If I can take Silverdale, I can take anything

My mum couldn't afford to take us on holiday when we were kids, but she did manage to get us on a two week holiday for underprivileged children in a place called Silverdale.  It was 1980.

It was quite a tough regime.  There was no showing off about what fancy stuff you'd got.  They made sure of this by taking all your clothes off you when you got there and giving you a random selection of clothes out of a cupboard.  

My brother couldn’t find any underpants to fit, so he had ones that were too big that hung out of the sides of his shorts.

There was pretty much non-stop running.  60 boys in 30 a side football games which were a just a mob of swinging legs kicking anything that moved.  Cricket with a bat that was so worn away it was more like half a bat.  Running for the sake of running, sometimes just round the building.

We had a disco one night, but they only had 3 records.  One was Rockin' Around the World by Status Quo and one of the others was Toccata by Sky.  I can't remember the third.

The weather was red-hot, nearly everyone got tonsilitis and under no circumstances were you allowed to leave any food on your plate.  Most meals featured giant boiled potatoes which were undercooked but they had to go down the neck, tonsilitis or no tonsilitis.

We took regular baths, which were supervised by someone called the matron.  I was 12 at the time.  It would be a long time before I'd be naked in a room with a woman again after that. 

When we got back to Leeds and had our clothes returned to us, my brother and I were let off the bus first as we were told we were the best behaved children they'd ever had.

It was hard, but as they used to say in the old days, it never did me any harm.  I've had other holidays since, but I don't think I've ever come back from a holiday fitter, even from my cycling holidays.

I think it's all run by charity, and I believe it's still going today.  I should really write and thank them.  

Post Script. I did write and thank them shortly after writing this, and in fact I sent them a link to this blog entry.  I ended up having a lovely e-mail exchange with them.  They seemed keen to distance themselves from some of the tougher measures employed at the time I went, but to be honest, even then it was always clear to me that they were operating with completely the best of intentions, and even with quite limited resources they managed to keep 60 young children clean, fed and occupied for a whole two weeks at a time.  And it was all done charitably, so I have nothing but praise for them.  Then and now.  

Why do I call myself a lazy cyclist?

Why do I call myself a lazy cyclist?

Firstly, it’s because of my physical limitations.  I’ve got a less than helpful combination of arthritis and anatomically deranged  feet (I laughed when the doctor said that, because I thought she‘d made it up, but it‘s a real term).  Sometimes it hurts when I pedal, particularly if I’m clipped in and I can’t move my feet around.

I’m on some strong drugs now but in 2008 I was in a bad way.  I noticed I was in a bad way at pretty much the same time I turned 40 and got made redundant.  That wasn’t the best month I ever had.

By 2009 I was doing better  but I wasn’t sure how much better so when Ruth and I went on a cycle tour to Scotland to do the Glasgow to Inverness Lochs and Glens route, I decided to conserve as much energy as possible by not pedalling  whenever possible.

This worked especially well after leaving Balsporran Cottages one morning.  It’s a B&B pretty much at the top of the Drumochter pass and I rolled the 4 miles downhill into Dalwhinnie before I met Ruth who had double backed to see what I was up to.

I find the harder I pedal the more my feet hurt, so I try to pedal only as much as I need to.

Going up hills I need to pedal a bit to overcome gravity but I’ve discovered that by pedalling magnificently and brilliantly slowly I can get up most hills without getting off.  I am sometimes overtaken by tortoises but that doesn’t really worry me too much, because I get to notice things as I go very slowly past them.  I sometimes feel as if I am getting to know sheep one at a time as I am going past them.  I am in their world for long enough to take in their individual features and personalities.  Fast people don’t do this.

Another reason for my slowness is that I don’t like to suffer when I’m out riding, so the less effort I put in the less it hurts.  This had the added bonus that I don’t sweat much so when I’m commuting I can ride to work in my work clothes which can prove useful as I usually set off 10 minutes late anyway and by not having to get changed I just about make it to work on time.

So that’s why I call myself a lazy cyclist.

I swapped my dad for Tonka Toys

My dad died on Halloween and he was cremated on Bonfire Night.  I didn’t fully appreciate the irony at the time as I was only six and I could barely read and write.  In fact, at the very moment he was having his third and fatal heart attack I was at school learning how to add up.

It was 1974.  We lived in a corner shop in Garforth near Leeds.  I didn’t notice when I got home from school that the shop was closed.  I often find it difficult to trust people and when I got in that day there were lots of people there and they were all smiling and happy looking as if me walking in was the greatest day of their lives.  My mum asked me to go upstairs with her.  This gets better I thought, a present of some kind.  But no.  My dad was dead and I would be watching the Six Million Dollar Man on my own tonight.  We’d only just got a colour telly.  What a waste!  I’d always enjoyed Bonfire Night but the day of the funeral I wasn’t really in the mood.  I could see the cricket club bonfire out of my bedroom window, but I didn’t go.

For a long time I cried into my baked beans at mealtimes and didn’t play out.  Belinda Smith (my favourite girl when I was six) had seen my dad’s death in the paper.  He was 40 she reminded me during story time.  It seemed old then, but that’s younger than I am now. 

After we sold the shop we had to live in a caravan for 5 months as our new council house was being modernised.  My brother Phil was in terry nappies so laundry was a pain and he didn’t help matters much by drinking disinfectant out of pop bottle one day.  But it was okay because they sobered him up with milk and gave him a cardboard hat to be sick in.

We lived next door to some dodgy families and I made loads of dinosaurs out of egg boxes and bits of fake fur and other crap which they store in boxes at primary school and someone broke into our caravan and tore them all up.

It was easy enough to do because you could get a child’s hand inside our letter box and open the caravan door from the inside.

We managed to run a black and white telly off a car battery but as the battery ran down the picture got smaller until it disappeared.  There was nothing on in those days anyway.

For our first Christmas as a one parent family two of my dad’s sisters Aunties Dot and Joan stepped in at first to look after us.  We went to Dot’s for Christmas.  It was a strange transaction.  Being taken to Sheffield and given about 20 Tonka Toys each for Christmas.  I think the whole extended family had had a whip round. To a child’s mind it seemed to be a case of ‘Ere you go, sorry about your dad, here’s a shitload of indestructible metal toys’.  We got 2 of everything. 

After 5 months in the caravan we got a council house.  We still lived near the dodgy families but now they had houses and so did we, and our doors now had locks that you needed a key for.

And even if they had been able to break in, we didn’t have toys made out of egg boxes and bits of fake fur anymore.  We had masses of Tonka Toys that we could smash the skirting boards to bits with as my mum soon discovered to her cost.  And they did not.

I almost had a step dad once

I almost had a step dad once.

He was almost my step-dad because my mum never married him.  At first he impressed me because he could do card tricks. 

The first time I met him was in February 1979.  I had passed the entrance exam to go to Leeds Grammar School on a free scholarship and he gave me a lift to the interview. 

At the interview, the school governors asked me a few questions to make sure I wasn’t an idiot.  Then they asked me if I had any questions.  Just one I said.  Is it true that if you’re thick but your parents are rich, you can buy your way into this school?  They seemed to find this amusing, but they assured me it wasn’t the case, and they gave me the scholarship.

For the statistically minded out there, I was allegedly the first person ever to get free school meals there, and the school had been going since 1552.

My almost step dad was chunky and hairy with an orange soft top BMW which was full of fag ends and Rod Stewart cassettes, oh and drawings, him being an architect.

Later he drove a Cortina but it didn’t have any brakes so sometimes he’d have to swerve onto a grass verge to avoid collisions.  Towards the end he bought an Opel Manta but the engine blew up and he had to get a new one.  My mum lent him the money and he bought her some flowers.

He’d never come to the table when dinner was called but he’d come late and then microwave it all to hell and cover it with pepper. 

He thought he was still a miler because he used to run at school and he thought he knew kung fu, although trying to kung fu kick my brother on the ice proved to be a mistake as he ended up groaning in a hedge.  My mum thought I’d killed him when I played him at squash because he dived on top of the racket and it smashed some of his ribs.  More often than not, luck was not on his side.

He wore dark glasses indoors and put things in piles when he was nervous.  We called him Roy Orbison.  He said it was so we wouldn’t know what he was thinking.  Before he got in from work we used to call it Happy Hour

He wore beige socks, he drank fizzy orange in the morning when he was drying out, and he descended into alcoholism.  He wanted to die, he just didn’t know it. He had bad luck but he thought the answer to every problem was in the bottom of a bottle.  There were only more problems there.

12 years ago I became a step dad myself, ie a real one since I got married to someone with children.  At the time I thought ‘All I have to do to be a better step dad than I had is to stay conscious beyond 5.30 pm, not cook fish, chips and frozen peas all together in the deep fat fryer when paralytic, not fall down drunk in the street and have to be carried home by the neighbours and not mess the bed’.  I was pretty confident I could do it.  With hindsight, I’m not sure I was a great success.  I didn’t make the same mistakes, just lots of different ones. 

We never really got on, my nearly step dad and me.  When I was young I treated him more often than not with contempt and ridicule, but when I think of him now I feel sad, because it’s not an easy job and he gave it a go.  And so did I.  And that’s how I know.

The Apathy Square - My natural habitat

When I was 19 I took a year off and although I did do some useful stuff like learning to type and working in Germany for a few months, I spent most of the time between September and April lazing around eating pizza, watching videos, drinking tea and playing the occasional game of squash.

One of the things I did during the time I was bumming around was to make a board game with a friend called ‘Year Off’.  It was supposed to be an antidote to the whole ethos of having a year off which seemed to involve going off to dig drainage ditches in Botswana, going trekking in the Himalayas, or generally being productive etc.

One of the features of the game was the Apathy Square.  It was basically a hole in the board and if you landed on it you just gave up playing because you couldn’t be bothered to go on any more.  The game also featured a Big Bed and if you landed on that, you just went to sleep.

At the time I didn’t realise it, but both the Apathy Square and the Big Bed are my natural habitat.  I could quite easily go through the whole of life asleep or in an apathetic stupor.

Thankfully I know some people, and they know some other people, and a lot of these people have enthusiasm for doing things.  And sometimes I get pushed into doing things with them, or sometimes I just get carried along with their enthusiasm and before I know it I’m joining in and thinking up stuff to do too. 

Left to my own devices I would probably just hang around near the fridge and not go out, so it's a good thing I have friends, or I would soon be a likely candidate for a Channel 5 documentary called Giant Fridge Man or something similar.

The First Time I saw Edinburgh

The first time I saw Edinburgh it wasn’t after stepping off a train at Waverley.  It was from a hilltop 25 miles away using borrowed binoculars.  I was there with my wife Ruth, and a man called David who I’d known on and off for 3 days.  We were all on bikes.  It was Friday 22^nd July 2005 and we had been following Sustrans Coast and Castles Route 1 for 5 days since leaving Newcastle the previous Sunday. 

That morning we had ridden for 12 miles uphill from Innerleithen towards a little arrow on our map which said ‘Superb views of Edinburgh’.

I sometimes get to places where there's supposed to be an amazing view and think 'Is that it?' but this time I wasn't disappointed.  Looking back, it wasn’t just the view, it was the company, it was the pies, it was the effort required to get there.  I could say it was the best day of my life but that wouldn’t be true.  But it could have been the best moment.   

The day didn’t start well.  It started with a fire alarm at 5 in the morning.  We were staying at a B & B in Innerleithen.  Innerleithen is a Mountain biking town, very busy on weekends.  This particular Thursday it was dead.  We were the only guests in the B&B.  Even the owners weren’t staying on site.  When we asked about bike storage, we were told to take them up to room with us.  The guidebook had said that evening meals were available on site but a sign on the back of the room door advising us not to get takeaway pizza on the bedclothes or something like that was the only reference to food.

 As the owners weren’t on the premises, when the 5 am alarm started going off we rang the owners number which was on the back of the bedroom door.  About 20 minutes later after we had wandered the corridors of the B&B alone not meeting another soul she came and reset the alarm.  We got back into bed about 5.30.  About 10 minutes later the alarm went off again.  And the cycle began again.

After the second alarm reset I looked at the breakfast room set with only cutlery for 2 and I said to her ‘Look, why don’t we just forget about breakfast.  As we’re up why don’t we just set off? She seemed relieved and delighted that she didn’t have to get up again to do us breakfast in a couple of hours.  She only charged us £15 to cover her cleaners wages and not the £55 we should have paid and she pointed us in the direction of the bakers over the road which was just about to open.

Delighted with my £40 saving, we went to bakers over road at 6.30 and stocked up with scotch pies, chicken tikka and crab salad sandwiches and bottles of pop and we set off. 

We set about the 12 miles of climb with only sheep and clouds for company.  The only sounds were gentle running water and the sound of tyres on the road.  Upon passing the golf club we met a green keeper who told us a famous tale about a man who in a moment of drunken boasting had claimed he could walk from there to Edinburgh playing the bagpipes all the way.  Then he showed us his grave.  He had dropped dead shortly after he began.  Hopefully we would have better luck.

A few miles further on we encountered a road closed sign and just as we were contemplating finding another route we spotted a smaller sign in a plastic wallet hanging off the big sign which read ‘Cycle Route Open’.  This was great news.  This view we were heading for was to be for cyclists only.  No cars allowed. 

I can’t describe the view I saw when I finally saw it because I’m no good at descriptions.  Except to say that it’s the best view I’ve ever seen.  Not only Edinburgh but the whole Firth of Forth shining below us in the sun. 

Just at that moment a guy we had been meeting all week called David arrived.  He had been doing the same ride as us all week.  We only usually met him in the evenings though because he set off earlier than us and he was faster.  But because of our earlier start today we were ahead of him.  And just as we were admiring the view he arrived.  And he had binoculars. 

He pointed out some sights and we took some photos of each other and we ate our sandwiches and our pies and we sat on the grass and drank our fizzy pop and I’ve had no better feeling before or since. 

After the view, we had a fabulous descent, but then we encountered heavy traffic through Dalkeith, got a bit lost and arrived in Edinburgh about 1.30.  Great we thought, an afternoon exploring the sights.  But rather than leave the bikes in the centre of Edinburgh, we thought we’d go and check into our accommodation and then explore.

Three hours later we were still looking.  Ruth insists to this day that she advised me to buy a map of Edinburgh before we left home but I don’t remember.  The other 5 days of the tour had been easy.  All the other places we stayed only had 1 street.  If we found that, we found the B&B.

In my guidebook it said our Edinburgh accommodation was near the foot of Arthur’s Seat.  I didn’t really know what Arthur’s Seat was and I thought, ‘If we find Arthur’s Seat, we’ll find the B&B.  But it’s not a seat, it’s a mountain.  We spent 3 hours circumnavigating that mountain, mostly in the wrong direction. 

If we asked for directions, we got sent the wrong way, if we tried to buy a map, we couldn’t find a map shop, if we phoned the B&B, we got the owner’s Thai wife and her broken English only added to the confusion. 

If was after 6 when we were showered and ready to set off to see the sights.  Ruth was so tired she could barely walk and my refusal to get a bus did not help her weary state.  We ate a Chinese all you can eat meal with her almost passing out and then we set off walking back to the B&B.  .

Seeing her looking forlorn I paid a tenner to get her a ride in a cycle rickshaw part of the way back to the B&B but this seemed just to embarrass her and even with his giant and prominent calf muscles bulging away, the rickshaw pilot wouldn’t take us all the way to our out of town B&B.

So we went to the far end of a rickshaw fare and I walked her the rest of the way back to the B&B, tucked her up in bed and set off back into town, this time by bus.  But the castle was closed for an event and as it was falling dark the streets became a curious mixture of drunks and tourists, who managed to peacefully coexist despite my fears it would all end badly.

To sum up, the day started with alarm, it ended in exhaustion.  It started in the peace and quiet of the countryside and finished in the bustle of the city.  We’ve done many cycle tours since.   Had many more ups and downs, and on one of them we sat down and compiled High Fidelity style our Top 5 all-time cycle tour moments.  That few minutes looking at Edinburgh through borrowed binoculars, sitting on the grass eating pies and drinking pop, and most importantly sharing the moment with each other was our number one.  Maybe it always will be.  But I’m sure we’ll keep looking. 

First class travel, post traumatic stress, hurricanes, ash clouds and me

As usual I planned this two week holiday to within an inch of its life but it still ended up totally backwards.  

The original plan was to ride from home to north of Carlisle, spend 4 days doing Lochs and Glens South, catch the ferry to Arran, spend a day going right round the island, then catch the ferry to the Kintyre Peninsula, spend another 4 days getting to Oban, then catch ferries on and off Mull, back on to the mainland, ride up the Great Glen from Fort William to Inverness and then get the train home.

Because of Ruth’s accident earlier in the year, and her lack of cycling I decided instead to catch the train to Glasgow, go straight to Arran, spend a few days there doing circular rides to build up her fitness and confidence and then continue as planned but without the Loch and Glens South.

Sunday 15th May
Caught train from Darlington to Glasgow.  First class tickets as well which would have been a treat except at the first stop in Newcastle just as we were starting to relax a noisy polo eating Scottish woman got on and chomped, sang along to her Ipod and flicked crumbs everywhere all the way to Glasgow.  Even free coffee and a reasonably priced sandwiches couldn’t insulate us against her.  Also, as we were walking through the train from the guard’s van it definitely looked like there is two first classes now.  First First Class for people who’ve paid full price and Second First Class for people who have bought cheap tickets.  We were definitely in the latter.

Originally we had intended to go direct to Ardrossan and get the ferry but the train we needed was today a bus so we caught a different train to Dunlop and we booked a night at a B&B in Dalry which gave us about 10 miles to do after getting off the train.  It was pretty wet and windy and Ruth felt pretty upset in the traffic so I was glad it wasn’t further.

When we arrived the B&B was like a stately home.  Fine china, handmade wallpaper etc.  It was like staying in a museum.  Every room was a work of art.  We were invited down for tea  and cake on arrival and although the owners were completely lovely it felt like a job interview as we had to contribute to a lively discussion on politics, current affairs, the state of the NHS etc, when all we wanted to do was have a bath and go out to eat.  There was also a roll top bath in our room which was supposed to be a selling point, but where are  you supposed to put your shampoo and body wash bottles etc, or your cup of tea.  They would just fall off the sides so not a great success for me.  The curtains were all on drawstrings and there were knick-knacks galore and a four poster bed but it was probably a bit too good for us.  As it was raining the owners gladly gave us a lift to and from the nearby Dalry Inn, which was run by a very charming Italian man but seemed to have no customers but us.  

Monday 16th May
Completed the 9 miles to Ardrossan in the wind and the rain again, and caught the ferry to Brodick.  Fought our way up another 12 miles of hill and sideways rain, including a tea and toastie stop in Lamlash  to our cottage at Drumla Farm, just up the hill from Kildonan.  Had a worrying 5 minutes where we couldn’t find the owner but we got in eventually and had a warm bath but no cup of tea as there was no milk.  Discovered soon after that the ten minute walk to the shop and the pub was down a steep tractor track, but we managed to get a meal and some milk from the Kildonan Hotel, which was the village pub and shop rolled into one.

Tuesday 17th May
As the cycling hadn’t been much fun so far, we decided to park the bikes on Tuesday and buy a round the island bus ticket for the bargain price of £4.90 and spend some time  getting to know the island.  Typical, as we hadn’t chosen to cycle the weather was pretty good.  We were escorted down to the bus stop by Connie the sheepdog, who left us in no doubt that she was in charge.  The sheep watched in awe as she went past.  

She is a somewhat eccentric dog who watches football and racing and who likes to play football and eat breakfast with the campers on the local campsite in the summer.

We decided to go clockwise round the island via Blackwaterfoot (lovely views of the Kintyre Peninsula) and got off at Lochranza, where we had a lovely fry up at the campsite shop and a tour of the whisky distillery, and we saw red deer just hanging around in the village.

Wednesday 18th May
Got the bikes out and did the easy 9 miles via the local shop in Whiting Bay down into Lamlash.  

Had another toastie and some coffee and tried to relax whilst listening  to a know it all chatterbox woman on the next table bombarding her virtually speechless friend with almost every fact there is about the Isle of Arran.  She seemed to be the speed talking equivalent of Judith Chalmers.  The only thing her friend said was ‘I don’t mind’ which was just aswell since any opinions she had would’ve been crushed.

Apart from the road that goes round the outside, there are only really two roads on Arran, the String Road which goes roughly through the middle and the Ross Road which cuts across the south of the Island.  Today we decided to ride up the Ross Road.  It was hilly, not so much steep as continuously up and up.   As we got near the top, the rain started, and once we were over the top we got freezing cold wind, which necessitated a change into full fingered cycling gloves.  In a brief burst of sun we stopped and ate our Scotch Pies (and a hotdog lattice) which we had bought earlier from the shop in Whiting Bay, and then started the long descent down to the other coast.   I was actively hating the weather by this point but it did get a bit better as we swung back south along the coast and back to Kildonan.
We stopped for some soup and a warm at the Lagg Hotel, and then we bought some cheese from the Torrylin Creamery which we had on toast for one of our evening meals, other notable feasts being Fray Bentos pie out of a tin with Smash, and tinned Spaghetti Bolognese with hot dogs.

Ruth made me walk to a waterfall just before we got back to Kildonan, which I moaned about because it was the first time we’d been out in the sun, and we were in a forest, so we couldn’t feel it, but the view was pretty good, and the people who made the woodland path to it had put loads of work in so I shouldn’t be so churlish.

Thursday 19th May
A glorious 38 mile circular ride along the coast to Blackwaterfoot, across the String Road to Brodick and back to the cottage.  For once the weather was clear and we could see things that up to now had been hidden in cloud.  

Enough to make us want to stay longer on Arran, we decided over lunch at the Shiskine Golf Club (soup and a seafood sandwich which was lovely) to book an extra couple of nights at the cottage, to keep us here till Sunday.

Friday 20th May
After the exertions of the last two days and needing somewhere to stay after Sunday, we decided to get the anti-clockwise bus into Brodick, where we got on the internet at Arran Graphics and organised somewhere to stay for Sunday and Monday nights.  

After that we took another trip round to Lochranza to have lunch at the Disillerry which had very nice food but incredibly inattentive staff which for a short time put me in a bad mood, until Ruth gave me a lecture and I snapped out of it.

Saturday 21st May
We had made a tentative plan to ride around the island by bike today but the weather was absolutely horrendous all day.  Winds and torrential rain.  We didn’t even go outside until around 3 pm when we decided to go to the shop as we had no milk or toilet paper left.  We got absolutely soaked walking to the bus stop,  did an 18 mile round trip by bus to the shop in Lamlash where we spent 20 minutes getting the necessaries and then after a horrible walk back from the bus stop we spent the rest of the evening trying to dry our clothes and shoes, which thanks to the superpowered storage heaters in the flat we managed to do.

Sunday 22nd May
Every day the weather forecast looked fine for the rest of the UK, but absolutely crap for Western Scotland.  Ruth really wanted to go home and try going somewhere very very south of Scotland but I was holding on for grim death, like when you’re watching a really terrible film but you can’t switch it off because you think it might get better.  We did however decided to cancel our Sunday and Monday accommodation and head back towards Glasgow, rather than continuing on further north into the wind and rain.

In the event, the weather was lovely as we boarded the ferry at Brodick and when we arrived at Ardrossan I just couldn’t face spending a nice weather day on the train, especially as the forecast was for gale force winds on Monday, so I suggested we might try following some of the Lochs and Glens South route for a while.  I usually avoid the purply urban sections at all costs and I considered getting a train to the south of Ayr but we missed one by ten minutes and the next one wasn’t for 4 hours so we set off riding instead and I’m so glad we did.

The cycle path between Ardrossan and Ayr was absolutely excellent.  Mostly smooth tarmac , well signposted and actually managing to bypass the urban areas rather than throwing us out into the middle of a major road at times like most cycle paths near us seem to do.

A lot of the ride was right on the coast and as the winds got up mid afternoon we had to dodge some pretty big waves that were crashing over the sea walls. 

We stopped at Troon for a hot dog and some shelter from the wind and rain and decided to find a hotel or B&B in Ayr.  The guidebook advised us that there is a vast array of accommodation in Ayr but that the nicer places to stay are to the south of Ayr after the Esplanade so that’s where we headed but I got a bit worried when we got to the far side of the Esplanade and we couldn’t find anywhere to stay.  Eventually we found Racecourse Road which runs parallel to the Esplanade and the first place we came to was the Chestnuts Hotel which had some expensive cars in the car park and we thought might be a bit too good for us sweaty cyclists.  I hadn’t shaved for a week, I had sand in my eyes and my glasses were all crusted up with sea salt.  We were really getting tired and we didn’t want to go any further but we didn’t want to spend a fortune either.  We decided we wouldn’t pay more than 80 pounds for B&B and so it was a relief when that was how much it was per night.  We didn’t have to go back outside and argue about money or look elsewhere.

The hotel was great.  The staff were welcoming and helpful, and there was a lively bar where we got a nice meai.  The only drawback was that the hotel was full of loud boring golfers, doing that bloke thing of laughing out loud and generally being quite dull.  We encountered them again the following morning at breakfast when they spent about an hour trying to decide where they were going, whose golf trolley was going in which car etc.  

Monday 23rd May
The severe weather warning for today and the sight as we had breakfast of a dog walker getting blown over convinced us to stay put today and leave the bikes alone.  We walked into Ayr, being careful to avoid any falling bits of tree, and did some laundry, bought  LG a new waterproof and generally ate too much food for a non-cycling day.  We felt a bit sulky and depressed by about 2.30 at being stuck in the hotel but I had been slightly freaked out by the sound of trees creaking and having to step over branches on our morning walk and I didn’t want to go back out again.  In the evening we unnecessarily ate a three course meal, partly out of boredom.

Tuesday 24th May
Today our aim was to get to Newton Stewart, which was about 45-50 miles away.  We set off from Ayr on a B road, still getting a battering from the wind.  The first ten miles of the day took us about 2 hours, the roads were hilly, the wind was howling and the road surface was full of holes.  Applying the faulty logic that if I went faster, we would both go faster, I rode ahead most of the way to Maybole, by which time Ruth was very stressed and upset, and wanting to go home.
I tried to think of options but couldn’t find any good ones.  The idea of going back to Ayr which was only 10 miles away was rejected as we would have had to do the same horrible 10 miles we’d just done but in reverse.  A train was due which would have saved us about 20 miles but it was too full of people fleeing the previous day’s travel disruption and we would barely have fit on it, even without bikes.  Ruth had a few tears on the platform and then she decided to set off to Newton Stewart.  At first I wasn’t sure where she’d gone so I didn’t follow her with any conviction and so it took me about an hour to catch her up, by which time we were well into Galloway Forest.  She had bought sandwiches so when I caught her up we had those and then carried on through the forest up two big hills and eventually down into Glen Trool.  Most of the day we’d been feeling stressed and miserable and on the point of divorce and unfortunately when in such beautiful surroundings the day had been a pretty joyless experience. 

It was about 5 when we got to Glen Trool and with nowhere booked to stay that night, Ruth asked me to book us somewhere in Newton Stewart while she carried on.  I had 3 numbers in the guidebook.  The first two I tried were fully booked but third time lucky I eventually got through to Rowallan House and spoke to Julie, a very friendly lady from Zimbabwe, and she had a room for us.  Just the sound of her voice made me feel more positive about things and the welcome we received from her and husband Rob when we arrived around 7 pm made all the anxiety of the day fall away.  We managed to get a meal at the Galloway Arms and after a good night’s sleep we felt a whole lot more positive about the previous day, and particularly bearing in mind Ruth’s lack of miles this year, we felt pretty good about achieving what we did.

Wednesday 25th May
One thing I had put to the back of my mind the previous night was that my back wheel had felt like I was riding a Pringle for about the last 10 miles of the day.  When I got the bike out this morning the tyre was completely twisted and deformed.  I remembered going over a cattle grid with a couple of slats missing and I wondered if I had buckled the wheel.  Luckily, Rob gave me directions to Kirroughtree Visitors Centre about 3 miles from Newton Stewart where there was a bike shop.  I rode there very slowly and carefully, expecting the wheel to explode at any moment but thankfully it didn’t.  The young girl in the bikeshop at Kirroughtree tested the wheel for trueness and found it to be okay but replaced the tyre and tube for me and off we went.  We considered spending a day mountain biking there and staying another night at Rowallan but in the end we pressed on.
We stopped for lunch at the Mill on the Fleet at Gatehouse of Fleet around 2.30pm and asked the advice of the very smiley owner / waitress about where to stay that night.  She suggested a couple of places in Kirkcudbright (Selkirk Arms and Fludha), both very expensive but both very good, she said.  

It was more than we wanted to pay so we thought we’d probably just find somewhere when we got there but this proved trickier than expected as some places were full and some places we just couldn’t find.  Things were not helped by the fact that I completely lost the use of the speech and memory functions of my brain around this time.  I rang up Fludha to ask for directions but I didn’t listen to the answer and eventually when LG phoned them back and we decided to go there and I was talking to the owner I couldn’t remember where we’d come from or even if we had come from the North or the South.  Fludha turned out to be very expensive but I would have to say it was more than twice as good as anywhere else we’ve stayed.  It was either the only 5 star accommodation in Dumfries and Galloway or the only 5 star guest house, I’m not sure but it had a wonder shower which brought me back to life and everything else about it was wonderful too, including the evening meal which the owners made for us.

In fact, this whole day was a bit like a dream, with the friendly Zimbabweans sending us on our way, to the dreamy bike shop where they fixed my bike, to the dreamy lunch stop at Gatehouse all the way to the dreamy B&B.

Thursday 26th May
Kirkcudbright to Glencaple via Castle Douglas and Dumfries.  I think Ruth finally started to relax into the cycling today. 

We spoke to each other in lines from films all day and she started to point things out more and generally to notice things other than the terror of passing cars.  In the evening we stayed at the Nith Hotel in Glencaple just outside Dumfries which had a very nice view from the window.  It wasn’t as good as the night before but it was a friendly family run hotel and we got to keep our bikes in the kennels which was unusual.  

Friday 27th May
Glencaple to Gretna via the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust at Caerlaverock, where I had soup and a toastie and we saw some swans and swallows and also some cattle cos they're big and not very far away

Went for a quick ride round Gretna Green which in the grey and windy conditions of yesterday didn't look much like a very fun place to have a wedding.

Then stayed with a lovely lady called Val who was found for us by the tourist information centre in Gretna Green and she made us tea and biscuits on arrival and generally treated us like close relatives rather than paying guests.  She even recommended us a nice hotel to have an evening meal in (Solway Lodge) and it was a nice way to finish our trip.

Saturday 28th May
Set off early to avoid the Bank Holiday rush.  We rode from Gretna to Gretna Green Station, then did a spot of bike dragging around Carlisle, Newcastle and Thornaby, on and off trains and had a tortuous  ride home from Thornaby Station on cycle paths that mostly don’t go anywhere and which cross major roads every 50 feet and this brought us well and truly back to Earth.  The first two trains of the day we got the bikes on no problem in actual bike storage compartments but then the one from Newcastle to Thornaby had one of those bike storage areas that is just a pull-down seat and it’s in the main carriage and it’s not even big enough for a touring bike, let alone two fully laden ones, one racing bike and four BMXs and their owners which was the scenario for the last few stops from Hartlepool.  It was like one of those ‘How many people can you get in a telephone box?’ challenges and at each station at least 3 bikes had to get off and back on, if anyone wanted to get off the train.  
All in all, not quite the holiday we were aiming for, but pretty good all the same.  Shame about the almost constant high winds.  As I have all year, I found the cycling itself quite hard going, especially carrying a spare tyre round the middle on top of what was in the panniers.  But as usual, the best bits were arriving in new places by bike, and we found a warm welcome everywhere we went.  People in shops, cafes, pubs, guest houses and hotels  were all unfailingly courteous and helpful to us.  And I’m already looking forward to going back again, to do all the bits we intended to do this time, but didn’t manage.