10 years or so ago, were as near as we ever got to wilderness.

New houses are built in MK all the time - that's not the issue. But the ones on the Linear Park were never in the original plan. An important local amenity has been lost.

Don’t it always seem to go, you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

We’re never far away from the dual carriageways that form the grid system of roads; but this morning, it’s just birdsong and the hum of tyres on gravel and tarmac.

We do about 5 miles then hit a cafe for breakfast; it’s a favourite stop for Mamils (middle-aged men in lycra) and ours are not the only bikes chained up this morning.

The return leg takes us through the grounds of the Open University. The landscaping is wonderful; trees of at least 200 years are offset by vast swathes of plants - prairie flowers, grasses, shrubs - and green space for cricket and football.

Not far from our house is an orchard first planted by the council nearly 40 years ago for people to help themselves. As we cycle through, trees are bowed down with cooking apples. Anniemay reminds me that I need to return with a large bag if I want another crumble.....