Stinging Season

I was faced with the enviable question of what to do with a modest allowance of leisure time.  These days, a flight abroad costs about as much as a loaf of bread and a pack of cheese slices; there aren’t many excuses to stay on the geographic leash.  But for those who long to breathe the air rather than fly upon it, the gentle duet of ferry and bicycle might just be music to your ears. It was to mine.

There’s an odd liberation in the limitations of ferry routes and pedal power.  There are only a handful of routes one can take from the south coast of England, and then a compact scope of destinations on the continent unless you have months to spare, and an insatiable wanderlust.  So it’s relatively easy to sketch out a simple plan, then add the details as you go.

Having never done this before, I reasoned I’d have a few things to learn.  What I did not know is that I was effectively in primary school when it comes to independent travel.  Figuratively speaking, this was a level up from being thrown in at the deep end, perhaps a more apt metaphor would be being kicked out of a helicopter into the February North Sea, blindfolded and minus Speedos.

Thursday 30th July 2009, 16:00

Circling the streets of London, lost under a diminishing sun.  Still, my problems will multiply in the coming hours. It’s not my fault I’m half a day behind schedule.  

Who would have expected fitting a bicycle rack to be such a fearsome exercise in non-Euclidian geometry?  The “one size fits all” principle suggested a rational purchase, until the myriad pieces of the puzzle tumbled from the box.  Only a punishingly literal process of trial and error could yield the right combination of bolts, spacers and shims. I’m proud I was able to solve the Rubik’s Rack at all.  Fortunately I had the run of the cycle shop where I bought the damn thing for my labours; any need for an allen key or spanner and it would be hovering in the corner of my eye in an instant. I’d cheerfully declined any further help; it would have been like turning to the back page to find the answers to the crossword - completely pointless.  Furthermore, I had a pleasant atmosphere to work in: my struggles to fit such a simple apparatus were accompanied by albums from Radiohead, The Smashing Pumpkins, REM, Jeff Buckley, Green Day, Guns ‘n’ Roses, Coldplay, among others.  As the CD was changed once again, I recall my comical fifteen minute estimate for this work. So, it wasn’t my fault that preparing my kit took five times longer than it should have.  

But on the other hand, there is no excuse for my bin-worthy attempt at planning my route to Portsmouth on the south coast.  “Turn left onto East Hill” I’d neatly penned the previous night, the handwritten directions now framed in a specially-purchased, waterproof handlebar-mounted plastic wallet.  I’d arrived at the turning, aghast.  There is something a cyclist ought to know about East Hill. Now don’t get me wrong, the really great thing about cycling is freedom.  There are no concerns about parking or inner-city tolls.  No pain over petrol.  You can coast past jams with a mixture of guilt and glee.  

However, a bike is no panacea to the blues of transport.  There are some places bikes just can’t go, and it’s not always clear which they are.  Sure, those thick blue lines on route maps are off-limits, but the ‘A’ roads are a dicey prospect. East Hill is a god-damn dual-carriageway that rises up into the stars!

Now, stopped in a lay-by like a beached whale as I attempt to scratch my head through my cycle helmet, I realise a detour is in order.  I attempt to match my surroundings to the road atlas, but without the names of streets it only acts as a cruel weight on my back.

As long as you’re within the inner parts of London, there’s always one option when things all get a bit unfamiliar.  I duck into ‘A & B News and Food’ in search of an A-to-Z Street Map. “Around the corner and on the right,” he tells me.  “Gilmour Stores, they’ll have one”. I follow the directions to the letter and arrive promptly at a bakery.  Good.  Perhaps they could sell me a slice of bread strangely emblazoned with an image of the local streets, like the Virgin Mary.  Or maybe I could order a cake decorated with a likeness of my bemused face.

So I’m Double-Lost.  I lost my route, then I lost my route to the store that will sell my route back to me. However, after some “speculative prospecting” (running around like a rat in a maze), I find another newsagents.  The owner even lets me retrace my route right there in the shop.  I don’t want to buy another A-Z, I already have every edition on my shelves at home from similar encounters: copies in spiral-bound, spined, spineless, stapled, striped, and cloth and ink from the original Caxton Press.

Now we’re really rolling.  I know exactly how to retrace my route around that infernal dual-carriageway into the stars.  Should be this next left … soon … after this corner … ah, a roundabout.  That really shouldn’t be there but no problem, I take the left-hand exit.

Suddenly everything changes.  I’m delivered onto a dreamy, fast-rolling downhill bordered by roses and terracotta figurines.  I sense a lightening of the spirit, and relish the wind in my hair as I coast down the hill into what seems to be an extremely well-kept village.  Curiously-dressed people were spilling out from some kind of contemporary Japanese temple onto the street before me.  Then, all in a flash I recognised the green uniforms and I performed an awkward about-turn to escape from the garden centre.

In honesty, it was probably desperation rather than determination that got me back on the right path.  Either that or divine intervention from His Grace Spokey Cyclops, the God of two-wheeled creatures.  But regardless, I’m about to cross the milestone of the M25 which encircles London and I steady myself for the culture shock beyond.

Thursday 30th July, 22:00

If by some strange chance the reader decides to retrace my route, don’t.  There is a time-warp hidden somewhere between Kingston-upon-Thames and the doorway to the countryside, south of Esher. About five hours into the journey, I should be smelling salt air.  Not quite, the only tang I can detect is from the plume of exhaust fumes as I cross over the M25.  Sure, that’s a milestone.  But miles-to-go.

About one-third of the way to my destination in the late evening, I’m quite outrageously off-schedule. Slow, sarcastic applause rings in my ears. Part of the blame must be taken by those rude red lights (”Oooh aren’t you going fast!  Enjoying the ride? Good, STOP.”)  Why?  I hadn’t thought of this, but it seems a bit unfair.

Furthermore, what’s with the hills?  Isn’t nature supposed to be perfect - if I was in charge the world would be a billiard-table-paradise for cyclists everywhere.

While I’m at it, wind really is a dirty trick.  Going back to the billiard table metaphor, if you took a shot and your opponent blew hard at the ball so it rolls short of the pocket you’d be pretty miffed.  So in my Cyclists’ Eden there will be absolutely no blowing.  Except maybe towards the destination.

Downside

It’s starting to get dark, it really is.  ‘Come on,’ I tell myself, ‘Chin up’.  If I just pedal hard due-south, surely I’ll catch a prevailing wind or jetstream, and it’ll just be a question of whether my brakes are powerful enough to stop me plunging into the drink when I get to the coast.

Ominously, I clip lights to my body and bike as the sun plunges towards the horizon.  I look like a christmas mural inspired to new heights of tasteless decadence by competition from the neighbours. But I must stay positive: it’s only twilight, not dark yet!  I’m still moving!  I’ll be hearing the crash of waves soon.  

But reality is knocking softly on my door, as only the waves of friendly villagers spur me on. I fear to check my distance from my goal, but like an impatient baker opening the oven door, the map comes out.  Looking around me, I trace my position to the village of Downside.  I cannot see it on the map, and humility dictates that I look further north, and further.  When I finally get a fix on my location, I’m forced to admit I’m absolutely pages away from Portsmouth.  There really is a Downside to that.  Heh-heh.

Gradually the machine in my head clicks and whirrs, gears engage and wheels spin, until - cha-ching! - the solution is spat out: I’m not going to the south coast today!  There, I said it.  I’m not going today, and I’m not going tomorrow either by the way my legs feel.  Only the adrenaline-junkie hand at my back pushes me on; by now my legs burn and wince at even the notion of an incline.

Menagerie

Yes, it would be prudent to make an alternative decision.  

B-road segues to bridleway, which diminishes to quagmire.  To proceed would be potentially fatal as a bull begins mooing at me with sadistic intent from behind a rotten-wood gate.  Don’t ask how I can vouch for the bull’s intent, you’d know too if you heard that dizzying baritone echoing around this deserted woodland copse, amid total darkness.

It would be very wise to turn back now.  I start to panic slightly.  I keep dropping things, including my bike because by now I’m walking.  I piourette wildly in the mud.  I have to check the ground continually with the torch in case I’ve dropped something critical to life.

As I attempt to unthread myself from this woodland trap, I ration my stops to the time it takes to disappear a pasty in two mouthfuls, followed by a medicinal can of Red Bull.  Appropriate, that!  The sound of the ringpull-fizz - perhaps never heard before in these parts - echoes for miles around and seems to wake a menagerie of woodland creatures with their cries, hoots and substantial moos aimed directly at me out of the black night.

“Just make it back to the last A-road” becomes my mantra, the only thing which matters to me now. Pushing my bike along the haunted B-roads that are by now a satin canvas, I finally hear the welcoming roar and plume of light through the trees of the main road up ahead.  Halleluljah!  I become religious for a second.  

But a new question enters my mind: “What now?”  I need a new Prime Directive, a mission to get myself to safe accommodation. In times like this, the mind narrows until only a single option is visible.  You just cannot deal with uncertainty when the walls are closing in.  Make a decision, however rudimentary and aim all guns that way.  At least that way there is a dim sense of peace, you know you’ve reasoned with the odds and arrived at a likely solution.  This seems to ease the strain, even if self-delusion is implicated.

I check my watch.  The backlit LCD display is like a floodlight to the haunted scene around me.  Nightmareish shadows jump at odd angles from signposts, which glow back in reflective sympathy.  Their destinations tell me nothing.

An Early Night

Wait, I remember passing a hotel earlier near here!  It’s around 11pm; I could wrap up nicely in a room for the night, then attack my goal with renewed vigour tomorrow morning.  I have a plan.

Not long, and the hotel sign greets me with stars and icons promising a comfortable stay.  This could be perfect after all.  But therein lies the problem.  It’s too perfect.  Looking more closely at the building set back from the road, its gravelly driveway, the clutch of 4×4s parked up at leisurely angles, and the obsessive-compulsive attention to architectural detail signals to me this is not some cheap and cheerful joint.  They’ll probably take one look at me and phone the police.

I can’t do it.  I’m not cut from the same cloth as these people, and neither are the banknotes in my pocket. I turn around - there is a pub on the corner - still open - with people talking in loud voices outside.  This raises my spirits, encourages me that the world is still alive, things can still be achieved and I make a new decision.  Guildford is only 6 miles away.  I could walk there with my bike in just over an hour, and I’ll be snug-as-a-pug-on-a-rug in a hotel room at barely past midnight.  Hell, that’s an early night!  

I am reawakened, and I start hightailing it on foot to heavenly Guildford. After some time, I spy a sign up ahead - “Guildford X Miles”.  Does that say 3 miles?  My spirit soars.  A few more paces and my front light catches the reflective text.  4 miles.  The life drains from my body.  Tough cookies.  No matter, ‘chin up’ as they say.

Around the next corner, trouble is a-waiting.  Deja vu grabs me by the shoulders and shakes my tired body like a rag doll.  Dual carriageway with a millimetre of verge on either side.  No way I’m walking along that, not even in daylight.  

That’s it, I’m diced, fried, stewed and partially digested.  Now what? I switch into pep-talk mode.  “This is just how you feel now, pretty soon you’ll be wrapped up warm somewhere, or just stepping out of a hot soapy shower.” “Yeah but where?” I challenge the optimistic voice.  There was no reply.

Peace At Last

After a few attempts to circumnavigate my way around the big road, the only remaining solution buzzes around my head like a persistent insect around a light.  It only makes glancing contact with maddening swoops and jerks, you never quite know where or what it is, but you can sense it there somewhere.

Finally, contact with my only remaining option is made, and I accept it grimly. As I cartwheel painfully over a fence into a dark, private field - bike, gear and me - my first thought is “don’t break a leg!”, and the second is “Nettles!”  

Concerning my plan, I cringe at the noise my fall must have made, and stare up at the windows of the houses nearby, daring those empty eyes to challenge my presence in the field.  A little bit of walking and some perilous arcs with the torch reveals that this is indeed a field made entirely of brambles and nettles.  It must be stinging season.

I crawl into my sleeping bag in the closest thing I can find to a secluded spot - upon a public footpath.  I reassure myself that at least camping in a field of weeds will probably not get me shot by the farmer. Hey, I’m not even camping, it’s just me in a sleeping bag with a tent spread over me.  Having never assembled this tent before, and being in the pitch black, I’m happy with my position as it stands.

After a while my breathing slows and I begin to feel really quite comfortable.  I lie on my back and stare at the stars above my head.  This is better than a silly hotel room!  Within London you can’t even see the stars.  

I feel like I’ve made it somewhere far away and different.  My breathing slows further and I feel my muscles begin to unwind.

Then starts the rustling beside my ear.  Rats!  Immediately I’m bolt-upright, back into military problem-solving mode.  The dire threat of teeth and claws and rabies helped me to assemble the tent in some fashion, managing somehow to erect it around myself as I lay prone and twisted in my sleeping bag.

I sleep poorly, if at all.  Fears of farmers and psychopathic night-ramblers keep my eyes from being closed for long.  A car slowly cruises by on the adjacent road - the torturous slow crunch of tyres on gravel.  All too regularly, I’m struggling to unknot myself from the sleeping-bag-tent-tangle in uncertain terror at the noises outside.

Friday 31st July, 05:00

My tired state of mind combined with the situation have led to a sorry wreck.  Yet I have to press on before light.

In fact when the tent is disassembled (and the evidence removed) I stay for over an hour to consult the map with infinite leisure, and consider my next options.  Portsmouth is definitely out.  So what do I do instead?  Turning back home is too depressing; that would smell too strongly of defeat.

Following a quick review of what the symbols on the map mean, an intriguing idea presents itself.  

As I consider my idea, I notice a lady walking towards me from the next field with a large dog.  The farmer’s wife?  He sent her to accost the hippy setting up camp in his field?  That’s not right.

After the longest-ever delay between seeing someone in the distance and being close enough to say hello, I am honest, and she reassures me the field isn’t being used for anything.  After hearing my story, she asks what I’m doing next.  I decide to test my new idea: “There’s a campsite not far from here?”

Indeed there is, and she gives directions I’m sure I’ll remember.

Two-Man Taj Mahal

Several hours and one circuitous route later, I roll into camping nirvana.  Big red flags at the entrance contrast with the green of the lawn, declaring affiliation with the relevant association.

It’s a clear, bright blue day.  Picnic tables bask with suntans of varnish, and pet-like mallard ducks beckon with webbed feet.  I am granted a free run of the shower block before the office is open to take my money, and this completes the picture of a place which could be a holiday camp.  Well, it is one.

Eat your heart out, Nettle Field!

Very soon I’m completely refreshed, and I admire my tent which stands taught and symmetrical on earth that seems somehow familiar.  I realise with easy mirth how half-assed my attempt to put it up the previous night had been.  Now it stands proud like a two-man Taj Mahal.  

Last night I had wryly dubbed my tent “Stormbuster Windranger One” after Rik Mayall and Ade Edmonson’s hapless camping exploits on the BBC.  I now realise it was unfair to blame the tent but still, the name has stuck.

I consider my presence in this nest of villages where my original route had unceremoniously dumped me the previous night.  This is a fraction of the holiday I’d planned, but as I look out across the duck pond I twiddle my wind-up radio into perfect reception and forget about the time.