The blog that never happened!

Radio silence since Devon, oh dear. The reason being I had no computer access on my final weekend of this marathon trip so now there's lots to update you on...

Devon and Cornwall are both beautiful counties to be sure but coming at the end of the best part of a 4,000km road trip they are perhaps not an ideal place for a weary middle-aged cyclist to finish! The price for stunning views here is steep ascents and hair-raising descents and frankly I would have given my right pedal to finish this journey in East Anglia!  However, I'm proud to say I made it, spurred on by the generous hospitality and kindliness of my hosts. 

But, as many of you know, I didn't make it on the date I'd expected to finish :-(  My final weekend in Cornwall became increasingly damp and misty and I awoke on Monday morning to a heavy mist or light fog.  Undaunted, I set off along the country lanes near Lands End towards Penzance and it was only when I realised that I wasn't spotting oncoming cars' headlamps until they were less than 200 yards away that it dawned on me that drivers would not see my puny bike lights until they were nearly on top of me.  I felt like an accident waiting to happen.  Angry and disappointed I pedalled into Penzance station and boarded a train, did the wise thing and came home only a 100 kms short of my goal.

But David was there to greet me when I arrived, with a smile on his face; he had consulted his diary, the weather forecast, booked a couple of B&Bs so that he could drive me back to complete the journey the following week :-)  How good was that? I was so thrilled not to be cheated of a quietly triumphant pedal over the bridge and up the hill to Looe station and to have David share this final leg of the journey with me.

This week the weather was perfect and I was in the perfect frame of mind to complete this marathon experience.  The previous week I had been weary and focussed on the goal of crossing the finishing line.  This week I was back to enjoying the journey, revelling in every minute of the experience, the sights, the smells, the sounds and the beauty all around me.  True to form, the sat nav gave me one final laugh a few kilometres outside Looe when it tried to have me cut through a dense hedgerow and across a trackless field but I've learnt to live with its foibles!! 

What I wasn't ready for was the emotion I felt as I pedalled into Looe station where I'd started on 17th July.  I found myself fast-forwarding through the past few weeks in the saddle and the reality of this adventure began to sink in - the beauty and variety of the landscape, the colours, the views, the solitude, the peace and the freedom I'd felt. I hadn't set out to cycle around the coast for my own benefit, I'd done it to raise money for the training village in Malawi, and yet I have benefitted so much from the whole experience.  This is something that will always stay with me.

On the homeward stretch

Last time I blogged I was in a foreign country, well Wales, and it was with surprising joy that I crossed over the Severn back into England last Wednesday.  I can't say that joy persisted as I struggled to navigate my way over, under, around endless rivers and motorways in the Avonmouth area.  However, pure joy awaited me in Bridgewater in the form of a replacement sat nav, complete with OS maps uploaded - yippeee!  

It's amazing how much slower a ride becomes when you are trying to memorise the next 3 or 4 directions, then you have to stop and consult the map again for the next instructions.  Cycling analogue as my brother, Jim, puts it is definitely much slower and, with my map-reading skills, not necessarily more reliable than going with the technology.  Just as well David was working from home that day and could keep an eye on me via the app on his phone :-)

Since Bridgewater I have had the joy of a sat nav that works and made it to Porlock and then Lynton without hitch.  Not far in miles but both days made up for that in elevation!  However, the views were spectacular at times and well worth the effort.  The dreaded Porlock Hill has a cycle route which zigzags around the hill, achieving the same elevation but much more manageably.  It feels a bit like doing Box Hill 5 times in succession - the Olympians have got nothing on me!!!

Arriving in Devon gave me a real lift - only one more county to conquer after this. In fact, 2 more days on the road and I'll be back in Cornwall - ok, so it's chock-a-block with steep hills careering down into coves and back out again, but who cares? 5 more days of Cornwall and I'm back where I started, in Looe.  Not that I'm counting or anything!

The whole trip has been an amazing experience and to tell the truth I can't quite believe that I've done it.  When David showed me on the map showing me all the spots I'd tweeted from, I just started chuckling.  Seeing a visual representation of what I've done just made me laugh in disbelief.  But now is not the time to wrap up this blog with reminiscences, I shall leave that for my final post next week...

Thoughts from the road - St David's onwards

Well, I guess it's just as well I didn't write this blog the day I set off from St David's and said goodbye to my David because then this post would just have been filled with gloom and doom! This whole venture has been a real adventure for me, it's been exciting, challenging, fun and a fantastic experience overall but to tell the truth it has had its downside as well.  Saying goodbye to David after a lovely week together relaxing and recharging my batteries brought it home to me all the more how much I have missed him and the girls.  The temptation to chuck in the towel and put my bike on the back of the car and go home with him was great indeed. I suppose I'd also been spoiled having my brother's company all the way from Morecambe to St David's and now I was setting off alone again, the sky was overcast and I was feeling thoroughly sorry for myself.

I'd like to say that I thought altruistic thoughts about the people in Malawi whose lives will be affected for the better by the Landirani Training Village that I'm raising funds for, but no, that wasn't the case.  Do any of you remember Ian Dury and the Blockheads?  Well, the thought that came into my head was a line from one of his songs 'Reasons to be Cheerful, One, Two, Three'.  For those of you who don't know this band, Ian Dury rose to fame in the 70s as a punk rocker and the unusual thing about that was that he was disabled by polio. However that didn't stop him from becoming a star.  So I headed out of the tiny city of St David's, not with thoughts of the patron saint of Wales in my head but the rather raucous punk rock music of Ian Dury buzzing round my brain. Well, they say God works in mysterious ways and He certainly does because this song soon got me working out reasons I have to be cheerful and here are three of mine:

• I have a supportive family and a great bunch of friends, Fb and others, who are willing me on
• there have been an amazing range of people all round the country who have opened up their homes to me and welcomed me in and there are more who I've yet to meet
• all day and every day I have this wonderful landscape to feast my eyes on - we really do live in a beautiful country 

And frankly, I hadn't cycled many miles before I had compiled a list as long as my arm and was feeling thoroughly cheerful again :-)

Another reason to be cheerful is the state of the roads in Wales.  From a cyclist's point of view their roads are excellent: the surfaces are generally good, potholes filled, cycle lanes where possible alongside main roads, well sign-posted cycle routes (or maybe I've just become more adept at spotting the signs) and quite a few of these routes seem fairly recently tarmac'ed.  All in all very impressive, 10/10 Wales :-)  

What also made cycling easy for me here was having my brother, Jim, for company.  He is a much more experienced cyclist and has this uncanny ability to cycle at a steady pace so all I had to do was slot in behind him.  Well, actually that's easier said than done for a Tigger like me.  One minute I'd be dutifully on his tail and then I'd find I'd randomly dropped back a few hundred yards and was speeding to catch up again.  Pedalling at a steady pace is evidently an art I've yet to learn!  It reminded me of the holiday David and I had cycling the length of the Outer Hebrides when I would pootle along and then suddenly whizz on ahead to see what was round the corner, double-back to tell David about the amazing view up ahead, pedal with him and then speed up the incline to encourage him that it soon flattened out, double-back again to join him so he wouldn't  give up... And then I wondered why he found cycling with me so demotivating!!! It must be hard for Winnie the Pooh to live with Tigger.

So here's hoping I can bounce my way along the remainder of the south Wales coastline and the next blog will come from England once more - homeward bound :-)

Language learning on the road

Well, 42 days into this venture - 28 of them actual cycling days - I find myself in a foreign country. No, I haven't inadvertently cycled into the Channel tunnel and ended up in France - my brother Jim and I crossed the Wirral and ended up in Wales.  To be fair, the country doesn't seem foreign and nor do the people but the language certainly does. Sometimes it seems like someone has strung together a load of consonants and expects them to be pronounceable! Well, being by nature a lover of languages and a firm believer that when in Rome, speak as the Romans do, I decided not to be disconcerted by every road sign in Welsh and English but to use them as my teacher.

The first Welsh I picked up was "Croeso y Cymru" and I thought how nice to be formally welcomed to Wales before I'd even met any of the lovely people my brother and I were to encounter on our ride through this beautiful country.  The sign I saw most often was "safle bws" and yes, they do queue in an orderly fashion for the buses here just as we do in England :-)  Speeding down a 20% descent I also quickly learned why "araf" is painted before every bend on the road - if you haven't guessed, it means "slow".  For some reason we both found "dim parcio" funny - perhaps because it sounds a bit Italian and that seemed incongruous and perhaps because it reminded me of how people park in such daft ways, but in fact it means "no parking".  As Jim and I were slogging up a hill we spotted a sign "pant cudd" and I thought yes, not only could I but I am puffing and panting, thank you!  We discovered it was warning us of a hidden dip which at least allowed us to pick up a bit of speed.  Knowing that "araf" means "slow" it didn't take much to guess that "arafwch nawr" means "slow down now" and sure enough that was confirmed by the English "reduce speed now". Other signs were "Ar werth" - For sale, "ysgol" - school, "ffordd" - road, "siocled" - chocolate (the most important word to know in any language) and my favourite of all is "twmpathau" which are speed bumps - no idea why that word appeals but reading it just makes me happy.

So I reckon a few more weeks in this beautiful country and I could be holding conversations along the lines of:
- See the house by the bus stop?
- You mean the one next to the school?
- No, further down the road where the speed bumps are.
- Ah, the one with the For sale sign up.
- Yes, it was painted chocolate brown last year.
Or maybe I should just accept my linguistic limitations and stick to English!  And perhaps it's just as well I only have a few more days cycling in Wales before I cross the Severn bridge and back to familiar monolingual road signs.
  

R.I.P.

R.I.P. - Rest in Peace.  No, this is not to announce that I'm posting this from the great computer in the sky, on the contrary, I am safe and well and have survived more stretches on A-roads than I care to remember.  No, it is my untrusty little sat nav who is now resting in peace back at the Garmin factory where it came from.  Yes, I know we had a love-hate relationship but over the miles from Looe to Berwick on Tweed I had adapted considerably to its idiosyncrasies - it clearly was refusing to adapt to mine, so I was going to have to be the bigger person here.  And adapt I did and from Carlisle onwards we were jogging along together quite nicely; I was no longer fazed when the sat nav threw up a random instruction for a split second before correcting itself and carrying on as though nothing had happened; or when the screen froze after the last instruction I would calmly get out my iPhone and take a look at the maps there to get a rough idea of where I should be heading.  The sat nav had definitely developed a lot of quirks, sometimes it gave me the silent treatment so I either risked missing a turn or kept my eyes glued to it and risked riding off into a hedge or ditch but between us we were making our way around the coast and that's all that matters.

Well, truth to tell, it wasn't only between the sat nav and me - I had a lot (and I mean a lot) of phone calls from David bailing me out when I'd gone wrong or phoning simply to say "you don't seem to be moving, is there a problem?" which there invariably was.  Now, you might well be wondering how on earth David knows where I am at any given point or whether I've stopped or am belting down an A-road as fast as my little legs can carry me.  This is not a case of Big Brother is watching you, more a case of Big Husband is watching you - via a nifty app on his iPhone.

So, did I throw this sometimes frustrating but very necessary little machine into the sea in a fit of pique?  No, I was cycling into Southport on Tuesday evening when the screen went blank.  I assumed the battery had died but knowing I was nearly there I navigated the rest of the way with the iPhone, charged the battery overnight, turned it on the next morning to guide me through Liverpool, across the Wirral and into Flint in N Wales - and the screen flickered into life and promptly died on me :-(   I mourned its passing all day, especially as I had to go analogue and buy 3 different Landranger maps to get me the 60 miles (100 kms) from Southport to Flint and I still got very lost on the Wirral!

I say "I" but actually it was "we" because my brother, Jim, has come over from Germany where he lives to join me for the stretch from Morecambe to St David's - so, being without a sat nav and getting badly lost wasn't such a daunting experience as it would otherwise have been.  Jim has been a tower of strength, two heads are always better than one and it's very comforting simply to cycle in his slip stream.

So, there we were in Heswall, well gone five o'clock, with unscheduled B&B thoughts buzzing round our heads - where were you Jackie of Heswall? However, we finally made it to Flint having been on the road for the best part of 12 hours.

Tomorrow, Bangor, opposite Anglesey, here we come! Jim was last there as a student just under 40 years ago when he studied there: a trip up many a hill and down memory lane.

Has the road changed me?

Well, looking at the nifty little map that Tom Nicholas devised to plot my journey it seems that I'm over half way now in terms of mileage, although perhaps not in terms of elevation.  http://tweetedtrips.com/map/408/sarah-bowen-aroundthecoast/?loggedout=hjtw6w8d4ptydpf
So it seems like an appropriate time to let you in on a few little secrets... This journey has changed me. And the first secret is I LOVE BEING ON THE OPEN ROAD! There, I've said it now and I feel much better for getting that off my chest.

But that's not the only change. To explain the next one I need to introduce you to one of my hosts from the south coast. Now I don't usually talk about my hosts but in this case I have Charles' permission. His wife, however, shall remain nameless because I sense she would prefer it that way. Now Charles is a very affable man and, like all my other hosts, he and his wife went out of their way to make me feel welcome. This included the offer of pre-dinner drinks. I explained to Charles that I don't drink, not because I have anything against drinking but simply because I've never found a drink
I like - apart from the very occasional Snowball but that is truly very occasional because advocat goes off so it isn't worth buying a bottle. Well, this news greatly perturbed poor Charles who was not to be defeated and asked if I'd ever tried Pimms. No, I hadn't but clearly I was about to! And guess what? It was delicious and I just about downed it in one. After that Charles, wise man that he is, kept me topped up with fruit juice :-) A bottle of Pimms was promptly added to my birthday present list. Then matters got worse when I reached Holy Island and discovered Lindisfarne mead and cream liqueur - sheer nectar!  The trouble with all this is that my dear hubby, who has enjoyed the uninterrupted services of a chauffeur home from dinner parties and other social events for the last 30 years or more, is not going to enjoy taking it in turns now!

Another change is that I've taken up singing. Well, not necessarily out loud because I don't want to
frighten the wildlife, but certainly in my head and I think it's about time I taught you a couple of my favourite pedalling songs that have been helping me up the hills. Now you need to get into the rhythm of this one...
Left - left - left right left
I left my job
For thirty bob
M'boss and me
Could never agree
So I left
D'you think I was
.. Right?

Now this little ditty can be repeated endlessly until you get to the top of the hill no matter how high or long it is.
Another favourite, and forgive me those of you who don't have children and so may not know the tune to this one, but if you search for "the wheels on the bus" on YouTube you should get a fairly cheerful rendition of the original. My version goes as follows:
The pedals on the bike go round and round
Round and round
Round and round
The pedals on the bike go round and round
All day long

The gears on the bike go clunk clunk clunk
Clunk clunk clunk ...

The rider on the bike goes puff puff puff...
The brakes on the bike go squeak squeak squeak...

Yes, I can see you've got the hang of it already! It's amazing how fertile the human brain is and how many extra verses you can make up. Do let me know of any interesting ones you may come up with, I think I'm going to need to make this song very long indeed to get me round Wales.

I'm sure there will be a few more changes before 1st Oct when I finally cycle back in to Looe to catch my train home, but that's enough for now.  Till next time

A hypochondriac on the road

I suppose it's only fair to assume that something close to a 4,000km ride on a new bike powered by a 56 year old body is asking for trouble and the trouble is that I tend to think that my body is as fit and strong as it was aged 26 and I probably had this assumption in mind when planning the whole venture...

I started out with a gammy right ankle - a legacy of school days and too much lacrosse on freezing cold Saturday mornings.  It's a brutal game, played by posh girls who, underneath their plummy accents, are infinitely more brutal than the Native American Indians who invented the game.  In addition to that I have a dodgy left knee which is a left over from my running days and these also triggered problems in my right hip - I swear running should come with a health warning, a bit like packets of cigarettes.  Anyway, it was these three ailments that pushed me back into cycling a couple of years ago.  I'd always loved cycling, ever since I fell off my bike as a child and broke my arm - but that's another story.  So, I was doing really well with my training last year until I slipped on the ice in Reykjavik last December and managed to break my shoulder.  That kept me off my bike for a good 3 months, although I did make it to some spin classes after a month trying to keep up with the other sweaties, my left arm dangling limply by my side...

Well, the old joints seemed to be bearing up tolerably well for the first few days until the left knee started to play up a bit.  I think I must have mentioned this somewhere along the way and whoever has been offering prayers for my left knee, thank you very much. You'll be pleased to know that it has been absolutely fine since and in fact the right ankle, left knee, right hip and left shoulder have all been behaving themselves perfectly - don't you just love the symmetry of my ailments?  Now, I think I may have mentioned the effects on the hands of leaning too long on the handlebars.  Well, I can only assume that although I must lean very heavily on them and have probably compressed the nerves as flat as pancakes by now, someone out there has been praying for that too because my hands have not got nearly as bad as I would have expected.  Yes, my fingers still feel like 8 fat chipolatas and 2 fat cocktail sausages but I still have some use of them: doing up buttons and zips is difficult, I can hold a knife and fork in a reasonably civilised fashion but cutting up food is tricky, I can brush my hair but putting on eyeliner becomes a dangerous sport... and so the list goes on.  In fact, most of the things I struggle with are ADLs - actions of daily living - maybe I should apply for benefits!!

Now to this list of woes I really should add my wonky eyes: chronically short-sighted at the best of times I now have the added feature of double vision.  Not such a bad thing when watching a George Clooney film but less appealing when the oncoming juggernaut ominously splits into one and a half and then sometimes two, half of which appears to be heading straight for you and you're not quite sure where on the road it is in reality until it's passed you. At which point, you heave a deep sigh of relief.  Now, wonky though it is, I treasure my vision because it's the only vision I've got even though prescription glasses can't make it 20/20. So when I'm pedalling along minding my own business and suddenly notice a small dark splodge distorting my vision, I can't help but panic just a teeny bit.  Is my retina getting detached?  Am I about to go blind??  I shake my head in the hopes that dark splodge will disappear (probably the worst thing to do if it is the retina) but no, it's still there, just off the centre of my line of vision.  Then another one appears and I start to get seriously worried and begin to sympathise with Saul on the Damascus Road - poor bloke, but at least he was only blind for 3 days and had an amazing career after that.  But I digress.  I'm now cycling along like Cyclops and wondering what I should do.  I force myself to squint and focus on one of the dark splodges and then it dawns on me... I stop, take off my glasses, flick off two tiny insects and carry on.  Phew, wonky sight restored!

I could tell you about the pain in one of my right ribs ever since I slipped in the bath in Harwich, I was convinced it was broken and about to pierce my lung and I'd die from lack of breath, but I'm still here, still cycling, so I guess I just have to live with being an incorrigible hypochondriac until the day I die - and moan: I told you I was feeling ill.

Pet Hates on the Road

Well you might be forgiven for thinking that after 17 days on the road enjoying peace and solitude I would be becoming a more patient, easy-going person who is increasingly at ease with her environment and developing an inner untouchable calm.  But no, after 17 days on the road it seems I've had plenty of time to develop a series of pet hates; some of them relate to the weather, to technology, to people and to nature.  The question is where to begin...

• Perhaps the first one to start with is people, specifically when I approach a helpful looking individual to ask if this is the way to village X and they respond with horror, assuring me that village X is miles away - as if to say, 'you can't possibly want to go there'.  It takes a lot to bite my lip and not retort that I'm not interested in how far it is to X, and what business is it of yours anyway how far I cycle?  This has happened a number of times - clearly some people think that a woman of my age is not fit to be let loose on the countryside with a bicycle, and they may well be right!
• Another pet hate is roadkill.  Well, not roadkill in itself but more my morbid fascination with looking at it as I cycle past.  Now I know we've all done that as we whizz past roadkill in a car but on a bike it is a much more morbid thing to do. You really do have plenty of time to give the poor dead beast a thorough once-over and I think I must get rather bored at times because I catch myself trying to determine what it was when it was alive and wondering if it has left a family of little bunnies, hedgehogs, foxes, birds behind without someone to look after them?  I shall be saying a prayer for them next!
• Ok, so the next pet hate is road signs, or more precisely the inadequacy of national cycle route signs.  Now for those of you who are drivers you probably have never noticed these vital little signs which consist of a white number in a red square on a blue background.  When these signs are there, pointing you in the right direction you love them to bits.  They are enormously reassuring and enable you to speed along enjoying your surroundings.  However, I have developed the distinct suspicion that those council workers responsible for erecting these signs have a twisted sense of humour and like to play psychological games with cyclists.  So I have now taken to playing Spot-the-cycle-route-sign game and, like anything else, it's great fun when you're winning.  Now usually these signs are posted at cyclists' eye-level on lamp-posts or on signposts along with other road signs.  All well and good, you might think.  But just to catch the unwary cyclist out they are sometimes to be found way up towards the top of telegraph poles so you have to crane your neck to see them, down at pedal height, partially or almost completely obscured by overhanging greenery, set back from the road on a brick wall or simply nowhere in sight when you need them, inducing a torrent of unspoken abuse at incompetent council departments!

Well, this is by no means the end of my list but I don't want to shatter the illusion of serenity and calm in one fell swoop so I'll save my other pet hates for another day...

Encounters on the road

Well, I've now spent 15 days cycling on the road and one thing I'm learning to value is solitude.  You certainly get plenty of that when you spend on average 8-10 hours a day in the saddle, pedalling from A to B, and one thing I've noticed is how help is there when you need it.  Being a woman I'm more than happy to ask the way when I'm uncertain and it's been surprising how often someone has been available just at the right time:

• There was the time when the sat nav got confused with flyovers and underpasses so I pulled in at a service station to ask the way.  The cashiers both looked at me blankly, then I heard a voice half way down the queue offering to show me the way if I'd just wait for him outside.  Turns out he was an off-duty police officer who gave me the clearest and most precise instructions ever!
• Another time, in Sandwich, Kent, I was circuiting the town for the second time trying to find the bike shop which I'd seen first time around because I reckoned they'd be the ones to know the way to pick up the national cycle route.  I spotted this lady, about my age, walking with a Zimmer-frame, who told me where the shop was.  It turned out that their directions were rather confusing and this same lady spotted me some 15 minutes later, still trying to get out of Sandwich!  Where are you trying to get to? she asked.  I told her, never imagining that she would know the way.  And how wrong was I!  That taught me not to make assumptions about people.
• On Saturday I set off bright and early and by 6am I'd already got in a muddle trying to find my way out of Kings Lynn.  The town was dead, nobody about yet then as luck would have it, a taxi pulled up ahead of me to pick up a customer - taxi drivers have done the Knowledge I thought, what better person to ask?  And a few minutes later I was out of town. 
• Another time, in desperation, I flagged down a lycra-clad cyclist who kindly abandonned his route to escort me onto the right road, even cycling at my laden-touring-bike speed :-)

I've had help from postmen, dads pushing prams, walkers - some of them have been as clueless as me, some have thought they've known the way yet didn't, but many of them did and were right. But it's not just been people who have told me the way who have helped and cheered me up.

• There was a lovely sight in Exmouth which made me laugh out loud.  It was screamingly hot and this middle-aged, rather stout lady was pulling her equally stout little pooch of a dog through town in a dog basket on wheels!  The dog was sitting there like the Queen of Sheba, solemnly regarding her surroundings while her soft owner was sweating buckets!
• Then there was the seriously overweight man (probably over 25 stone/158kg) riding on a large tricycle and I thought well good on you mate, you may be attracting some looks but at least you're getting out there and that must take courage.
• Probably the most inspirational encounter I have had was when a charming, stylishly well-dressed older gentleman came up to me after church to thank me for the brief talk I'd just given about African Vision Malawi and my ride.  Immediately I realised that he'd had a stroke and I thought what courage to make the effort to come up to me and engage in conversation. It seems his ability to understand language was not impaired but his ability to construct sentences of his own was shot to pieces.  And yet, with goodwill on both sides, we managed to communicate and I was blown away by this man who evidently is intelligent and educated and has been trapped for years now with these thoughts and ideas and emotions in his head and no way of expressing them.  Total enforced solitude, completely unlike my own which I can break at any time. What courage to get up each morning, look life in the eye, take pride in your appearance and smile at the world.  Whenever I'm feeling disheartened I remember this brave man and let his approach to life inspire me on my ride.  If anyone from St Swithun's happens to read this, I'm sure you'll know him.

Well, that's just a selection of my encounters, on Wednesday it'll be Pet Hates on the Road!!  Until then...

Breaks on the road

To be totally honest life on the road is not all romantic bowling down country lanes, enjoying cream teas at village teashops, visiting places of cultural or historic interest - life soon comes to revolve around much more basic things than those.  Yes, I have done a fair amount of bowling along and I have been tempted to stop off at a number of cafes but I've only had one cream tea, honest!  Most of my breaks are roadside breaks and these can be broken down into phone breaks, camera breaks (also often combined with Twitter breaks), snack breaks, pee breaks and view breaks.

• phone breaks: these are a good excuse to text someone at random and the nice thing is you usually hear the beep of a reply pretty quickly and that's an excuse for another little break further down the road, or immediately if it's rather hilly.  Now if you want to text me and give me an excuse for a break, you're most welcome!
• camera breaks: well, I try to keep these to a minimum.  I've seen so many potential shots that if I'd taken them all I'd still be in Devon!  It requires strict personal discipline though, kind of reminds me of the discipline involved in our school days.  Like not being allowed to talk in the corridors between lessons and having to walk in single file.  It must have been a nightmare for the extroverts, Tracey Dear how did you and Olwen cope???    I try to restrict myself to no more than 2 or 3 camera breaks a day and will often post them to twitter because my tweets are geotagged and come up on this website http://tweetedtrips.com/map/408/sarah-bowen-aroundthecoast/?loggedout=hjtw6w8d4ptydpf so you can see at a glance where I am (although I actually started in Looe, not Yealmpton).
• snack breaks: well, there are lots of these.  In reality I could do with a nose-bag so I can just graze constantly.  My appetite at the moment reminds me a bit of when I was pregnant - not only did I nibble non-stop all day for 9 months but I also took up a plate of goodies to bed each night :-)  So the first snack is a banana + bar of chocolate (Yorkie biscuit & raisin works well); then comes the energy bar break; followed by brazil nuts and dates; protein shake plus crisps - and that's all before lunch!
• pee breaks: ah, now for those of you of a sensitive disposition I suggest you skip this one; for the likes of Jasmine Clayden, read on!  Well, it has to be said that there's a knack to a successful pee break.  Of primary importance is the location, near a road junction is not good but on a bend can be.  Ideally you need a post or fence or gate to lean your bike, also a hedge or bush so that you can at least be partially hidden from traffic coming one way is helpful.  The terrain has to be taken into consideration - too much vegetation is not a good idea, equally very dry, sandy or gravelly ground is risky.  In addition to that you have to think about the lie of the land, is it flat or is there a slight slope?  One time I spotted some old discarded planks lying on top of some long grass near a gate, half-hidden by a hedge on a quiet windy road.  Perfect.  Until the top plank shifted at the critical moment and began to slope ominously towards my right shoe!
• view breaks: ahh, these are the best.  These are the ones where you don't text or click the camera or rummage for food.  You just stand there for a few moments and lose yourself in the magnificence of it all, feeling very small but very very grateful.

Challenges on the road

Now someone has suggested that I should write about some of the challenges I have faced along the way so far...  Well, I don't want this to sound like a blog of moans and groans but then again I don't want you all to think I've spent each day swanning along promenades and esplanades with the sea gently crashing on my right, a tangy sea breeze in my face.  Truth to tell, there has been a fair bit of that the past few days but the overall journey has not been without its challenges, the biggest of which has been:

• The weather: glorious sunshine, blue skies who could complain about that?  But with temperatures in the high 20s/low 30s for most of the first week at times I was genuinely concerned about heat exhaustion.  The hottest day for some years was apparently Monday and that was the day I zoned out on the heathlands running into Corfe and arrived at the castle in a zombie-like state, despite plenty of water and electrolyte drink. Pushing those pedals uphill in heat with no discernible breeze was hard work indeed when you're carrying about 30lbs/13.5kg in the panniers and the bike itself weighs another 30lbs.  But I made it each day, and safely too, so that's all that matters.
• Another challenge has to be the sat nav - never before in the history of mankind has a mere machine evoked so much frustration and rage!  I think I've got the measure of its limited brain now, and to give you just one example of its idiosyncrasies, it maybe gives me the instruction "turn left" which I obligingly do it then promptly tells me "make a U-turn". However, if I think I'm on the right road anyway I will just carry on regardless and half a mile later it flashes up "course found".  At times, and especially in city centres, it gets so confused it just takes me round in circles getting nowhere.  My favourite has to be the time when I was cycling along the cliff track towards Dover and the sat nav threw a wobbly and told me to turn right!!!  In fact, for a brief second it flashed up three different options to the right - which way shall I jump?!  But it is really like the girl who had a curl right in the middle of her forehead and when she was good she was very very good but when she was bad she was horrid.
• Another challenge has to be other drivers.  I'm refining the technique of raising my hand to oncoming cars in a gesture of acknowledgement, just to say hello I'm here.  As they get a bit closer I raise my hand again as much to say, in case it hadn't occurred to you please beware of me.  And then I raise it a third time to thank them for slowing down whether they have or not in the hopes that even if they haven't slowed down for me they will next time they encounter a cyclist.  90% of the time this method works, the key is getting the timing just right and I'm getting it down to a fine art now :-)  It also works for traffic coming up from behind if you hear them in time.  Some respond really well and give you a wide berth, others shave the buckles off your panniers but my guardian angels are working overtime and no one has knocked me off yet.
• Another challenge is getting enough food down me.  As some of you may know I'm hypoglycaemic (probs spelled that wrong, sorry) which means my blood sugar levels drop more readily compared to most people.  That, combined with very low blood pressure makes it quite easy for me to feel a bit woozy.  When you're on a bike leaning forward holding dropped handlebars the last thing you need is a full stomach so the knack seems to be hourly, or max 2 hourly, snacks like energy bars, nuts & dried fruit, bananas, chocolate, lucozade and my protein milkshake midday.  I'm worse than a newborn baby really - can't even go more than a couple of hours without food!  When I feel my concentration going, then I know it's time to stop and refuel and have a snack break (as opposed to my other sorts of roadside break which consist of phone break to text or tweet, camera break, pee break, drink break!)
• The final challenge is probably how my nearly-56-year-old body is bearing up under the strain of all this.  Well, I have to say remarkably well.  Probably the sorest thing is the pads on my hands, you know, the paddy bit along the outside of the hand below the little finger and the pad under the thumb.  They are both carrying a lot of my weight as I lean forward and the nerves are getting compressed which means that by the end of the day my fingers feel like 5 fat sausages!  I've also discovered that as well as being thoroughly left-handed I am also completely left-legged!  Which means that I always clip my left foot into the pedal first, push down heaviest with my left foot to get me going, take most of the strain with the left leg up the hills etc.  The net result of all this is a bit of tenderness just under the left knee-cap now.  So prayers for my knees would be welcomed!  Some people have asked me how my bottom is bearing up and all I can say is very nicely thank you, no problems so far in that department apart from some initial bruising on the left gluteous maximus which has now worn off.

Well, I'm sure that's enough of the downsides of this event for one post :-)  The main thing that keeps me going when things are hard is the wonderful generosity of all you lovely people who have housed me, sponsored me, prayed for me and generally supported me in other ways so that I can reach my target and provide something worthwhile and lasting for the people who African Vision Malawi are supporting - a bit thank you to all of you.

LESSONS FROM THE ROAD

Well, I've been on the road for a week now and yes, I've been sitting on the same bike, laden with the same panniers, pushing the same pedals around but no two hours have been the same.  I have met some lovely people with amazing stories to tell, stories which I can't tell here because that would be breaking trust.  The one common thread which lies behind these stories is people who are outward-looking and therefore have spent much of their lives making sure that others are included and not left on the fringes - which is probably the attitude which prompted them to "get" what I'm doing with this Around the Coast venture and to offer me such a warm welcome.

So what are some of the lessons I've learned?  Well, here goes:

• use sun protection factor on your ears, and even behind your ears - yes, I know my mother told me always to wash behind my ears, well now I have a reason for it.
• bug attacks - these are frequent, unpredictable and best managed by breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth, aiming the stream of air downwards.  A bit like the breathing exercises pregnant mums are taught (I always knew they'd come in handy one day)
• on entering a cafe, head straight for the ladies toilets and take a good hard look in the mirror.  There's nothing worse than ordering a pot of Earl Grey tea and a toasted teacake and wondering why the otherwise charming waitress can't take her eyes off you as she stifles her giggles.  Reason: bugs that have met a sad end in oily sun protection factor 30.
• remember what gear you're in.  There's nothing more frustrating in the moment when you're pushing the pedals for all you're worth and you think - just got to drop down a gear - but you're already in 1st :-(   Then 5 minutes later, with chain back in place, fingers black with grease you realise it's time for a snack break - hmm, packet of crisps with added oil?  (The extra calories must be good for me).
• the views, ahh the views.  Whether it's shades of blue from the sea merging into a misty indescribable colour as it meets the sky or the infinitely varying shades of green of the vegetation, you can't help but be awed by the beauty of the landscape.  And if the landscape is this awesome, how much more awe-inspiring must its Creator be?
•  Well, I've been told to keep these blogs short and sweet so that's all for now.  Feedback, comments welcome, don't be shy!

On the road

Ok, so how did this madcap idea start?  Well, right from when Heather founded African Vision Malawi a few years ago I've been seriously impressed with what they've been achieving out there and I wanted to be part of it but didn't know in what way.  Then when  David became a trustee I became increasingly aware that their vision is far bigger than their budget so the idea to raise funds seemed the way forward. But how?  It seems that plenty of people are doing fundraising events but I wanted to raise a significant amount for African Vision Malawi and realised that I would therefore have to have a significant undertaking.  It was about that time that David Walliams was swimming The Thames for charity, ok so it helps that he's famous and could attract loads of media attention unlike me but nevertheless lots of support from friends and family and from local churches could go a long way, couldn't it?  So I thought, well I hate taking my clothes off and getting wet and cold but I can cycle a bike... and that's where it all started :-)

And then what happened?  Well, it's taken months of planning that's for sure!  Heather, the founder of African Vision Malawi, and her husband, Nigel, live in the diocese of Kingston and the bishop is supportive of the work they are doing and agreed to write a letter of recommendation to his fellow clergy asking them to support me in finding hospitality on my way round the country.  This letter has been like a magic key which has swung many doors wide open and I've been simply overwhelmed by the generosity and positive response I've had.  So far I've only had to book myself into two B&Bs and there are only a few churches we've yet to hear back from towards the end of the trip but I've every confidence it will all work out.

So armed with the Bishop of Kingston's letter I was able to start planning my route.  Now there's a relatively easy train journey from Bookham to Looe in Cornwall (via Guildford, Reading and Liskeard) so I plumped for Looe as my start point and approached a parish church about an afternoon's cycle ride east of Looe.  This turned out to be in Yealmpton where I was warmly welcomed by Rev Murphy and his wife.  The rest of the ride was planned on the basis of:

• location of parishes
• contour lines - how many hills, how high and how steep
• distance from a to b
• availability of national cycle routes
• proximity to the coast

and not necessarily in that order!

So far I've cycled from Looe to Yealmpton to Paignton to Exmouth to Bridport and tomorrow I head on to Poole and then Hayling Island on Tuesday.

So that's the nuts and bolts of what I'm doing and if on my next rest day, which is Wednesday, my host has a computer I will write more about what it feels like to be on the road each day.

Until then, fare well and do post any comments, questions etc and I'll try to respond

This summer will see me cycling around the coast of England and Wales, over 4,000 kms and a total climb of 2.6 times the height of Mt Everest, to raise money for African Vision Malawi, formerly known as the Landirani Trust.  This charity was set up by a good friend, Heather Palmer, in response to a visit in 2005 to the area where she was brought up and her parents served as missionaries.

Heather and her trustees decided to work in a discrete area of Malawi 30kms from the capital, Lilongwe.  This area has 45,000 people in around 200 villages where there are some of the country’s poorest people who receive minimal help from local or central government and their needs are huge. The charity works with orphans, HIV sufferers and disabled people as well as helping village chiefs and elders to support the most vulnerable in their communities.  In the early days of the charity they focussed on providing clean water, blankets and other essentials.  They quickly progressed to more permanent solutions providing wells and bore holes, feeding stations for the under 5s, school blocks, agricultural development in villages and a maternity unit.  The focus today is entirely around self-sufficiency: helping people to help themselves.  Over the next 3 years this will be achieved through creating a ‘Training Village’, a project on a 10 acre site donated to the charity by a number of village chiefs which will impact many thousands of people and will transform their lives, giving them training in building, agriculture, tailoring, craftwork, setting up and running small businesses encouraging self-sufficiency, health and a future income.

And this is where I come in...  As with all charities raising funds for projects is key and last year I committed to this marathon cycle ride around the coast of England and Wales in a bid to raise £20,000 which will build the main training workshop and 3 blocks of family accommodation for the trainees.  This cyclemarathon has the support of the Bishop of Kingston who has asked his fellow clergy to provide me accommodation (or at least a garden in which to pitch my tent) on the way round.

But before this adventure can begin there's a lot of planning, fund-raising, training and hard work to be done.  And I promise to keep you posted...