Too often i set off biking again immediately after eating and end up with indigestion. Today i will sit a while.
I continued my planning until one thirty by which time my head was totally done in, bus times, train times, city plans, routes, confirmation of my journey home, discovery that i had booked a train home from London a week before i needed it. More money down the drain, one of the diffiuclties of using aps on the move and trying to do a zillion things at once.
The day is sultry and overcast. I set out, not in a fit state for further map reading, planning and decisions but of course the bike route given to me on a map by the tourist office doesnt match the roads. I thought i was in for an easy ride but what did i expect!
I am now riding in the 'mountains' and as such, the wrong move is critical. I say mountains for that is how they are described, comprised of glacial morraine dumped after the last glacier retreated, but in fact they rarely go above fifty metres. Nevertheless, with a bike that doesnt want to change gears and throws the chain off if not very careful, every ascent needs to count.
I nearly turned back the minute it proved complicated. I find it hard to commit to hard physical hard work if my head is also in a stressed state. I can do physical or mental stress, the challenge of both together is too much. Way too much main road for me too.
I hung in using logic to interpret the map rather than the roads and persisted, ignoring the junctions, continuing to head in my presumed direction. I was soon rewarded with the sight of rolling fields of harvested corn and a distant coast, very different from anything ive seen hitherto but was reluctant to break my momentum for a photo shot. I now wish i had done so.
The road then drops into a shady woodland area and the trail surprisingly becomes dirt and i descend and descend and descend, hoping i am on the right track. I emerge into a tiny village with a little harbour and a guy walking along carrying a can of coke. I think, there must be life here.
I sit down at the picnic benches, eat my lunch at three pm, enjoy the peace, think this would have been a good spot to have stayed and wonder how i might choose sleeping places in remote spots. I look at the islands i saw from yesterdays ferry trip with a different perspective. I always find it interesting to see where ive been as well as where i am going.
Im unclear about my route though as although my next destination is marked, and involves several crossings of the 50m contour, the ensuing destination does not appear to be marked, even though the route details are listed on the reverse of the map, and suggest i might find both historical buildings and refreshment.
I am in Dyreborg and about to ride to Horne from where i will ascertain my onward decisions. I think, perhaps, i like to use gps routes when mountain biking to reduce the mental stress. I do all the thinking and planning beforehand, plot a route and then all i have to do is follow my purple line, nothing more, nothing less. Physical energy, mentally relatively stressfree.
Cornwall, of course will see me without a computer. Plotting road courses is possible using an ipad but offroad routes wont be. Aditionally, ipad doesnt have the capability of uploading to garmin which seriously impinges on my ability to ride freely whilst there. I guess i could do a rough plan then find a computer at the library to modify and upload but that would take a level of pre organisation im unused to.
Im waffling. Need to move on.
I found a stunning church and the main road. No sign of the second half of route so i main roaded it back to town.
I feel so distressed. All day ive been intermittently watching the trace of a friend swimming the channel. He started at three am, has trained so very very hard but has had to withdraw a mile and a half from the French coast. The channel is so very very tough. Ive had a friend do similar before, while i was actively supporting an Arch to Arc attempt. It looks as though its going well from the trace but those tides are fearful and take swimmers way further than they want to go. I'm in shock, i absolutely KNEW that Alex had trained so thoroughly that he would do it. I cannot comprehend that he did not achieve his goal, he was looking so beautiful earlier on.
I found a seat by the harbour early evening when i came back from my ride, (Alex was still swimming) and sat there for two hours watching the sea and the boats and the movement of life and thinking thinking thinking. I jested on fb that Alex might swim further and come to say hello in Denmark.
Thinking thinking...... I dont want to join all those clubs ive contacted when i go to Cornwall, whats the point of that? thats just trying to recreate a replication of what i already have. Nothing wrong in that, my life is good but i dont want to get stuck, i need to be free for a while, see what life throws my way. Let myself be.
Watching the harbour, i recall my idea of Scottish islands. There were sea kayaks, trainer dinghys, full on sailing races, the ferry, fishing boats and on the harbour behind me a classic car rally started to gather. I wondered where else might i find engaging watery life such as this. I could watch all day.
A man came to sit at my bench and we talked. My french is so very very rusty but he understood everything i said even though it was stumbling. I could not often understand him though and it became difficult for me, my brain is remembering spanish with my twenty minutes Duolingo practice a day, french has been switched off.
He described himself as of arabic origin from Morocco, who has been living in Germany for two years, seeking asylum, and has now come to Denmark, i think, seeking asylum. French is our only mutual language. We struggled with the word for asylum, had to use google translate. I didnt establish whether he has run from Germany or been given citizenship and freedom of movement. (I have noted that ALL the Swedish documentation i have seen tells me i will have to show ID before being allowed entry, even on the train, hmm, unlike the Faroes, Denmark or Germany then)
He didnt seem to be working and i didnt really understand his position here. But why did i need to? Maybe because he quizzed me on mine? I know there were wars in the south of Morocco, maybe with Algeria? Am i right? But wasnt that twenty years ago? Could he have been seeking asylum from that? I dont think ive heard of Moroccan asylum seekers.
The sun was shining on the water and having got my phone out for translation, i checked on Alex, more interested in Alex. i tried to explain about him swimming the channel, showed him the boat trace but i dont think he understood, not a sportsman.
He had a backpack full of beer, and walnuts, offered me both. Id have loved a beer but did not feel comfortable to accept. And i wonder if i was being prejudiced. If he had have been english or european, would i have thought it ok? I probably think not. Randomly offered beer, as night falls on the harbour, might be very tempting but probably inadvisable in any respect.
I said i had to go home, decided i wanted to focus on Alex finishing, called by Netto and picked up a couple of bottles of beer to celebrate, only to get in and see him on fb, on his last feed, absolutely done for. I was so upset, i knew he would not make it unless he picked up pace. Sure enough, minutes later he was out of the water, back on the boat, a mile and a half to go but drinking too much brine to continue. How very very sad.
So instead of celebrating i want to cry. Ive brought my bottles of beer back down to the harbour to watch the endings of the yacht races and the classic cars as they pull away. Now its the moon reflecting in the water.
Ive used my leatherman, that i picked up from the beach at Havenby for the first time. Its not really a leatherman, a cheap imitation and the bottle opener is even a struggle... I may chuck it.
Funny. I think i may have maligned my host when i sailed Corsica/Sardinia a year or so ago.
findacrew.net gave me a free two weeks sailing experience in exchange for my rusty french translations!! I freaked a bit at lots of safety elements on board, which came to a head on the scary, but exhilarating, unlit, night sailing in high seas. It seems that some of these yachts, have little light too but i feel that participating in a local regatta may be a bit different from negotiating the Bonafacio Straits in a high sea with only a tiny light on top of the mast. But I think i may well have been wrong!
Habits are hard to break. It requires an real desire and motivation to do so. I have neither at the moment, just a desire for fun. Having not had alcohol since my Saturday night venture, my two 50p bottles by the harbour tasted rather good and with my sadness for Alex i find myself back in Saturdays pub and yes, im with my ipad again, and my hat. Such a shame the bar is full of smokers. Time for the loo and a decision, do i stay or do i go?
Decision not mine. The bar closed at 10, im too late for another. Perfect. I head home
