A serious start to winter training

It's when I hear the expression 'the nights are drawing in' that I start to dread the coming months.  Knowing that it's going to get darker and colder each day and that despite this, I will still have to get out on the river or in the cold boathouse gym, and train.
With this in mind, I booked myself a flight to Turkey!  Back to my much loved house in Foca, to be able to stay warm for just a few days longer.
But I didn't intend putting off training, so asked a friend who lives close if he could lend me a bike (I had borrowed one in the past from him, but couldn't quite remember what it was like).
He is such a good friend that when I turned up at my house on Saturday evening and opened the door, there was my trusty steed waiting in the kitchen!  What I had failed to remembered is that it's a small framed mountain bike, with big thick tyres and a lovely basket on the front!!  Not quite what I will be using in the Cycling Weekly Surrey Hills sportive in a few weeks time, but hopefully it may make it feel a whole lot easier when I get on a real bike!
Foca also has only one road that runs through it, so there is no choice as far as my daily training goes - and no avoiding all the huge hills that a coastal road inevitably has.  Before leaving home I had roughly mapped out a route on the internet and thought I could cover a round trip of about 25 miles.  So far I haven't even made it to the first village 23km away!  The heat and hills are exhausting.  But the views at the top of each hill are absolute heaven - which is obviously why it's taking me so long to get anywhere, as I have to keep stopping to appreciate the amazing place I am in.  I'm sure I won't be doing that in the wet and soggy Surrey Hills.