Going back to Lockerbie - 1 year on

It's almost 25 years since the Lockerbie bombing.  Last year during a trip to Moffat with friends I went to Lockerbie to try and find the memorial to the disaster but I didn't find out in advance where it was, and I didn't dare ask anyone where it was once I got there, in case I was intruding on someone's grief, so I never found it.  The full story of that trip of exactly a year ago can be found here.

This year I went back to Moffat and this time I did my research and so on Saturday I actually found the memorial.  As soon as I got off the bus I felt a bit dumb because the first thing I saw was a sign directing me to it, and I wondered how I never found that last year.

The memorial garden and the small visitors centre are situated about 1 mile from the centre of Lockerbie on the A709 to Dumfries.  It took me about 20 minutes to walk there from the bus stop in the town centre.

The memorial is at the far end of Dryfesdale Cemetery, maybe 5 minutes walk from the main road, and there are a lot of single graves you have to walk past before you get to it.  The thing about regular graves is that they are all individual.  Each person has died an individual death, most of the people are relatively old, most cases they've died of natural causes, and the dates of death are all different.

Somehow that makes it all the more jarring when you arrive at the memorial to the Lockerbie bombing because every plaque or tribute has the same date of death on, ie 21st December 1988, and many of the individual plaques are for people who were 20 years old when they died, which is the same age I was when I saw the coverage of the disaster on TV.

There is a small sign at the entrance to the memorial garden that explains that the 270 victims were from 21 different countries, and the range of ages was from 2 months old to 81 years old, and it's not to minimise the deaths of people of other ages, but I identified most with the people my own age, and it was a genuine surprise to me how many of them there were.

I didn't know before I went that 35 of the people who died were university students from Syracuse University in New York, who were returning home from European placements.  All the birth dates were 1967 or 1968, so they would all have been in the same academic year as me.

In the last 25 years, my life has had its disappointments and mistakes and foul-ups, but seeing the graves of so many of my contemporaries made me feel grateful to have had those years from 1988 up to now.  Because choices and opportunities and the freedom to make decisions about your future as a grown up and maybe mess things up along the way, are luxuries those who die young don't have.

At the rear of the memorial garden is the main memorial wall, and this lists all 270 people who died in the bombing and subsequent crash, in alphabetical order.  What I noticed immediately was how many clusters of names there were with the same surname, which meant that whole family groups had died.  I couldn't imagine the devastation of even losing one person, but what of those who lost entire families?  It doesn't bear thinking about.

I don't cry very often, and I didn't cry at Lockerbie on Saturday, but I was reminded of the last time I did, which was at the Gandhi memorial in Delhi.  I think it was probably partly a release of all the tension of getting to India in the first place, but the inscription on the walls there said 'Violence is Suicide', and somehow just reading that brought me to tears and while I was stood at the Lockerbie memorial it came back to me how true that sentiment is.

After I'd read slowly through all of the 270 names I walked back to the Visitors Centre and went inside.  A cheery Scottish lady greeted me.  I told her that I didn't really know why I was here but that I just wanted to come.  She said it's important to the families to know that people still remember.

She herself was a resident of Lockerbie and I asked her if she remembered the night of the crash and she said she did, and she showed me on a map where she lived, and told me that some of the plane fell in her garden, and she was lucky it didn't fall on the house, and I said 'Lucky would have been if none of it had happened', but then I wished I hadn't said it because, if you experience a terrible thing, maybe it's a comfort to think of how it could have been even worse.

She also said that home is where you should feel safe, and yet that was where those Lockerbie residents were when they were killed.  And I thought about that, I thought about the fact that getting on a plane carries a risk, and how you maybe think about that before you get on one, but you don't expect to die in your living room while you're watching TV or getting ready for Christmas, but that happened to those people in Lockerbie, whose homes were destroyed by falling pieces of aircraft.

She said she'd been working in the visitors centre 8 years and she's met many of the relatives of the dead, and I noticed there were lots of seats where people can just sit and contemplate, and there's a memorial book called 'On Eagle's Wings' which was compiled by the mother of one of the victims, and in it there's a page for every person killed, and a pictures of each of them, and amongst other things, it said that the purpose of the book is to remind people that each of the 270 dead is not just a number, not part of a statistic, but someone who was loved, and who is missed every day by the people left behind, and I read as many as I could, and again I was drawn more to the people my own age, but on every page there was a story of personal tragedy that could break your heart.  On every page a story of unbearable loss.

The bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie was timed to go off over the sea, so that the evidence wouldn't be recovered, but because the plane set off late it exploded over land.  And that randomness was one of the most haunting things about the tragedy for me.  The bombers had specifically targeted Pan Am, most of the people on the plane were American and it was Americans they wanted to kill, but the plane coming down over Lockerbie, that was truly random.

I have no connection whatsoever to anyone who was killed at Lockerbie and yet I felt a very powerful urge to go there.  And when I got there I found it unsettling, and moving, and sad, and incomprehensible, and lots of other things that I can't explain in words.

I don't know how the families of the dead carry the burden of their loss, but a thought occurred to me as I left the visitors centre to walk back into the town.  I wondered if the fact that it happened over a town instead of over the sea, at least there was a focal point to their grief.  It gave them somewhere to come to, and the community there embraced them and cared for them, and it pulled together and helped in any and every way it could, and those bonds survive till this day.  Maybe the fact that their loved ones died in a place, rather than being scattered at sea, is a comfort in some way.  I don't know.  Who knows how anyone really feels in a situation like that?

Before I left, I wrote my name in the visitors' book, but I didn't write any comments, because what can you say that makes any sense of any of it?

I still can't define why I went, I don't know what it means to pay your respects, or what remembrance  is, but somehow by going to Lockerbie I wanted to acknowledge that this terrible thing happened, and I wanted to register my own sadness that these things happen at all, a sadness that people can be so far removed from any kind of empathy, that they will willingly murder and destroy and ruin the lives of others, with no thought of the consequences.

After leaving Lockerbie, I caught the bus back to Moffat, and I spent the evening with friends, talking and laughing and sharing a meal, and I was glad that I had that life to go back to.  I was glad to have a community of my own to be part of, who support me and who love me.  And I felt grateful for my life.  For all of it.  The good parts and the bad.  Because not everyone is so lucky.

Things I don't see the point of - Part Four. Short bus journeys and eating competitions on trains

I went to Leeds on Sunday (from Darlington).  By bus and by train.  Car would have been quicker but public transport has more nutters.

There are many, many things I don't understand in life, and here are two new ones:

1) Why do people eat so much on trains,
2) Why do able-bodied people take incredibly short bus journeys?

I caught the 0950 train from Darlington, which arrived in Leeds at 1055.  A journey of just over an hour.  There was a family sat near me, all smartly dressed, looked like they were heading to a christening or some other family event, the women and girls were in dresses, the boys in smart shirts and trousers.  There were about nine of them, and between them they had about 16 Sainsbury's carriers.

The train hadn't even pulled out of Darlington, and 2 litre bottles of pop and family packs of Doritos and sandwiches and biscuits and cakes and just about everything else that Sainsbury's sells were piling out of the carriers and into their faces.  It was like one of those American eating competitions where, for example, someone has to eat 50 pickled eggs in a minute.  As for me, I'd had breakfast at home, and I was having lunch at my mum's.  I wasn't going to starve or die of dehydration during a 1 hour train journey.  A variation on this is when people on the York train have to sink 5 cans of lager each on a 45 minute journey to York when they're going to be drinking all day when they get there.

But people stuffing themselves stupid on trains wasn't even close to being the dumbest thing I saw on my trip to Leeds.  That honour was reserved for the phenomenon of the pointlessly short bus journey.

It started in the centre of Leeds.  A Russian man got on the bus, and asked the driver to take him to the bus station.  It's just there, the driver said, and pointed out the window at the bus station less than 100 metres away.  Just walk.  In mangled English the Russian man then explained that he wanted to catch the bus.  But it's just there!  the driver repeated.  'How much is it?', asked the Russian.

It isn't anything, said the driver.  Journeys that short, I don't even have a fare for that, just walk!  Rather than actually start his shift by throwing a Russian off a bus, he did in fact take him on the 30 second journey to the bus station, and let him ride the bus for free.

About 5 minutes later I saw a guy running alongside the bus with his arm out, with a young girl on a micro-scooter scooting along beside him.  He looked like the most desperate man to get on a bus since Keanu Reeves in Speed.  And so the bus stopped for him, and then they got off at the next stop!  If he'd carried on running he would have been there as quick as the bus.

That wasn't even the end of it.  When I got to Garforth three young lads with skateboards and those big cans of Monster energy drink were waiting at the bus stop on Ninelands Lane.  They got on and went upstairs on the bus, but no sooner had they sat down, then they were back down the stairs to get off at the skate park, which was the next stop.

Speaking for myself, I was always pretty shit on a skateboard, but my recollection is that riding one was a lot more strenuous than a 100 yard walk.  And these lads were about to go jumping on and off half-pipes and probably breaking their ankles, and yet they couldn't actually walk to the skate park.

When I was their age, I used to walk over 2 miles to school every day, just to save the 15 pence bus fare, so I could spend it on sweets, and when I was older, to put it towards pints of beer.

Another Sunday when I was waiting at the bus stop near my mum's to catch a bus into Leeds, there were two young lads waiting with me at the bus stop.  We seemed to be waiting ages for the bus, but it probably seemed like longer because the two of them were noisily discussing an app they were playing with on their phones, where you had to create a plague or virus and let it loose on the world, and the more people you killed, the higher the score.  I can't even begin to describe how dull the conversation was.

The only interruption to their game was when one of their phones kept ringing, they were obviously getting calls from another friend asking what time they would be home.  They kept saying to the friend 'We're just waiting to get the bus back down our end'.  My mum lives at the top of a hill in a place called Kippax, and some of Kippax is at the bottom of the same hill.  In bus stop terms, it's about 3 stops away.  It turns out that's where 'their end' was, because that's where they got off.  So, they waited around 20 minutes, during which they managed to annihilate the entire planet with a virus, and then they went 3 stops on a bus to get home, which took less than a minute.  That hill's so steep you could roll down it in less than 5.  In fact, you'd be so gravity assisted going down there you probably wouldn't even burn a single calorie, it's almost steep enough to abseil down.  And the phone calls they'd been having with their friend, if the friend had opened his window, they were so close they could have shouted to each other instead.  Unbelievable!

I actually walk places for fun.  A few weeks ago I walked the 3 miles each way to work, just to see how long it would take me.  Sometimes in the evening if I haven't been out all day, I just go off for a pointless wander, just to feel the fresh air, and to maybe notice things like trees and flowers, and the design of houses.  Admittedly this has become more hazardous lately, because there's bloody conkers everywhere, and one of these days, I'm gonna turn my ankle, but hey ho.

There is a bus stop at the end of my road where I could catch a bus into Darlington if I wanted.  But it's less than a mile.  Why would I bother?  I haven't even checked the bus times.

I just don't get it!  Do you?


Update - July 2014
Six months after writing this, I ended up moving to Leeds.  It wasn't just to avoid having to spend so much time on buses and trains but it could have been!  The six months between writing this and moving I pretty much walked to work every day.  3 miles each way.  I lived in Darlington for 11 months in total, and I never caught a bus once during my time there.  I used to catch trains a lot but that was because I had to travel long distances, that were beyond walking, and I was off cycling at the time.  I do occasionally catch buses now I live in Leeds, but it has to be for a minimum of 2 miles.  And even then I feel I'm being lazy.  

Arran Jura Islay Mull - 1 man, 10 ferries, 6 days. It's all about the bike

The week before last my head nearly exploded. In fact something in there might have, but without a full head scan I can't tell.  It happened just after I'd spent an hour and a half trying and failing to get my estate agent to care about my house sale.  After I came off the phone, something just blew. And it wasn't just a little bang. It was as if someone had put a crash helmet on me and then let off an atom bomb underneath. Nothing in the outside world was damaged, but the inside of my head was completely destroyed.

My First Ferry of the week

Anyway, it was on a Tuesday when my head blew up, and the next day I took a rare sick day.  I'd spent 5 months fighting with my secondment as an assessor if it was an alligator with toothache.  Maybe my head blowing up was a sign I shouldn't be doing that anymore.  

On Wednesday I went for a massage and the massager woman (not sure of the correct term for a female massager) said it was like massaging an ironing board. By Thursday I was backing away from my secondment as if it was a stick covered in dog poo. The only saving grace was that from Friday I was on holiday for 10 days. If anyone needed a holiday it was me.

This is me needing a holiday

One of the things I've missed while I've been living on my own has been good conversations, so it was nice to meet up with my old boss Damaris on Friday to have a good long talk, mostly about technology and how things were better in the olden days (that's pretty much all I talk about with anyone who'll listen). Then on Saturday I went to Leeds with my brother for Cassette Store Day, and because we were hours early and there was no queue, we got to have a good talk too. More than we have in years.

I'd originally booked the week off, thinking I might go to Canada with Ruth, but when that didn't happen I was left wondering what to do instead. Weeks ago when I thought my house sale might have been through, I imagined all kinds of fancy trips I might go on. New York, Berlin etc. But then the house money didn't come through, so what to do?

The Islay Ferry - small or far away?

I decided whatever happened, I needed to get away. So I set myself the target that I would be gone by Sunday.

For reasons best not explained, I had to make a desk out of a camping chair and the parcel shelf from my car, so I could use my computer at my house on Saturday night, to book some accommodation before I left. This was something to do with having two homes, but one with no internet, and the other having nothing in it but the internet.

By 9 pm Saturday I was done, so I bundled the computer into a bag, wrapped up the camping chairs, put the car back together and went from my house back to my flat, where I don't have the internet. It was at this point I was thinking what a bloody dope I was, for not just getting the bloody internet in the flat in the first place.  It would have made life so much easier.  

Me and my bike - during the difficult early part of our relationship

Ruth bought me two bikes before we split up. One of them got stolen a couple of weeks ago, and the other one was a death trap when I got it (on reflection this may have been deliberate), but I recently got it working so I could actually use it. Apart from an aborted attempt at a ride with friends in July, I haven't used it. It's just been stuck in the bedroom.  Keeping it in the bedroom has its drawbacks, especially when my Ipod headphones get tangled up in the rear derailleur but that's another story.

Anyway, I've got a week off, and a bike I haven't used.  This is it, I thought, time to get out there on it.

Bike or Death Trap?  You decide

To be honest, I've pretty much hated cycling for the last year and a half. Mostly because of last year's Coast to Coast, when both the training and the ride itself belonged more to the Japanese Game Show Endurance than to any kind of pleasurable recreational activity.

Anyway, I decided. I'm going to see some Scottish Islands, and I'm going to take the death trap, not because I especially wanted to ride it, but because it's the most simple and economical way of getting round up there. Much cheaper than trying to get the car on and off the islands. But whatever happens, I decided, it's not about the bike. Or the cycling. I'm going to do as little of that as possible. Just enough to get from ferry to ferry.

Due to the camping chair / parcel shelf / internet / being in Leeds till late on Saturday scenario, I only had time to book my first two nights away. So I booked a night at Brodick on the Isle of Arran followed by a night on the Isle of Jura (I wanted two but they were full). I would have liked to plan the whole thing, so as not to have to worry about doing things on the hoof, but it was the best I could do.

 This is what happened:

Sunday 8^th September

By the time I'd got in on Saturday night I had no time to prepare for going away, so I got up at 5 on Sunday morning instead.

I strapped the bike to the roof of the car and off I went. 203 miles to the ferry at Ardrossan it was. I booked a B&B near the ferry so Sunday could be a rest day. Good thing too, cos my head was still pounding when I rolled off the ferry with my bike.

The 1.93 miles I did on the bike riding around Brodick getting lost trying to find my B&B it felt like the bike and I were strangers from different planets who'd just met, and were having trouble finding any kind of common ground. It was more Mars Attacks than ET.

Here are my feet in a B&B

Eventually I found the B&B. It was up a hill. I suppose there was nothing wrong with it, I just appeared to be out of sync with it. I found out my room had a bath, but the hot water was only on at certain times, mostly times when I did not want a bath. So rather than requesting they fire up the boiler for a single bathful, I had a shower. Also, for some reason, porridge required 24 hours notice, although a full Scottish didn't. A full Scottish is exactly the same as a full English, except served with a pancake made out of potato, which may be one of the most pointless and unnecessary things ever invented. The next day I needed to catch the 1045 ferry from Lochranza, so I enquired if I might get breakfast before the scheduled normal kick-off of 8.30. We'll do it at 8.20 they said. Thanks, I said, that'll make all the difference. Not!

Because my plans were thrown together at the last minute as usual, I hadn't had time to get The Rough Guide to Scotland out of the library. I've hired the same copy about 6 times for all our recent trips to Scotland, and I can even recognise the stains on it from our various trips. No matter, I thought, Brodick's a big place, I'll finally buy a copy. There's even a bookshop in Brodick. No problemo!

Except there was, because the bookshop had about a million books on Scotland, but they were all absolute shite. They were all things like '150 years of Scottish boat painting styles'. Or 'Tartans throughout the ages' , or '365 Whiskies throughout the year', or 'A guide to where to play golf in Scotland' or 'Knit your own Arran sweater/.. No actual proper guide books at all. And this was the same in almost every shop. Fucking hell, I thought, surely I'm not the only person in the world who has ever come to the Isle of Arran without pre-purchasing a guide book. No I don't want to learn how to knit my own tartan, I just want to know where the fuck I am? In one shop, there was a conversation going on between what sounded like Lorraine Kelly and Jimmy Krankie. And to be honest, although I love Scotland, I was stood in there, with my head pounding away, surrounded by books on tartan and whisky and castles, wondering what the hell I was even doing here.

The Paps of Jura - don't look at me, I didn't name them!

Thankfully a lot of the places I wanted to go, I've been before, so I had to use my memories as a guide, although some of these turned out to be unreliable.

My exploding headache hadn't got any better so I went to bed about 5 pm, and stayed there till the following morning.

Monday 9^th September

I don't know why the bloody hell I ordered a massive steaming pile of bacon, sausage and eggs for breakfast when I had to cycle 15 miles up the mountain road to Lochranza immediately after it, but there you go. I got to the ferry with about 20 mins to spare.

Once off the other end, I had two hours to cycle the 5 miles to the next ferry to Kennacraig. Even I can't miss that, I thought. I had a nice surprise when I got to Kennacraig as I met some friends Tony and Gill there. I knew from Facebook that they were in the area, but they didn't know I was, so their surprise was probably greater.

We had a good chat on the ferry, then they headed off to Port Charlotte on Islay, while I caught the 5 minute ferry to Jura. I went to Islay last year, and was disappointed not to get to Jura then, so as much as anything, this trip was to put that right.

Here I am on Jura at last

Once off the ferry at Feolin, I waited for the 3 cars who'd also been on the ferry to set off, and then I set off too, to do the 8 miles to the Jura Hotel. I pretty much had the road completely to myself. Even though Jura is famous for them, I managed to not see one single deer while I was there.

The morning had been cloudy but during the 2 hour ferry journey from Kennacraig it had turned into an absolutely beautiful day. I still had the shadow of yesterday's headache, but I felt blessed to see Jura at its best.

Brodick on Sunday had been full of weekenders making their way home, kids with football medals round their necks and family groups, but no-one you could really talk to.  The thing about being on Jura is that every other person you see is an event. I stopped to chat to an old couple who were parked at the roadside, the lady was picking heather for a friend, and the next day I had a chat to some cyclists.  When you're somewhere so remote, not speaking to people you pass on the road seems plain rude.

Arriving in Craighouse

I loved the ride to Craighouse, and I loved the Jura Hotel too. As soon as I walked in I felt at home. Where can I leave my bike I asked? Wherever you want, the receptionist said. I don't suppose theft is much of a problem round here, I said. No, not really, she said.

My room in the Jura Hotel

I loved my room too. Whereas the B&B the day before with it's timings all out of sync with mine looked like it had been built by Laura Ashley, my room at the Jura Hotel was basic, but perfect.

Sunlight was flooding into the room through the bedroom window, and I made myself a coffee and then went for the bath that I'd wanted a day earlier. This time there was hot water. The bathroom suite was that rubbish avocado green that used to be fashionable years ago, but I didn't care.

Bike Theft - not a big problem on Jura

The hotel also had a copy of the Rough Guide I'd really wanted to bring with me, so I read up on a few things for later in the week, went for a walk and then arrived for dinner around 7 pm. For some reason it seemed important to arrive on the hour.

It was worth coming to Jura, just for this view

The dining room had beautiful views of the bay and this helped somewhat to combat the strangeness I felt at eating alone. There were only six other diners. An elderly couple, and 4 people who appeared to be from a walking holiday who'd only just met each other.

Craighouse Bay - if this isn't nice, I don't know what is

The food was okay. I had cullen skink and gammon. The waitress was lovely, and also Scottish, which turned out to be a novelty as most of the people who I met in shops and pubs and cafes and restaurants for the rest of the week, were English. It would have been a good week to invade England, as there can't have been many people left there.

The elderly couple sitting behind me seemed to be one of those couples who've got nothing left to say to each other, but like the pilots on Airplane, the old guy had had the fish. I know this because at approximately 15 minute intervals he mentioned this, and each time the fish got better. 'Well, that fish was absolutely delicious. Well, that fish couldn't have been better. Well, that fish was the best fish I've ever tasted in my entire life'.

The walking group sounded like they'd just met, and they were having the type of safe conversation that you sometimes have with people that you've just met. Someone thought that Waitrose's Organic Range had gone downhill, and then when the waitress came over to take their packed lunch orders, well I've been to shorter plays. Someone wanted an apple instead of an orange, someone only wanted tomato with their tuna if the tuna didn't come with mayonnaise. It took ages for someone to decide how many sandwiches were in a round etc.

After I'd been sat there about an hour, an Irish lady called Stella came in who I'd seen on the Ferry, and sat at the table next to me. Somehow we got chatting, and I forgot all about the other conversations or non-conversations that were going on, and got immersed in one of my own. One of the dangers of travelling is that you can get buttonholed by some monologuer who wants to use you as a sounding board to unload a pre-prepared speech, and in those situations you could just as well be replaced by a cardboard cut-out. But this was an actual proper conversation. If either of us was a nutter unloading a monologue I wasn't aware of it. Although I did wonder by the end of the evening if I'd have anything left to say if we met again at breakfast, as I somehow seemed to have gone through pretty much my whole life story.

In the week or two before I went away, I'd been reading a lot about the Moon Landings, and one thing I found fascinating was the descriptions of the Command Module pilots such as Michael Collins of the experience of being on the far side of the moon and out of radio contact with the entire Planet Earth. Some of them found this extreme solitude exhilarating. I'm not saying that being round the back of the Paps of Jura is anything like being on the dark side of the moon, but after weeks of waiting for my phone to ring about my house sale, and it not doing, I found the lack of mobile phone signal there strangely comforting.

Tuesday 10^th September

I did meet Stella again at breakfast, and I did find some more stuff to say. Turned out Stella was heading to Port Charlotte on Islay the next day.

Trying to beat the rain out of Craighouse

I'd also decided to head to Islay, but I didn't want to end up at Port Charlotte. I wanted to head to Colonsay on Wednesday and so I wanted to find somewhere quite close to the ferry for Wednesday morning. But Islay was much busier than I expected.

Bruichladdich Mini Market - a very cycle friendly place

I figured I'd stay somewhere near Bridgend, which is central for the whole island, but there was no room at the inn.  I stopped at the tourist information in Bowmore but the lady in there said I'd be lucky to get anything. Apparently there was one bed left in a shared dorm at the Youth Hostel in Port Charlotte, but I didn't fancy that, although I did like the idea of seeing Lorna the manager again. I first met Lorna in Rishikesh in India last year, but she wouldn't shake my hand at the time because she was picking up garbage out of the streets, but during our conversation I found out she was the Youth Hostel Manager at Port Charlotte, so I went there last April, to get my handshake.

Anyway, after a few further unsuccessful attempts to find a B&B I eventually rolled up in Port Charlotte at 3.30 pm and met Tony and Gill again at the corner shop.

Waiting for the Youth Hostel to open

When the youth hostel opened at 5 I booked their last remaining bed, a top bunk in a room full of Yorkshiremen, and it must have been meant to be, because it was Lorna's last night before a 10 day holiday so if it hadn't been then, I would have missed her.

I also met Stella at Reception, and after a day on a bus she was keen to get a bike ride in, and had managed to hire one from over the road from the hostel.

Having recommended it to her, I decided to ride down to Portnahaven with her, to see the seals. There were only around 4, and Len the sheepdog was there too, although there were no seals on his rocks tonight, so he didn't have to do too much. It was after 7 when we got there, and we were hungry so we had a meal at the very small pub, run by some bloke from Berkshire.  I had a pizza.

On the Atlantic Coast at Portnahaven

On the way back I was telling Stella how pleased I was that we'd met in the restaurant the night before, as there was pretty much only the man with the fish to keep me amused, and after I told her about the old guy with the fish, she spent the next 10 minutes imitating him, but substituting the word Alpaca for the word fish. This was because we were passing a field full of Alpacas at the time. She was saying things like 'That's the best Alpaca I've ever seen'. That kind of thing. You probably had to be there.

On the ride from Port Askaig to Port Charlotte during the day, and into the wind, I still hadn't felt at peace with the bike, but on the evening ride to Portnahaven, I really started to grow into it. The ride back was especially good, because it was much easier than I imagined it would be.

In fact it was at this point, that the whole holiday started to become about the bike. I remembered Islay and Mull last year, and the problems I'd had on those holidays with other bikes creaking, and things falling off them. And I remembered the casual remark I'd made about getting a drop-barred tourer that had indirectly led to me getting this bike that I was now on, that had started off as such an abortion. And the irony was that now I was back in the same place I'd made the remark, but with a perfectly working tourer. Nothing needed tightening, and nothing needed fixing. I couldn't have gone on a much more convoluted route to get there, but there I was all the same.

Because I was on my own for the week, and therefore only able to stretch far enough away to take close up pictures of my own head, which blocked out most of the scenery (I could have used the timer but couldn't be bothered) I started taking pictures of the bike. And as I started taking more and more photographs of the bike, it started to feel less like It's NOT about the bike, and more it's ALL about the bike.

The bike in one of its earlier incarnations at Fountains Abbey

The whole coming to own that bike was a horrendous botch job, and symptomatic of mine and Ruth's  poor communication at times, but actually getting out there on the bike, after months of false starts, felt like salvaging something from the wreckage.

Going cycle touring at all, starting with that trip from Newcastle to Edinburgh 8 years ago, was so out of comfort zone, so different to anything I'd ever have thought up to do myself, and yet here I am I thought, out here doing it by myself.

Another thing about the ride to Portnahaven, it started to relax me. After a day of searching fruitlessly for accommodation, it was nice to have a bed, and dump my stuff and get out there. What wasn't quite so relaxing was sleeping in a room with 13 snoring farting Yorkshiremen, who all rolled in from the pub well after my bed time.  It was like sharing a room with a really terrible smelly orchestra, and I was glad when it got to 6 am and I could grab my stuff and get the hell out of there.

The nice thing was that before I went to bed, and even though she was going away in the morning, Lorna took the time to come and talk to me, and so I filled her in on most of the details about how my life had turned into a giant dog's breakfast over the last few months. At first I promised to let her know when I'd got it all sorted, but I figured that could be never, so I said I'd let her know if I got any single aspect of it sorted instead. That made the communication that much likelier.

Wednesday 11^th September

By 7 am on Wednesday morning pretty much every cyclist in the youth hostel was up and having breakfast ready for the 16 mile journey to the ferry. The consensus was that we'd all set off around 7.30 and that was also the time Gill and Tony were planning to leave the campsite. There was one Irish guy who was determined to leave at 6.30, but that seemed seriously pessimistic to me.

Lorna's pile of stones outside the Youth Hostel - getting them to balance on the bench is the really hard part

About halfway to the ferry, it started raining and as the rain got heavier I passed a teenage girl waiting at the bus stop for the school bus. She didn't have a coat on, but was huddled inside her blazer to keep warm, with her back to the rain. If one thing summed Islay up for me, it was that despite the cold and wet, as soon as she spotted me, she gave me a wave a a cheery greeting. To be honest I've no idea what the greeting was, it could have been in Gaelic, but whatever it was, unless she was very good at faking positive body language, she was wishing me well. Where else would you get that? Especially in the rain.

The cyclists from the hostel all gathered back together at the Port Askaig Ferry Terminal, including Gill and Tony, who'd decided to skip Colonsay and stay on the ferry all the way to Oban. The forecast was pretty bad, and I too decided that being stuck on Colonsay in the rain with no visibility for 7 hours didn't sound like much fun. I decided instead to head back to Mull, and maybe stay at the Craignure Inn.

No room at the Inn - but they did have food

The ferry journey was around 4 hours in total. I spent the first hour or so trying to fathom the Krypton Factor like puzzle of the ferry timetable and it was one big frustration of the trip that it's difficult to be spontaneous when using the ferries, because they tend to dictate when and where you can travel. I gave up eventually and read a book instead.

I said bye to Gill and Tony at Oban, and then caught another ferry to Mull. The Craignure Inn was full and after ringing round a couple of far too expensive hotels, I ended up hiring a six berth Shieling at the campsite Ruth and I stayed at last year. They even hired me some bedding. To be honest, it was overkill to hire a massive six berth tent to myself, but after the night before with the farting Yorkshiremen, I was happy to do it. The minimum hire was for 2 nights as well so that solved the problem of where to go tomorrow. I wasn't going anywhere.

Not sure if this tent is big enough

I went for tea at the Craignure Inn (cullen skink and sausage and mash). Instead of last year's table service, it was now order at the bar, and my order was taken by the most Australian Australian since Crocodile Dundee, who had a tiny little moustache and insisted on ending every sentence with 'Alright Matey'. I talked to a family from Cumbria at the next table for a bit, but I didn't want to be the buttonholing type, so after a few pleasantries I let them get on with it, and just ate my food.

Wednesday night I had my best night's sleep of the trip, wrapped up lovely and warm in my borrowed bedding, and with no-one snoring to bother me.

Ah that's better!  No snoring Yorkshiremen tonight

Thursday 12^th September

Having a full day to myself on Thursday and with my accommodation for the night already sorted, I decided to have a ferry free day and to ride the scenic route round the back of the island from Salen to Pennyghael. I had a full breakfast at Arlene's coffee shop at Craignure before departing and then I stopped again at the coffee shop in Salen. Even though I wasn't really hungry I wanted to stop there cos I'd enjoyed it so much last year, and I managed to force down a jam and cream scone on top of the full breakfast. Probably as well I got some calories on board for what was to come.

Salen - Unnecessary Coffee Stop

The first bit after Salen was perfect. In the same way that being behind the Paps of Jura had that far side of the moon feel to it, so did this back road to Pennyghael. I remembered the end of Pushing Tin where Billy Bob Thornton is trying to get John Cusack to jump in a river, and he says 'You can't jump in the same river twice', and it occurred to me that you can't ride the same road twice either.

It doesn't get any better than this, but it was about to get a lot worse

Not only was I riding round the island the opposite way to last year's ride with Ruth, this time I was alone, instead of sun there was mist and cloud and despite the familiarity, it all felt brand new.

Enjoying those last few moments of being dry

Once I got far enough away from Salen that turning back wasn't an option, it started absolutely bucketing down. And the wind got up too. I was soon soaked to the skin, with hard rain whipping my face. Luckily it wasn't particularly cold, otherwise I would have been in trouble. Although it was quite a few miles away, I knew the shop at Pennyghael would have hot coffee, so I wasn't too concerned about the wet.

This picture doesn't even begin to show how heavy the rain was

I couldn't remember exactly how far it was back to Craignure from Pennyghael but I'd decided it was around 12, so I was a bit concerned when I got to Pennyghael and discovered that I had another 20 miles to do, through the mountains, to get back to Craignure. I did think there was a small chance I might die of hypothermia, but a lack of alternative transport options, just meant I had to go for it.

It is indeed very wet

As it turned out, the ride back to Craignure was much easier than the ride going the opposite way with Ruth had been last year, and finding it so made me feel a whole lot better about finding it so gruelling and frustrating going the other way.

I'm sure there's a view out there somewhere

After getting back to my massive tent, I managed to get all my clothes dry in one of the industrial size campsite driers, so I didn't have to pack them wet, all except for my wet shoes, which I threw away. They were knackered anyway. Luckily, for once I'd the luxury of a spare pair of shoes, something I rarely have on tour.

Thursday evening I decided not to go back to the pub for tea, and so I wouldn't have to go out again after getting back, I'd just picked up some pork pies and cooked meats from the Spar, on the way back from Pennyghael. This turned out to be a good idea, as with all my warm clothes in the drier all at once anyway, my going out options were limited. It was blowing a bloody gale, and I wasn't walking to the pub in a T-shirt. No sirree!

Around 8 pm on Thursday night I got a text from Stephen reminding me it was Graeme's Keep to the Roads Audax on Saturday, which I'd really wanted to support, but I realised I'd totally messed up on the date, thinking it was the week after. Could I get back I wondered? I'd have to catch 3 ferries, cycle about 65 miles and drive home from Ardrossan all in one day. Could I do it?

I decided to try. I still didn't have a map or guidebook, so all the distances I'd calculated in my head were purely from memory. I estimated it was around 55 miles from Oban to the next ferry at Claonaig, and that was going to be the hard bit, because if I didn't catch the 4.20 from Claonaig, I couldn't catch the 720 from Brodick, and that would be the end of that.

On Thursday night I didn't sleep as well as the night before. It was a lot colder for a start. Also, I had a dream that I chose to call an Inverse Bobby Ewing. I dreamt all about the last few months, and how I'd split up with Ruth, and taken the nightmare job as an assessor, and I dreamt about how I now live alone, and about how my house won't sell, and how I'm facing financial meltdown if something doesn't give soon. And for a moment when I woke up, I thought it was all a dream, like a whole series and a half of Dallas. But then I realised, Oh fuck. It's not a dream, that's my life. And as I reflected on the last few months and years, I tried to identify the tipping point, the place where things had started to go wrong, but I couldn't. 

I reflected that unless you're very lucky, life is never so simple that every aspect of it is going well all at once.  It's more of a case that while some things are going wrong, other things are going right. Sort of co-existing.  Hopefully balancing each other out.  But then from an unknown point that I couldn't identify, maybe this year, maybe last year, maybe the year before, maybe 5 years ago, maybe longer, things had started to unravel, and somewhere along the line the balance had gone out of the system, and the equilibrium had got lost.  

And now here I am, on my own in a 6 person tent on the Isle of Mull, with a job I can't understand,  with no wife and with an unsold house, and I'm a long, long way from home.  

I tried to think back to time I would go back to if I could, where everything was just right, and running along smoothly.  And I couldn't.  Because that place doesn't exist.  In life, as in cycle touring, all you can hope for are moments.  And sometimes the moment where you feel the most at peace, is the one just before the heavens open on the road to Pennyghael.  But then sometimes it's the reverse too.

Here comes the rain!

I also wondered whether I've got worse at dealing with things, whether I've become more prone to getting overwhelmed, or whether I've always been like that, but it's only recently that I've started to notice it.  Maybe it's just the accumulated effects of a lifetime of being alive, that means I'm easier to knock off course than I used to be.  Who knows?   

Anyway, I didn't have time to ponder existential dilemmas any longer. I had to get my ass in gear for the ride of my life.

It's a long way home from here

Friday 13^th September

I was packed and ready to go by 8 am on Friday morning, and the first ferry was at 8.45. I didn't get off to a good start after landing at Oban. I got immediately lost, and wasted half an hour going in the wrong direction on the A85 to Fort William. Eventually about 10.15 I was heading in the right direction. I stopped a mile or so outside Oban at the top of a bloody big hill, ate some cooked meat and chocolate, and kept going. I've cycled between Claonaig and Oban before, but that was in the opposite direction on the incredilby hilly and winding Route 78 last year. I knew the main road would be shorter, I was hoping for easier too, but I'm not sure it was. It was still bloody hilly in places, although there were lots of views out to sea, and it was a gorgeous day to be on a bike.

All the villages I passed through between Oban and Lochgilphead had Kil in the title. Kimartin, Kilmore etc. I stopped at local shops in two of the Kils and bought chocolate and energy drinks. In one I was going to get a pie or a sandwich, but they didn't have any ready, and I decided I didn't have the time to wait, while they made one. The first one advertised home made pies. Where are they I said? Oh, they're frozen, the woman said, you can take them home and cook them. I'm on a fucking bike I didn't say, I don't need a pie in the future, I need one now.

My leg's so sweaty my camera's steaming up

I got a shock when I arrived in Lochgilphead, because I saw a sign post that said it was not only 15 miles to Tarbert instead of 10, but it was also 26 miles to Claonaig, instead of 15. Holy crap I thought, I'm going to have my work cut out catching that ferry.

I stopped a little further on at Ardrishaig, drank some Lucozade and ate some chocolate, and wondered what to do. I took some pictures which turned out, along with all the others I took that day, to be completely misted up. I don't often sweat on a bike, mostly because I don't try hard enough, but I'd really been going for it today, and having the camera in the pocket next to my sweaty leg, must have misted up the lens. It didn't demist until later on the ferry, when it had a chance to warm up.

It was nearly 2.20 in Ardrishaig and I probably had about 23 miles to go. It was going to be tough. By 3.15 I'd reached Tarbert but I still had about 11 miles to do in an hour, and that included the hilly 5 miles over from Kennacraig to Claonaig. I seriously thought at that point of just abandoning the day's activities and getting a B&B in Tarbert, by the lovely harbour, but then I thought, oh let's keep going.

This is a picture of Tarbert from last year.  This year's picture was all misty

I made it to Claonaig with about 3 minutes to spare. After cycling for virtually six hours straight, I was quite surprised to find when I dismounted the bike on the ferry that my legs had turned to jelly, and I had trouble climbing from the car deck to the seating area. I ate some more chocolate, and was pleased to see the familiar shape of the mountains of Arran come closer. They looked particularly impressive in the early evening light, but the camera was crocked, so I couldn't get any pictures of them.

When I got off the ferry at Lochranza I felt positively light headed at the prospect of having a whole 2 hours to do the 15 miles back to Brodick. Compared to what I'd already done, this seemed like walking pace. I stopped at the Distillery to top up on fizzy pop and biscuits and then I had a wonderful solitary ride through the stillness of the early evening through the mountains and down the other side and back to Brodick. I made it with about 15 minutes to spare, which seemed like ages.

I had a chicken curry on the ferry, and I really hoped I didn't get food poisoning before Graeme's Audax after working so hard to get this far. It over 12 hours since I'd left Mull and dark by the time I rolled off the ferry at Ardrossan. I found my car and loaded the bike onto the roof, and as I did so, I said 'Thank you'. It's maybe a silly thing to thank a bike, but it seemed appropriate. The longer the week had gone on, the more it had become part of me, and the more natural it felt, each time I climbed back on. And that last day, the ride back to Brodick. Well, for me it felt like one of my greatest cycling efforts ever.

But then as I sat there in the dark car, I realised I wasn't even nearly home yet. I still had 203 miles to go. I managed to navigate from memory to and beyond Glasgow and then once I was back on the M74 I stopped to get a bucket of coffee at the services. I don't like driving in the dark and I think I felt more scared and alone on the drive home than I'd been at any point that week. It's a lot easier to feel lonely in a car because you're boxed in. On a bike, you're connected to the rest of the world. You can feel everything. Maybe it was that feeling I'd lost after my Coast to Coast exertions, and so it had been good to find it again this week.  

I got caught in about 6 lots of roadworks between Glasgow and home, and some of them involved following an escort vehicle at 10 mph to get through them. I stopped once more to buy some Red Bull, but the last 2 hours or so seemed to go on for ever, as I was getting increasingly sleepy.

I fell into bed around 2.20 am, and I set the alarm for 6 to get ready for Graeme's ride.

Saturday 14^th September

Although I was probably nuts to agree to it, Stephen had suggested to me that I do the 100K ride, when I could have easily done the 50K, and for reasons I still don't understand about Stephen's suggestions, I went along with it. I wasn't too worried about finishing. Just to get to the start felt like a triumph.

What had driven me on the day before was to be there and show my support for Graeme and his event, but I needn't have worried, since there were about a million cyclists milling around at the start when I got there. Just think what response you could have got if you'd only publicised the thing, I said to Graeme. I don't think he noticed. He was too busy issuing Brevet Cards to all the hundreds of riders.

I was quite surprised that my legs worked at all on Saturday, although they did feel kind of bruised from the efforts of Friday. I insisted on riding the Hewitt, the bike I'd got to know on my travels, and as usual I packed loads of stuff so I probably slowed myself down unnecessarily, but overall I was pleased to have as much energy as I did, especially considering the fact that the 100K is one hilly ride.

Pretty much from the outset, I lost touch with all the other riders, and if I'd done the whole route I would have been out of time, so I chopped about 15K off and chose to get back, before the hall got packed away Also, by the time I got to the Lion Inn I seriously needed some hot food, so I stopped there for about half an hour or more.

The Lion Inn - if I hadn't stop to take so many pictures I might have finished the ride

I wasn't all that disappointed when Graeme tore my Brevet Card to shreds in front of me and chucked it into the bin when I told him I hadn't quite managed the whole course. Frankly I was pretty amazed I'd managed to do 52 miles. Between Thursday and Sunday I'd cycled 186 very hilly miles, most of it with a fully loaded tourer. I'd cycled through the mountains of Mull and Arran and a big chunk of the Kintyre Peninsula and also some pretty big hills in the North York Moors. So what if I hadn't done any of it very fast? Going slow has its advantages. The speed I go I often get to appreciate every contour on the faces of the sheep that I pass along the way. Speed isn't everything.

Why oh why didn't I do the 50k?

I ended the week feeling much better than I begun it. There's something about the big open spaces, the mountains and the sea, particularly those bits that are on the far side of mountains and away from civilisation, where problems don't seem as big.  

I caught 10 ferries in 6 days and cycled around 280 miles including the Audax.

Big open spaces - good for combatting stress

Another thing that made the problems not seem so big was that some of them were about to be solved. Within a week of getting back, my house sale went through, and I went back to my old job, the one I can actually do. 

It's not quite the whole Bobby Ewing effect, because I still have a few things which need sorting out, and I'm still prone to being overwhelmed at the slightest provocation.  But the good thing is, my head no longer feels like a bomb's just gone off inside it, and that's got to be a good start.