I've been at war, all day, with the road. Not only did I fall straight in to a bath for the third night running last night but the lovely young man that handed me a large G&T last night was also prepared to put my bath washed minging clothes in his industrial strength drier. After full fat Lasagne, he knocked gingerly at my room door later with all the items folded carefully. Obviously he didn't know they were destined for the bonfire on Saturday.
They are. Having not been able to dry them properly by Lancaster yesterday morning, I had to put them on wet. In spite of that or maybe because of it, I didn't worry too much because it was a wet day but taking them off again last night, I've clearly begun their internal fibre combustion process anyway and if I make it to JOG will resemble Wurzel Gummidge and smell like Stig of the Dump.
I've already worked out how to add an hour of sloth to the Sergeant Major's alarm clock. For starters, breakfast didn't start until 8.00am because they'd have to have woken up the other 5 guests an hour early which wouldn't look good on the labour hours KPI. Then there were all my bags to re-pack and load up. But the the bike needed its tyres checking. Out came the newly purchased Industrial strength foot pump and I then needed to plot the route on my map.. then there were photos sat on an anvil and before you knew it 08.50am.
As I was to discover today, one hour in the morning is worth three in the afternoon. Mr Shipping Forecast had given me the strength to stick to my guns so instead of going via Edinburgh, I stuck to my planned 'hoof it' to Sterling itinerary, confident on the back of yesterday that barring disasters, it was a done deal.
Just as I KNOW there's no such thing as a free lunch - the quid pro quo is often a harder bill to swallow - I know there's no such thing as a done deal. Half an hour later, I'm looking at my newly engorged tyres and wondering where Lady Little Legs power has gone. Yesterday, I behaved like a cycling class act. Today, it was uphill, but it might as well have been Scap Fell. Eh??
Berating myself a zillion times, I can't understand it. I declare hostility against the inner voice which is already starting to say 'you can't do this' but know, at this rate a war is going to emerge. You only have so long before that voice over hauls reason. Especially on Day 9. At mile 540.
I looked at my clothes but they were dry. I looked at my tyres but they were pumped to 80 whatsits. I looked at the chain but it was working. I decided some fool had secretly broken in and messed about with the gears and they weren't working properly. But they were. The Cycle Masters of Dursley know how to do a proper job.
Around an hour later, I started to feel sick. Not just eaten too much, drunk too much (never sick with these) sick but seriously like vomiting unrelentlessly. It'd be an immaculate conception if it was morning sickness and it couldn't be food poisoning so I must have contracted a scottish superbug. Shame. That's that then. Will have to go home.
Went to the loo in Lockerby and felt terrible until I saw the water had turned green and then thought, that's it. The end is nigh.. until I recalled drinking five gallons of Alpine Dew or something yesterday which did look alien green so sadly, it wasn't all over yet.
Got back on the wagon, hit the cyclepath and re-joined the hip of the M74 and seriously, I thought I'd got something seriously wrong with me. I felt like someone was wringing me out to dry after 8 days of being wet. They were. I just hadn't worked out how.
I suffer really badly with motion sickness. On a London train, I have to sit in the aisle travelling backwards. On North Sea Ferries from Hull to Rotterdam, I have to be asleep before the superliner leaves its berth. On planes, I have to be asleep before it takes off. In cars, I have to drive, sit in the back middle or be anxious in the passenger seat. Don't even think about putting me near a canoe, dinghy, sailing boat or anything else. I'm 1st class, gut wrenchingly ill.
So, where does that leave us? Well, it was raining in Gretna this morning when we set off and until Lockerby, it was relatively village people and so some degree of urbane life. After that, we were intimately entwined with the M74 and in fact, Scotland has boasted of it's Route 74 national cycleway all the way here to Rosewood.
That intimate connection is borne of the history of these parts. Before a full motorway, before a main road, before a horse and carriage, William the Conqueror or someone beat a path up through a lot of hills from Gretna to Glasgow. In modern times, we got sick of undulating and blazed a dirty great motorway through some of the most spectacular scenery that is neither Cumbria or Yorkshire.
Leaving behind it a full litany of villages and towns, it was decided that we would class the old 'new' road as a 'B-road' and henceforth whenever anyone fancied driving from Gretna to Glasgow without insurance or a tax disk, they could use said B-Road and terrorise anyone mental enough to be cycling up said road.
All of this took me a while to work out. I'm not a natural chucker. Like my son, it's on one hand in my lifetime. I get terribly nauseous but I don't generally deliver. Unfortunately, nausea can last for days and sometimes weeks so sometimes, I'd actually prefer it.
Meanwhile, I'm beginning to wonder what to tell Mum & Dad, considering they are newly broken in as support and I've already eaten pocket rocket fuel from the Treacle Tart Tin and Mum might think I'm being rude... not to mention the fact Dad has had to use a week's holiday to see me safely to JOG. Right now, I'd like to stay stuff it and be home in twoish hours..
And then suddenly, I realise I keep being distracted by a terrible din. Not by my outer voice expletives or inner voice yellings but by an almighty din. I look at myself and the surroundings and it just all seems so wrong. No traffic. Not a lot of wind. Not a lot of rain. No animals or half-dead, side of the road animals. And then I realise what it is. It's my front saddlebag. Vibrating ten to the dozen every time I turn the wheels.
I stop. Get off and think, well, that's that. The relief is audible in Leeds. Thank God. The bike is broken. Completely and utterly broken. Not just punctures or gear failures but dirty great suspension breakages. Laid on the ground, looking up at the blue sky, I think 'thank you' but all I get is a silence. A blue, no return message, dirty great big silence.
Err, it says in 'Eat, Pray, Love' that she got told to go back to bed. The least I could be told is 'Go back to Yorkshire'. Silence. For goodness sake. Didn't anyone realise this is a film.. well, maybe a book at least.
I lay there having given up and luxuriating silently in the feeling when I realised that the saddle bag isn't making a noise anymore. As in, at all. Trying again for a few more hundred yards, the same hideous noise. What on earth???
And just then, I looked at the road surface of the 'B-road' and realised it wasn't an 'A-road' or an 'M-road'. It was a B road and it was made from hardcore pebbles. As I said, William the Conqueror or someone laid it and was last known to mention budgetary constraints as a reason not to resurface it.
By 4pm this afternoon, I'd done 7 hours on the equivalent of one of those power plate thingys. I cannot believe they work in ten minutes in a gym as promised because after 7hours on one, I cannot see where or how they worked. Clearly, I would like to report that I got off looking like (in no particular order) Kate Moss, Liz Hurley, Catherine Zeta Jones or Penelope Cruz. Only I didn't. I presume said A-List know a thing or two about looking like they look and 7 hours on a B-road isn't an efficient use of their bony bums.
Instead, at the last minute, Mum Major sensed Stirling wasn't an option as we were 30 miles short and Dad Major thought he'd crack open the Sat Nav to the nearest Best Western in Carluce. I thought it sounded Italian and was up for it until I couldn't see the support car and stopped to re-sort pigeon maps which I've relied on since LE.
White van man whistles out from behind a corner and is less forbidding as its Tuesday and he isn't 17 or driving a van full van of 17yr olds. 'Are you lost?' he says. You have a choice but I usually get when its best to flow so I lie and say 'Yes' because its expedient so to do. 'Where you headed?' I think about fibbing but there's only half an hour of decent light left, I feel like I've done a force 10 gale for hours and tbh, I've lost the will to live. He pales (yes - even in twilight) and explains a tortuous route which will clearly take a lot more than half an hour. Oh dear. Having given up about six hours ago, it all feels a bit mean really.
Well, it was, really. Five miles of fast and furious B-road rush hour traffic later, I realise my life is in my hands and practice every safe technique I had learned in the past 9 days. It made Japanese water torture seem like a playground. Hell hath no fury than a woman at war with the pavement for 7 hours.
And so it was that I gave up at Braidwood only to find that the Great Sat Nav Con delivered us back to Rosewood, less than two miles from White Van Man's prophecy. I only have to back up two miles and it won't feel like cheating. Even though I did an extra 10 in terror.
The Good News is that having berated myself all day for lack of progress and tonight for missing target (Stirling) it would appear I did at least 90 miles today and considering all other things, that at least is something to be pleased about.
And so is this. Today was LEJOG Day 9 but count down Day 5. I intend to finish on Saturday and chuck everything except the bike on the Bonfire. My sweet, gorgeous little bike is looking at me smugly from the corner of the room. Who needs a pet when you have the Ruston Rocket?
XX
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