Via Clinicia
Mar. 3rd, 2021 10:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tealinMy life-granting progestogen implant is set to expire in August, and seeing as everything in the NHS is backed up to Kingdom Come because of Covid, when I signed on with the new GP after I moved, I mentioned it would need replacing in the next few months. A few days ago I got a text message from one of the practices in the local network, saying they were holding a clinic later this month and would I like a place? Seems a shame to pass it up, especially as the thing is possibly showing signs of end-of-life and it takes a couple months for the new one to bed in properly. But the clinic is in Linton, and transport is a big question mark.
Linton itself is not terribly far away. I could conceivably even walk there, if I made a day out of it, especially if I cycled halfway there on a route I already know is safe. But I don't want to rely on that, seeing as I don't know when in the day I'll be seen, and I don't want to walk a web of country footpaths, with which I am only passingly familiar, after dark. There is probably a bus I can take, either from here or Sawston, but they will be infrequent, and I am not getting on a bus until the pandemic is over anyway.
The obvious thing to do is cycle, and it's good cycling country between here and Linton, not too hilly. The problem is, the only direct routes are sub-motorway major arteries without segregated bike lanes, so either I take an extremely circuitous route over country lanes and through a biotech park to which I'm not sure I'll have access, or I hug the shoulder of the A1307 and hope for the best.
But then I remembered that it is really easy to get to Worsted Lodge from here, and Worsted Lodge sits on a long straight bridleway that is open to bike traffic and leads straight to Linton. The reason it's long and straight and pointed at Linton is because, two thousand years ago, the Romans built it to do just that. For whatever reason, unlike a lot of other Roman roads, it did not remain a primary artery and so was not paved and graded for cars; in A.D. 2021 it's an elevated and mostly level dirt track and chalkland flower preserve. I'll give it a test ride this weekend just to be sure, but it looks like I have the Romans to thank for getting me to the technologically advanced hormonal birth control clinic. Romanos gratias!
I will never get tired of this country.
Linton itself is not terribly far away. I could conceivably even walk there, if I made a day out of it, especially if I cycled halfway there on a route I already know is safe. But I don't want to rely on that, seeing as I don't know when in the day I'll be seen, and I don't want to walk a web of country footpaths, with which I am only passingly familiar, after dark. There is probably a bus I can take, either from here or Sawston, but they will be infrequent, and I am not getting on a bus until the pandemic is over anyway.
The obvious thing to do is cycle, and it's good cycling country between here and Linton, not too hilly. The problem is, the only direct routes are sub-motorway major arteries without segregated bike lanes, so either I take an extremely circuitous route over country lanes and through a biotech park to which I'm not sure I'll have access, or I hug the shoulder of the A1307 and hope for the best.
But then I remembered that it is really easy to get to Worsted Lodge from here, and Worsted Lodge sits on a long straight bridleway that is open to bike traffic and leads straight to Linton. The reason it's long and straight and pointed at Linton is because, two thousand years ago, the Romans built it to do just that. For whatever reason, unlike a lot of other Roman roads, it did not remain a primary artery and so was not paved and graded for cars; in A.D. 2021 it's an elevated and mostly level dirt track and chalkland flower preserve. I'll give it a test ride this weekend just to be sure, but it looks like I have the Romans to thank for getting me to the technologically advanced hormonal birth control clinic. Romanos gratias!
I will never get tired of this country.
