Grace had forgotten just how much she liked the mornings in Blue Sands. Up around seven as dawn was breaking on a clear, cloudless day with a tickly breeze in the air, it was still too early for most except a few dog walkers and delivery vans. Grace, wearing jogging gear, did a couple of laps of the foreshore, the soft sand building up a gradual power in her legs that road running couldn’t do. Then, so exhausted she wasn’t sure she could have ridden on the flat, she took the bike from where she had left it against the hedge at the bottom of Melrose Hill, climbed on and made a sudden surge for the start of the slope.
As expected, she barely made it to the first corner before her strength gave out, but it was better than nothing. If she was going to win the Melrose Hill Bicycle Race, she ne
