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.

The Road to Avalon Part 2 - Oh dear I managed to get there this time!

Last September I nearly went to Avalon in Darlington, but on the way there I just felt too damn old, so I ran away.  The story of that night can be found here

Unfortunately last night I managed to finally get in there.  As you know, I've moved to Darlington now, so it's a lot easier to go to places that are in the town.  Possibly where Avalon is concerned, this is not a good thing.

I went to Rob's house first, about 9 pm.  I walked there from my flat, which was novel.  I went for pre-drinks, and I actually took some alcohol.  Gin and tonic and alcoholic ginger beer.  I nearly bought some coloured drinks from the corner shop with names like Wkd and Sourz, but in the end that was a step too far.

I liked it at Rob's.  It's like my flat but bigger, and with more comfortable chairs, and with a big telly, and stairs and well, the list goes on.  He's very good at making people feel at home, so I did, even though compared to all the younglings who were there, I felt like an Alzheimer's patient who'd gone out for a walk and wandered into a young person's house by mistake.

It wasn't my place to say it, but I did anyway.  'That Glastonbury coverage is a bit loud, it's doin' me 'ead in!' or words to that effect.  There was somebody on called Rizzle Razzle or something, who I thought was Dizzee Rascal, but it wasn't, but then Dizzee Rascal turned up anyway, although I couldn't tell the difference. And the two presenters were two of those annoyingly smug young people, who seemed to be just sitting around talking absolute crap about how great Glastonbury is, and I just wished they'd go away, especially the woman in the yellow raincoat.  What was she even doing in a raincoat?  She was in the studio.  None of this was making me want to get a telly.

Eventually, well after my normal bed time, we got a series of taxis into town, for some reason these days if you order a 12 seater, you get 3 4 seaters.  I know it still adds up to 12, but it would have been nice to go together.

Then when I got out of the taxi, Fuck me if I hadn't just been emptied out onto the set of 28 Days Later.  There were bodies everywhere!  I don't even like horror films!  There was some bloke who had just decided to go to sleep on the floor.  The incredibly young people I was with, starting yelling 'Snapchat' and getting their camera phones out to get a picture of this sleepy guy, and understandably this just seemed to enrage the guy's girlfriend who then proceeded to challenge us all to a fight simultaneously.

I usually go through that part of town at 7 in the morning on my bike, if I'm lucky there's a guy power washing the street, but 11 pm on a Friday night, it's unreal.  I knew I should have just run off then, but 'Oh, !' no, just come for one! the young people said.  I had to pay to get into Avalon, which I didn't mind because it was only a quid, but as soon as I got inside, I wanted my money back.

I queued up for my one drink for a while and had to shout really loud to get it.  Well, I said I'd stay for one, so I thought I'd neck it as quick as possible and then revert to Plan A and run away.  There were people falling over everywhere, the floor was a sticky slick of split drinks, and I felt like a rabbit trapped in the headlights of an oncoming car, except without the option of just diving out of the way.

I am often left puzzled by what the point of things is, and Avalon was no different.  Someone told me people go there to meet the opposite sex, and if that's the case there couldn't possibly be a more inefficient way of doing it.  For a start everyone is drunk, the lighting is quite poor, and it's impossible to communicate with anyone except in sign language.  I don't even know sign language.

The worst bit was, not only was I with people I know that I couldn't speak to, I kept meeting more and more people I know who I couldn't speak to either.  It was a lot like being a work, but after having had my hearing removed.  I saw Rochelle, and Michelle, and Jonny Tingate, and I also think I saw the new guy from my team, who starts on Monday, but even if I'd managed to flag him down, what the hell was I going to say to him?  Rob was smiling all the time, and he really seemed to be enjoying himself.  Whether he was enjoying himself more, because I looked so out of place, I don't know, but pretty much the only thing I heard all night was when he leaned over and said to me 'I bet you wish you were back at mine listening to Dizzee Rascal now!'.  Too right I did.

I felt old, I mean really old in there, and then I saw this old guy stagger past.  He looked like he'd just fallen out of a spaceship and landed in there and he couldn't wait to get out.  I nearly went with him!

That wasn't even the craziest part.  There was this girl in there, who was so far off her face I think her face was in a different time zone.  She was trying to get us all to dance to something, it might have been Bon Jovi, I can't remember, and then she disappeared.  A few minutes later I went to the toilet and as I was stood at the urinal I thought 'These walls are bloody thin, I can hear a girl singing through the wall from the women's toilets next door'.  Except then the cubicle door behind me opened and she was actually in the mens' toilets with some bloke.  I don't think they were getting up to much though, not with all the singing that was going on.

And the other crazy part was that all of the songs that were being played at deafening volume weren't even recent.  And this was where the whole thing became a recurring nightmare within a dream.  All the songs that were on, Blink 182, the Offspring, Wheatus Teenage Dirtbag etc were all the songs my step daughter used to play too loud in her bedroom 10 years ago.  Except this time there was even less chance of me getting the volume turned down.

Anyway, I drank my one drink that I promised I'd have and then (by this time is waa a quarter to 12, wow!) I ran off.  Which is maybe what I should have done, as soon as I fell out of the taxi.

I didn't go to bed as soon as I got in.  For one thing I had developed a severe case of tinnitis.  Then things got even worse.  I don't generally drink, I mean, at all!  And because I'd drunk my last drink so fast, even though I was now home, and not drinking, I was now getting more and more drunk.  I tried drinking coffee and milk and eventually I went to bed, but it wasn't till about 3 am that I started to get less drunk instead of more.  Except, then after I stopped getting drunker, I started getting more hungover.  And boy oh boy, being humgover!  There's a feeling I haven't missed since the last time it happened, which was probably about 5 years ago.

I got up at 7 am, and drank about another 9 coffees, and went for a walk, and drank some chocolate milk, and went out for breakfast, and eventually about 2 pm, I started to feel less hungover, and almost normal again.

So now, almost 10 months after I almost went in there the first time, I have been to Avalon.  Although I would be very surprised if I end up in there again anytime soon!

This can't be History! It hasn't finished happening yet!

Yesterday I watched the FA Cup Final, between Wigan and Manchester City.

Wigan were the underdogs, but they won, and they deserved to.  They were the better team, and so when they scored in the 90th minute I was pleased for them.  It reminded me of the first FA Cup Final I watched in 1978 when underdogs Ipswich beat the favourites Arsenal.  That final was also similar in that Ipswich played better, had lots of chances, but didn't score till near the end.  When they did score it was completely deserved, justice was done blah blah blah.

My enjoyment of Wigan's last minute winner was however, spoiled somewhat by Clive Tyldesley, who, nanoseconds after the winning goal, set off on a speed-talking sprintathon down Hyperbole Avenue which didn't stop for about 20 minutes, going on and on about what a historic moment it was, and how it was the most historic moment since 1988 when Wimbledon won, and then he pretty much went through all the underdog goalscorers they've ever been in the history of the FA Cup.  He also pointed out that goalscorer Ben Watson looks like Prince Harry, and then tried his best to get a load of Royal references in there too.  I would have switched the telly off, or kicked it in, but I wanted to see Wigan celebrate their success.  The only time good ol' Clive stopped talking was to allow the equally naff Andy Townsend to get a few equally nonsensical words in, about finding the last piece of the jigsaw and other unrelated tosh.

please see previous rant about over-excited commentators

Later in the evening, I found a documentary on ITV about Aberdeen winning the European Cup Winners Cup in 1983, when Alex Ferguson was the manager, and they beat Real Madrid in the final in Gothenburg.  The programme itself was absolutely excellent, but a special treat was the highlights of the Final, which was commentated on by Brian Moore and Ian St John.  Tyldesley and Townsend they are most definitely not!  They didn't go on about history in the making and all that, they just talked about the actual game they were commentating on, and what was happening in it.  And sometimes, when there was nothing that needed saying, because it was all up there on the screen, they didn't do any talking at all.  They just sat there quietly.  

if you want to see what I mean, follow this link

It's fair to say that when I was 15 and I watched Aberdeen win the Cup Winners Cup I was aware of what a good team they were, but I probably didn't fully appreciate the quality of the two guys in the commentary box.

Brian Moore died in 2001.  Something I didn't know about him was that he was a lifelong Gillingham fan and the club's fanzine was called 'Brian Moore's Head looks like London Planetarium', which in turn is named after a line in the Half Man Half Biscuit Song 'Dickie Davies' Eyes'.

here's the video. I think the guy smashing his flat up at the end might have just finished watching Tyldesley

I pinched this little excerpt from the fanzine's website:

The recent loss of Brian Moore was felt right across the British game. He was an icon, and not just because of the shape of his head. For many of us during our formative years he represented the face of football on ITV – fronting The Big Match on a Sunday afternoon. His commentaries were knowledgeable and passionate. His love for the game was obvious for all to see (and hear).

He was from an era where football was less about money and greed and more about the sheer childish joy of watching the game. His style was unique and his reading of the game on a par with any of his peers. He came across as a true gentleman without the arrogance or ego of many within the game.

There are millions of reasons why you could argue that modern day football isn't what it used to be.  That's maybe why football commentators over-excitedly seize on any drama whatsoever and shout it from the rooftops.

I miss lots of things about the football I remember from my youth.  And since yesterday, I miss Brian Moore too.

Flushing my head down the toilet, melting my face off and hanging around near the Death Star again

I don't like to celebrate my birthday for just one day.  I usually like to spread the celebration over the course of a week, partly because, on the actual birthday itself there's way too much pressure.  I can hear my internal monologue screaming at me every second 'ARE YOU HAVING A GOOD TIME?' YOU'VE GOT TO ENJOY IT, IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY.  Sometimes I feel more relaxed on the days either side, because the pressure's off.

This year was no exception.  The actual birthday was on Sunday, but just to make sure I also celebrated it on Saturday and the following Wednesday.

I went to see my mum, brother and nephew on Saturday, and we had a nice family day.  My brother is moving house soon, so he's in disarray and even if he wasn't he probably wouldn't have got me anything.  I spent some of the day making him offers for some of his furniture and white goods, which he mainly just laughed at and said he could get more for it on Ebay.

As I was leaving, and as an afterthought he gave me a small size red girl's onesy which was on his staircase, and wished me Happy Birthday.  It doesn't fit, and even though there are no pictures of me trying it on, I wish even the mental picture I've got of me looking in the mirror at myself wearing it could also be destroyed.  My 3 year old nephew Jack gave me a small yellow car, which he will probably want back.  Later in Leeds, my mum bought me fish and chips from the politest fish and chip shop in the world in Leeds, where all the staff repeatedly addressed the customers as lady and gent.

Sunday was my actual birthday.  I went on Facebook early in the morning, and nobody at all was wishing me happy birthday on there.  A few months earlier I had deleted my birth date off there in case someone tried to steal my identity. Whether this has stopped me being cloned by a gang of criminal masterminds is open to debate, but more to the point it was now stopping me getting publicity for my birthday.  My immediate response was to abandon all worry of identity theft and to start firing out attention-seeking status updates.  People ignoring you updates on Facebook is bad any day of the week, but on your birthday.  Give me a break.

After doing a bit of digital attention seeking I went off to Asda with the birthday money my mum gave me and bought 5 DVDs for £15 and Born to Die by Lana Del Rey for £7 (I had to add £2 of my own money).  The jury's still out on Lana Del Rey.  She does seem a bit on the miserable side, and it's not exactly easy listening, but it didn't make me want to crash the car, like Nicky Minaj once did.

When I got home from Asda, Ruth took me out for my Sunday dinner to Chadwicks in Maltby.  I like to go there because you can tell what the meat is.  Sometimes these Sunday dinners places, they serve up generic meat which could be anything, but at Chadwicks you can definitely tell that the pork is made of pork.  This filled me up for most of the day, but I still managed to be ridiculously greedy and have curry for tea.  I was so full by bedtime I had to leave the rest till breakfast on Monday.

In the afternoon I watched one of the DVDs I'd bought from Asda which was Everything Must Go, starring Will Ferrell.  It was supposed to be a comedy about an alcoholic man who gets locked out of his house by his wife, and has all his stuff dumped on the lawn, and he has to sell it to get some money for some cans so he can carry on being an alcoholic.  I'm hoping to sell my house too soon, and I might be getting rid of some of my stuff too, but I'm not locked out and it's not on the lawn, and I'm not an alcoholic, so there the similarities end.  I don't really know why two of the films I bought had Will Ferrell in because I don't even think he's funny and this one certainly wasn't funny at all, just a bit sad.

I took a break from celebrating my birthday on Monday and Tuesday, so I could attend some training at work, the purpose of which is to help me prepare me for a job I won't be able to do, and which I don't really want.  The training is so solid that every other day my brain starts overheating so badly I have to go flush it down the toilet and hyperventilate into a brown paper bag for a few hours, until it resets itself.

Because my brain keeps melting, I decided to spend Wednesday doing some more birthday stuff.  I had a Yorkie for breakfast (which was left over from a previous day's 3 for 2 offer) , and then after another instalment of the training I don't understand, I went out after work to Alfornos with my pals from the Batching and Scanning Team (a job I almost understood).

I had about an hour between the finish of the training I hadn't understood and the start of the meal, so I parked up in Darlington and had a wander round in the sun looking at stuff and then I went to Nero's for a coffee.

I spent some of the hour revisiting my redundancy hotspots.  It's not really much of a tour as the places I've been fired from are all pretty close together.  I went past Lloyds TSB on Blackwellgate (fired 1998), Poundland on High Row (used to be Waterstone's, fired 2008), Waterstone's in the Cornmill (fired 2012).  Don't forget I'd also just come from direct from Student Loans (fired 2012).

As I was wandering round in the sunshine, I reflected on the fact that for me, Darlington is a lot like the Death Star.  I never really want to go there, but once I get within a certain radius, it starts pulling me in with its tractor beam, and it only lets me go when it's ready to dump me overboard before the jump into hyperspace, with the rest of the space junk and astronaut poo.

Looking back on my decision making in relation to Darlington, I never know how much of it is free will, and how much is tractor beam.  I completely illogically chose to go work at the TSB there in 1993 when staying in Stockton was closer and easier, and I also chose to go work at the Waterstones there in 2005 when staying in Middlesbrough would have been much, much easier.  Both times I took on extra travelling and longer hours in the hope of a better job, and both times I was fired out the door, like crap off the bottom of a shoe.  Both times I sort of did get a better job for a while, but then when Darlington had finished with me it blew me away like the Planet Alderaan got blown away in Star Wars.  For a while after each obliteration I was just space dust floating around in smithereens.

After the second lot of getting smithereened in 2008 I said I'd never go back to Darlington, as I was sick of getting Death Starred, but by 2012 the only job I could get in 6 months of trying was at Student Loans. so I had to go back on my promise.

I got fired from Student Loans on Halloween last year (the only good point of which was not having to answer the door to trick or treaters because I was out having a leaving do) , and just for good measure I got fired from Waterstone's again at Christmas, just in case the first firing hadn't made me feel enough like a piece of dead bird the cat had dragged in.

Yet despite everything, I got my Student Loans job back again in January, I got offered a fixed term contract in April, and in the same week I even got a promotion, although I'll probably lose that when they figure out I don't know what I'm doing.

Anyway, as I was wandering around and drinking coffee, and it was nice that it was sunny, I stopped thinking of Darlington just as somewhere where things have ended badly, but started to think of it as a place where good things start too.

All the jobs I've had in Darlington, even though they went wrong in the end they were good at first, and they all lifted me up out of the stupor that I was in at the time, and I shouldn't concentrate on just the ending, because I met some great people along the way who I'll always remember.  It would be a mistake to focus only on the shitcanning and the getting fired into space and destroyed part, because the canning was just the bit at the end, and everything ends eventually anyway.

I also reflected that Darlington has been the starting point for lots of my best holidays.  Time spent sitting nervously on the platform drinking Costa coffee, with cycling trousers on that made it look like I'd got two melted lolly sticks for legs, had often been the jumping off point for some of my greatest  adventures.  Darlington was also the place I was relieved to end up at, after I nearly died in an episode of Air Crash Investigation when the flight from India I was on didn't run out of fuel over Glasgow, even though I thought it had, because I was deaf.

So this was what I was thinking, in that hour between having my head flushed down the toilet and going out for a meal, I was thinking about all the ends and all the beginnings that have happened in and around Darlington, and how everything ends eventually anyway, but that the end isn't the whole story.  And I was thinking also, that life is a lot like the movies, because sometimes really good stories have rubbish endings, but after the titles have gone up, and you've seen who the dolly grip was, and the confusion of the ending that doesn't make any sense has passed, the adventure and the thrill of the story still remains.

And so emboldened by this new thinking about Darlington, I went to my leaving do, which was also a birthday meal, and also a general team meal out.  Times are hard financially these days, so any meals out I go on have to serve at least 3 purposes all at once.

I was the last to arrive at Alfornos, and I discovered we were sat on the same big long table as last time, but this time there were more people, so it wasn't quite big enough.  I managed to force my way in somewhere, although this resulted in not enough room for everyone's elbows, so Kirsty had to eat her dinner whilst sat in the Argos over the road.  The fact she couldn't reach the table seemed to affect how much she gave as a tip.  I could reach fine, so I gave a pound and five pence.

This time I sat next to Jack and Natalie, which I haven't done before, as usually they're at the opposite end of the table.  I've been sending them links to my blogs on Twitter, so they have heard most of my interesting stories already, and this made me worry that in person and in real life I might not be interesting enough, because usually in the blogs I just leave the best bits in, whereas in real life, and in real time, all the boring bits are left in too.

There was quite a spectrum of drinks on show at the meal.  My end of the table, including me, were mostly on the pink cider, but the far end of the table seemed to be heading full speed ahead on an out of control train to down a cul de sac of Guinness towards oblivion.  The bar staff at Alfornos couldn't pull the stuff fast enough.  Phil and Nathan had entered into some sort of dark matter drinking competition, during which Nathan may or may not have been sick.

Once I'd got myself wedged into place, the birthday presents came out.  This was the moment I'd been waiting all these months for, when I'd been putting money into other people's collections.  I reflected that it was a lot nicer getting presents in Alforno's, than out of a cardboard box next to the scanners.

I got quite a few different presents, and I did my best to hold people's attention, while I opened them.  But that's a lot harder to do than it used to be in the 70s.  These days you're battling against people looking under the table at the their Twitter feeds and watching people falling over on Youtube.  This is smart phone hell.  I tried waving my arms a bit, and showing stuff around, to try and keep people's attention, but these days it's a tough crowd out there.  I think at least some people were interested.

The presents I got all seemed largely appropriate.  I got a DVD of the Hurt Locker (at work I don't have a locker), and a DVD of the Green Zone, (I think if I survive my training I'm going to work in the Green Zone).  I got a Parker pen (I used to watch Thunderbirds) and an old man's tie (old men need ties, it makes them look like they know what they're doing), and I also got a cinema voucher to add to the pile of cinema vouchers I've already got for winning team of the month.

I tried the tie on, even though it didn't go with my shirt, and I kept it on for a while, which resulted in me having a hot neck, and feeling like my head might overheat again.  How the hell does Kevin T wear a shirt and tie for work, sometimes with a jumper over the top?  My head was nearly on fire after wearing just a tie for 10 minutes.  I took the tie off after a while and put my head in a bucket of ice, but then I put it back on for the photos (the tie, not the bucket).

Unlike last time at the same venue, I didn't have to wait hours for my pizza and they didn't need to keep flinging Italians out of the kitchen to apologise to me, which was good, but not as funny.

Also, the restaurant staff were nice enough to let us bring a Morrison's birthday cake in, instead of opting for any of their £4 desserts, and they even mouthed the words to Happy Birthday when people were singing it to me, although they dipped out at the part where my name went, because they don't know who I am.  And the cake even had candles on, which I got to blow out, and I can't remember the last time I did that.  And when I was blowing them out I felt like I was 8 again, and people said that's how I looked.  And some people took photos of me looking 8, although I haven't seen them yet, to see if it's true.

While the cake was still on fire, and even though I thought it might set fire to my face, everyone said I needed to make a wish but I couldn't think of anything, except that I was having a nice time being alive, so all I could think of was I hope I don't die soon.  I wasn't too specific with the age I didn't want to die before, just not too soon.  It's not the world's most positive wish, but it's much better than 'I wish I was dead', which I of course don't.

And as I drove home after the meal, I realised that Darlington isn't really the Death Star after all.  If you spend enough time anywhere, bad stuff will happen to you, because it happens everywhere.  I should try and keep things in perspective, and when I think about all the bad stuff that's happened to me in Darlington, I should also remember all the people I've met there who have made my life so much better than it would have been without them.  And while it's not possible always to forget the sadness of things ending, I should also make sure to remember that feeling of hopefulness and optimism that comes from new beginnings too.  Because it was that feeling that brought me to Darlington in the first place.

And so off I go into my latest Death Star / Darlington adventure.  I hope that this time I don't end up getting flushed away with the rest of the space junk, at least not for a while.  And even if I do, I hope I have a nice time first.