My alarm is a horrible sound at the best of times: In the middle of a dream (which, incidentally was about a council planning meeting for a new school – how thrilling is my subconscious mind, eh?), after cycling uphill for the best part of a whole day, it is verging on apocalyptic.
It was 6.16am and it was time to get up.
Thankfully, we had both showered the night before, so we just had to roll out of bed and get lycra’d up. Being the fun sorts that we are, we decided to do this in the style of zombies. Well, I did, anyway. And it wasn’t really a choice.
It was amazing to find that the bag it had taken three days to pack, could be re-packed in under four minutes when you just rammed everything back in and sat on it, whilst uttering a range of expletives that was pretty impressive for the time of day.
The previous day, it had become clear that the behemoth that was Sarah’s pannier bag, was too heavy and made her bike sound like a helicopter, so we took it off the bike. However, we were then faced with a new problem – where was she going to keep her stuff?
Now ladies and gentlemen, I don’t like to blow my own trumpet, but surely on this occasion, we took the ingenuity of McGiver, mixed it with the magical voodoo powers of the A-Team and the pluck of Valerie Singleton, multiplied it by a trillion and came up with … this:
Yes. That is Chris’ washbag and that is Sarah’s belt, or rather they used to be. They were now THE ULTIMATE IN COMPACT PANNIER BAGS!!!!!!
We were ready and raring to go (please read “we were tired and a bit grumbly and it really hurt when we sat on our bikes”) and soon we were off to meet the others at the Holiday Inn.
My grump got worse when I found out that the Holiday Inn people had had sausages for breakfast. Don’t get me wrong; our breakfast was lovely, ham – good, cheese – good, crepes with banana and Nutella – extra good. I just wanted my share of hooves and trotters, is all. However, everyone was very impressed, (if you count suppressed laughter as praise,) with the tartan pannier of genius, so this lifted my spirits somewhat.
Soon we were off and even in the dim light, the scenery was breath-taking (Oy! Give it back – I need that!) My knees were a bit sore, but as we got going, the pain subsided and soon only my groin was in immeasurable pain. Huzzah!
I was really enjoying the ride, gentle slopes, (actual undulations!), picturesque villages, a lovely Skyline….but oh! What is this I spied in the distance, beyond the tractor? A hill. Glum face.
Ah! But we are turning away from the hill – in your face, hill! I spit on your children! I am turning up this road which is completely…. Oh, Jesus wept… completely a cliff face, practically. (Ok, not at all a cliff face, but this is me you’re talking to here and I am prone to slight exaggeration from time to time….)
I would love to tell you that I managed to MTFU and take the hill in my stride, but the fact of the matter is that poor Simon had to listen to my whimpering (too dehydrated to manage tears) for the next ten minutes as we climbed the hill V E R Y S L O W L Y indeed. There were little signs from Skyline telling us they loved us as we went up. This did make me cry. Oh lord, now I was getting hormonal as well as stinky and incompetent.
Thank god we got up the hill to the rest stop before I started singing Eric Carmen and sobbing at pictures of babies.
After a rousing bag of salt and vinegar crisps, I managed to at least look like I wasn’t a gibbering wreck and was ready to answer the call of nature. Literally. It was the moment I had been dreading – peeing in a bush.
I know, you’re now probably aghast that I have never had a widdle al fresco before, but I’m a bit high maintenance when it comes to excreting, (It took me 27 years before I could bring myself to poo in a toilet away from home.) This is the closest I was ever going to get to being Bear Grylls, so off I went, searching out a suitably inconspicuous location, gingerly readied myself and…ooooh – look at the view!
It was much less traumatic than anticipated. In fact, I quite enjoyed it. It was liberating and nice and yes, I still had Andrex aloe vera loo roll and a sandwich bag to put it in afterwards and some antibacterial hand sanitiser, but hey – apart from that I was at one with nature! Woo!
The next hour or so was a blur. I don’t really remember anything apart from an overwhelming sense of how alone I was and panicking that I was lost, so I stopped and had a look at the map, propping my bike up against a hedge…when a tiny little snake popped out. It was quite cute in retrospect, but I have never moved so fast, yelping all the way. Snakey went back into his house, probably wondering what was up with the crazy women – he was only saying Bonjour.
Back onto the bike and still in a bit of a trance I passed a chocolatier. I can tell you that it truly too a will of iron to carry on at the point but I was spurred into action by the passing Skyline bus, who sang Bob Marley at me – I was going the right way – yay!
So happy was I, I started waving to every person I saw, small child, old lady and a gent with an odd expression on his face (half smile, half grimace), who was standing by his car. I thought he must be a bit simple and I smiled and greeted him. (I later found out that he was actually a flasher and had actually been waving his baguette and profiteroles at me. Ten out of ten for observation, Conneff).
I was beginning to flag (again) but I was soon greeted by a truly wonderful sight – everyone stopped at a coffee shop! I was so overwhelmed with joy, I started crying again. God almighty, I hadn’t cried this much since Bros split up. I blame the water.
After a thé au lait (see, Madame Bettany, I DID remember something!) and a civilised trip to the indoor toilet, I was off again.
At this point I realised that I hadn’t eaten nearly enough – my tummy was rumbling and I started seeing things. I had my one and only energy bar of the trip (Want any energy bars? They’re going cheap, people!) and one of those blackcurrant gels, which have a consistency very much like….
…anyway, somehow I made it to lunch, where Monsieur Flash was the talk of the town and I felt very daft for not noticing, but this time I did not cry (thank god for that!). I just gorged on chocolate cake – wonderful, wonderful chocolate cake, yummers!
Lunch was held by a small, tranquil lake, which was gorgeous with plenty of places to try out my new found hobby of peeing in a bush. They also had some banging tunes today – Spanish Flea, Agadoo – I was in heaven!
There was a little drama when one of the guys’ tyres exploded. This is no exaggeration – it literally exploded – we all thought someone had got a bit too annoyed with Bucks Fizz and was taking pot shots at the cd player for a moment, but then we saw a little plume of smoke coming up from his bike. Scary stuff. But he was soon fixed up with a new tyre and tube and on his way.
I don’t know what came over me after lunch, but I had a new surge of energy (probably from that half a cake I ate) and the afternoon seemed a million timed easier. I managed to do the last 24 miles in two hours (which is good for me! It had taken me over six hours to get to lunch!) and after a little saunter up a dual carriage way, we were at the hotel!
Just in time for beer o’clock! Hurrah!
(I have discovered Grimbergen and I am in love! It is also much, much cheaper than lager – double yay!)
Dinner was puzzling, I wondered if for a moment I was asleep and was dreaming the entire plot of Cool Hand Luke, when we were presented with coleslaw, cold mushroom stroganoff and boiled eggs. Hundreds of boiled eggs.
It transpired that I was indeed awake and also the next day it would transpire that eating 7 boiled eggs in a row was an immensely stupid idea (more on this later). But we had a lot of fun over dinner (for fun, please read beer) speaking of diverse topics including flashers, hills and HARD mattresses.
Then it was briefing and sleepy time.
For the second time in a row I fell asleep mid-
My sponsorship page is till open – please feel free to donate to the fabulous charity, Mind.
Miss Tillyflop 
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