Boy, was the first fortnight of struggling the 7.6 miles over the Cornard massif, from my part of Suffolk to Free Press HQ, difficult?
But gradually it's got easier and easier and now I've actually started to enjoy it.

Here are just a few of the joys of cycling:

Feeling fit and healthy again for the first time in several years

Counting up to 20 species of birds, including whitethroats, yellowhammers and two families of little owls along the lanes between the village and Sudbury

Smirking as you whizz past the 119.9p sign on the petrol station forecourt in Cornard Road

The occasional conversations with 4x4 drivers, who can't get past: "Why don't you get on the verge?!" "Why don't you get a car that fits the road?!" (Actually, I'm starting to feel sorry for them, stuck with those great lumbering gas-guzzlers as the price of crude goes through the roof. Ah well, it'll be worth it when we have our five-yearly snow storm.)

Lots of motorists, myself included until recently, get annoyed at "smug" cyclists – but now I'm beginning to realise what cyclists have to be smug about.

TALKING of traffic, hats off to the lads beavering away in Station Road. Okay, the work to replace a collapsed sewer has been a total pain for everyone – not least Waitrose and the other businesses that have lost trade.

But they've managed to all but finish in four weeks, instead of the estimated five to eight.
Thank goodness.

AND finally, I can't really see where the organisers of the Bures Festival are coming from (see Page 13). They're not allowed to hang their advertising banner over the railings outside St Peter's, but is that a reason to label town hall officials "small-town jobsworths"?

There were complaints about the number of banners, so the council drew a line at organisations from the town. Unfortunately, the excellent festival falls outside the line, but there's no need to be personal.