Dumb and Dumber meets Robocop - Further tales from Summer Camp

If tension headaches are caused by unresolved tensions on the inside, I think the headache I had between Saturday and Tuesday of last week was evidence of tension on a cosmic scale about going back for a third week of summer camp.  On reflection it would appear that my body and mind had ganged up on me and decided that I wasn't supposed to be there.  I'd already done a really intense but largely successful 12 days at 2 different camps, and unlike when I went the first time and it was all new, this time I felt I had nothing left to prove.  Even after a week of resting and doing very little at home, I wasn't feeling at all rested.  Certainly neither body or mind seemed to have recovered...

Is this the way to Summer Camp?

After last Saturday's parkrun, when I ran round in 26 minutes, I could hardly see or stand because of the tension build-up but yet this wasn't warning sign enough to stop me getting on the train to Edale on Saturday afternoon.  It must have been the desire to see my friends amongst the other team leaders again which got me on the train because every logical thing in me both physically and mentally was asking me to stay home.

Then I spent most of Saturday evening after arriving back in Edale hiding under a tent during a game of sardines with the other team leaders, and despite the headache I got quite comfortable there, and at that point I might have settled for staying there for the entire week.

Sunday morning I spent about two hours in a room with the other team leaders thinking up a song to introduce the camp rules.  The song was good but I felt like a fruit loop just being there.

Sunday afternoon I found out I was doing the Future Leaders group again.  Because I'm old, it's a logical thing to ask me to look after 17-19 year olds, rather than asking a 20 year old to do it.  I was still feeling pretty crappy so finding out this group was going to be potentially the most challenging of the week didn't go much to banish the tension I was feeling.

Sometimes after 2 weeks at camp what you really need is a full rebuild....

Future Leaders is to some extent a misnomer.  Despite the fact that some very able and intelligent young people go on this camp, people with aspirations to be doctors and airline pilots, there are also quite a few people who go on it either because their parents have fired them out of the house for a week to get some peace or because they've always come to camp when they were younger and now this is the only camp they're still allowed to come on.  Some of this latter group have some serious issues.  Either because of learning difficulties or because of medical conditions.  Conditions which I don't understand.

It's a challenge as a leader to make a unified group out of people so diverse in abilities that at the one end they can learn the complexities of the human body well enough to become doctors but at the other end they can't understand that if you don't eat you will fall over, or if you go out in the rain with no coat on you will turn blue, or even how to understand the correct way to put on wellies and trousers.

My first attempt at future leaders two weeks ago I bonded with most of the group very quickly, on the Sunday night, when they dressed me up as a woman, a woman named Queen Candy, I felt we were already most of the way there to understanding one another.  Although one member of that group was hard going at first, I always felt that he understood what I was saying, even if chose to do the opposite most of the time.  But we had an uneasy truce which passed for understanding.  And despite the difficulties I always felt there was respect on both sides.

Do you want a balloon?  Go on I dare you to try and take one....

With my new group it wasn't so easy.  Although I managed to get them to dress me as a scary looking clown for the Candy Wars of the first night, it didn't run as naturally as on my first week.  In fact, things that I was saying and doing naturally and un-self-consciously the first time around, it was like pulling teeth on Week Two.  The group were naturally more reticent, and although the group as a whole were lovely, one or two were taking me into territory I've never visited before.  At the very least they were taking me into some strange border country between sanity and la-la land.

10 minutes of ADHD training on the training weekend doesn't really equip you for dealing with a full-on case of ADHD.  One guy wasn't so much hyperactive as HYPERACTIVE!!!!  And I wasn't sure if the deficit in attention was in his own inability to pay attention or a deficit in how much attention was being paid to him.

Here's an idea.  Why don't you eat something, then get into bed and close your eyes.  It calms me down  every time....

After the game of Candy Wars, during which I must have looked so scary small children wouldn't approach me, me and the 3 other leaders and the 22 future leaders went up the 94 steps to Kinder Cottage and for reasons I still don't understand, entered into what turned into a 5 hour long game of catch with a juggling ball.  The 11 pm noise curfew came and went and despite my best efforts to keep the group quiet, the ADHDers in particular weren't showing any signs of running out of hyperactivity juice.  Two in particular pretty much hijacked the game and it became more of a juggling ball duelling missile-a-thon between them to see who could throw the ball the hardest.  I spent quite a bit of time during this game pondering a future scenario in which I was going to have to explain to the camp manager Rachel why one of my juggling balls had gone through one of the cottage windows.  Thankfully hyperactive kids seem to be quite good at catching missiles so that never happened, although some of the non hyperactive ones seemed to want to jam the ball into the most hyperactive guy's throat.  On reflection, me going to bed at midnight and leaving them to it, might have been a mistake, as the game continued on till about 3 am.  Full violence never broke out, but as I discovered later there was a definite undercurrent.

Unsurprisingly on Monday morning I still had the headache, and if there's any combination of activities which are guaranteed not to improve a headache, it's first of all climbing up a wet wooden pole and jumping off, then getting stranded up the high ropes for the second time in two attempts and having to be rescued by an instructor and then crawling through some holes on top of a windswept moor weaseling-style.  By Monday evening I was a wreck.  The only guy worse off than me was the ADHD guy who wouldn't eat or wear a waterproof, who was by this time blue and in a silent coma.  Despite several attempts to explain the laws of cause and effect to him, he hadn't grasped that no food and not wearing a coat in the pissing down rain can have these consequences.

I can hear myself talking, but I'm not sure the message is getting through......

At the staff meeting on Monday night I was ordered to take some time off on Tuesday, and try and get myself well.  Otherwise I may as well go home.  You would think this knowledge of not having to go canoeing would have helped me relax but when I woke up on Tuesday morning my head felt like it had been in a vice all night.  Never one to miss free food though, I managed to drag myself down the 94 steps to breakfast.  I went back to bed after that.  It wasn't the most relaxing morning though, as I lay in bed groaning.  12 people coming in and out getting ready for an expedition, and 20 excited kids outside doing archery, and the cleaners trying to clean the building.  Something had to change.

I decided sleeping wasn't working, so the thing to do was to go for a walk.  And this was when my week started to turn around.  I was too unwell on Tuesday afternoon to go abseiling with my group.  I still was feeling like something the cat dragged in, but if there are any advantages to feeling like a weak and wobbly mess when you're supposed to be looking after a group of teenagers, it's in knowing that the people around you are fully supporting you.  Despite feeling like a giant useless jelly of never-should-have-come-back-to-campness, no-one treated me like this at any point.  The other 3 Future Leaders Scott, Vicky and Toni picked up the slack in the group without complaint and I also found I suddenly had a group of people hugging me and encouraging me every time I saw them (the Hugging Group was mostly Rachel A, Toni, Emily and Ursula, but others such as Chris gave me high-fives).  If ever you feel like a waste of space mess who shouldn't be somewhere, being around people who love you is definitely the antidote.

For Tuesday afternoon's walk with Emily I decided to walk to the village of Hope, and I hoped it was a metaphor for my week.  I wanted to go there in order to nurture the hope that there was hope, the hope that all my good work in my first 12 days of camp wasn't being undone, by the physical and mental blancmange I'd turned into.  And that was when the sun came out, and Emily was so lovely to be around, and I started to feel like I was on holiday and not in summer camp anymore, and I went to the shop in Hope and stocked up on chocolate and energy drinks, and then we found the most amazing play park, with climbing frames and swings in the shape of exercise equipment and one of them which was my favourite was like having Robocop's legs, and as I stayed swinging there for about 15 minutes, I started to feel like someone had pressed the reset button, and I laughed and I relaxed, and I started to feel well again, and to know that I was still me, and even if I needed people to remind me to be myself, it wasn't going to be a disaster after all.

Sometimes when things aren't working too well, you need a little extra help...

And we got a lift back to camp, and everything started to look different.  My group seemed happy to see me, and in the evening we went bracken bashing, which was mostly sitting around laughing and using bracken bashing as a euphemism for some awkward night-time activities which had been going on in the boys' dorm on night one.  And I almost felt like myself again.

And Wednesday all day was my team's expedition, and I realised I would be able to go on it after all, and the sun stayed out, and we walked all day, and it wasn't like the first expedition I'd been on two weeks before where my feet got shredded in borrowed boots because this time I'd brought my own, and where I thought the instructor was trying to kill us by taking us down a waterfall.  The views this day were beautiful, and the conversation was easy, and I realised that because I'd been ill and focused on the negatives for the early part of the week, I'd failed to notice what a great group of young people I was with, and for the second day in a row I felt like I was on holiday.  And when we got to the campsite, the cooking by Trangia was well organised, and after having a day off, I had energy spare to help clear up the dirty dishes, and then the ADHD kid who didn't understand cause and effect had to be sent back to camp HQ because he wouldn't eat or wear warm clothes, and so he was in a silent coma again, and despite the many attempts to advise him throughout the day that this is exactly what happens when you go walking without food or warm clothes, he still seemed surprised.  And in the early headachey days of Sunday and Monday when I might have thought that this was my fault for not being able to explain things to him, I realised that sometimes you may as well just stick your head in bucket of cold porridge as talk to some people, because they simply refuse to listen.

And even the ones that listen, and I mean listen in the sense of hearing the words you are saying, can't understand what the words you are saying actually mean.  And this is not your fault.  If you try to talk to people with respect and compassion and gentleness, but when you look deep into their eyes and realise that there is no-one at the driver's seat, it's not your fault.

Hey Jim...if you're back here, who's driving the car?

If you have someone for example, who cannot understand simple instructions or how to do simple things in the right order, it may not be your fault.  If someone is given a bin bag for his clothes, and a sleeping bag liner for his body, but chooses to sleep in the bin liner, or if he's given a bag to put his tent in and a bag to put his sleeping bag in, but he chooses to put the sleeping bag back in the tent bag, or if he's told to put wellies on before he puts his giant overtrousers on, but does this in the wrong order, maybe there is something slightly wrong with his comprehension skills, rather than your explanation skills.  Not definitely, but maybe.

The evening of Wednesday, after the blue silent guy was taken back to camp, we played Head-Torch Frisbee.  Just to be clear, this is not played by throwing a head torch to each other as if it were a frisbee, this is a game of frisbee played in the dark, whilst all wearing head torches.  One of the advantages of bringing a medical student with you, as we did, is that she hit upon the innovation to the game of pointing the head torches downwards to illuminate your own face rather than pointing them outwards so as to blind both the throwers and the catchers.  Largely due to this in-game improvement we advanced our sequence of consecutive catches from a dismal 1 in a row for the first 10 minutes to an epic sequence of 28 catches in a row, before we had to go to bed at 10 pm.  For reasons I don't fully understand, this was one of the proudest moments of my week.  In fact, for someone who is often bewildered by the complexity of some games played at camp, the fact that we derived so much enjoyment throughout the week from simple in the moment catching games was yet another reminder to me this summer of how the best things in life remind me of the simplicity of being a child, when just having a bike or a ball is enough, and nothing further is required.

Thursday morning we headed back to camp, and in the afternoon we went caving.  I enjoyed it a lot more this time than when I'd been on it two weeks before, and one of my favourite parts was the part where we sat quietly in the dark, in complete pitch darkness, with no light whatsoever.  As someone who used to be scared of the dark, it's nice to sit in the blackness and not be afraid.  By this point, I was feeling completely comfortable with everyone who I was sat in the dark there with, and glad to have had the chance to get to know them all.  Once again, the blue guy was still back at camp.

On Friday I went home, and I guess what I was left to reflect on from my 3 weeks of camp is whether this is the right kind of work for me.  And I still don't know.  I'm no more comfortable being a children's TV presenter / Butlins redcoat type than I was a month ago.  I still don't like singing and dancing all that much, although I'm a lot more comfortable than I was in women's clothing and make-up.  But I do love being with young people, at least I loved being with the young people I met this month.  I loved talking to them and getting to know them, and trying to find out what makes them tick.  And I'm not just talking about the campers.  I also loved the other leaders.

Here are some of the people I loved spending my summer with.....who carried me through when things were going wrong

Possibly I grew to love them even more in Week 3 because when I needed them the most, they carried me through.  When I felt useless and out of sorts and not myself and incapable of giving much to them, they took over and they loved me instead.  At least it felt like love.  And maybe that's why I needed to come back again for another week.

I don't believe that success and failure, victory and defeat, or strength and weakness exist in isolation from one another.  All of them are mixed up together.  And sometimes when we get too much of one we don't realise how close we are to the other.  Because it was a week of extremes I was reminded of the phrase from the Bible 'When I am weak then I am strong'.  And the mental and physical collapse of Sunday and Monday made the comeback of Tuesday to Thursday all the more meaningful to me.  I suppose I should be grateful the good parts came last, rather than the other way round.

Maybe I had too much success, too much strength in my first two weeks, and I had an inflated sense of myself as a result.  Because in the first two weeks, despite my initial reticence, I felt pretty strong and self-confident.  There might have even been moments when I was too full of myself.  Too ready to talk and to tell my stories and to try and be funny all the time.  If this last week taught me anything, it's to tread carefully.  To pay more attention.

Week 3 was certainly the most humbling of the three.  The challenging behaviours I encountered at time left me completely non-plussed and clueless.  Not being listened to or if I was listened to, not being understood, reminded me that I'll never get through to everyone, that not everyone will respond to me in the way I intend, that despite the gifts I think I have, I may never find common ground with some people.

But the ones I did get through to, the ones I did make a difference with, the ones I really got to know, who made me laugh or who I made laugh, who I spent time in a cave with, or up a rope, who I played endless games of catch with, who I played Grab a Granny, or Princes and Princesses with, who I walked 40 minutes each way to the watersports centre with, or who I just spent endless hours talking crap with, they're the ones I remember and they're the ones who made my life better than it was before.

And even though I didn't know it before I went, they were the reasons I went to camp.

   

Things I learned at summer camp - further tales from outside the comfort zone

For the last two weeks I've been away at summer camp, being a Volunteer Team Leader on two separate YHA camps.  The first was a watersports week at Lee Valley near London, and the second was an outward bound action adventure type thing at Edale in the Peak District.  I did loads of different stuff over the two weeks, windsurfing, sailing, kayaking, canoeing, paddle boarding, raft building, abseiling, high rope walking, caving etc.  I even did something called weaseling, and I also went on an expedition where I virtually had to climb down the slippery sides of a waterfall.  This was pretty much the only activity I did where I didn't have to wear a helmet, although it seemed like the one where it was most needed.  By the time I finished the two weeks I had no more space for bruises, so I was starting to get bruises on bruises, and my feet were uniquely blistered on all four sides, which is something I've never achieved before.  It didn't help that I left my walking boots in my mum's car before I left, and also that I didn't have wet shoes for the water activities.

Lodge 3 at Lee Valley - My home between 3 - 9 August 2014

Pretty much all these activities required balance, and the careful shifting of my body weight, and I didn't find that easy.  I've never been any good at skateboarding or riding non-hander on a bike, so just the actual art of not falling over was hard work.  But it wasn't just physical balance I was striving for, I was also looking to gain some balance in my mind and in my heart.  To become more resilient and less likely to be tipped over by the unexpected.

Dancing - an activity requiring skills I don't have

I spent the entire fortnight wearing a green T-shirt with the title 'Volunteer Team Leader' on the front and over the course of the two weeks I had lots of cause to reflect on what those 3 words meant.  The first two were easy.  I was doing it for free (3 meals a day and a bed were provided so it wasn't without its perks), and I was part of a team.  I love being in teams, particularly ones that work.  From football and rugby when I was younger to teams of cyclists or teams at work, I love working together with others to achieve a common goal.  So the first two parts were easy.  The bit I really struggled with was the Leader part, and it was the third side of the triangle that I spent the last two weeks trying to figure out.  When I think of what it is to be a leader, I often think of somebody standing at the front of a room talking, or else somebody being at the front of a group with other people following behind.  At the very least I think of it as being a good role model, or setting a good example.

Anyway, here are some things I found out during the two weeks, which may shed some light on what it means to be a leader:

1) Leadership isn't just about wearing a green T-shirt with leader on.  Leaders can be anywhere, and any age.  Sometimes the leaders need to be led too.  If you're trying to do activities with people who are younger, fitter, more flexible and more capable than yourself, it's probably best to follow them instead of expecting them to follow you.

2) There's no lower age limit to leadership.  A 10 year old French girl who spoke very little English was my inspiration on week one, and she taught me more about courage and leadership than anyone else I met on the trip.  I started off week one insecure and full of doubts about my own abilities, but when I met her, tiny and young and alone in a foreign country, trying to get by using her limited knowledge of a foreign language, I knew I could do it too.  In this way, she was the best role model I found.

When I was blinded with lake water from trying to fill a cup stuck to the top of my head, she was the one who came to take my hand and help me out of the water, and she was always asking me if I was okay.  Sometimes when she was tired, I carried her, but mostly it was her that carried me.  On the last day she sang me the Aristocats song 'Everybody wants to be a cat' in French, and even though I could barely converse with her in either English or French, having to say goodbye to her was the worst part of the whole two weeks.

3) Sometimes it's just as important to lead from the back, as it is from the front.  We had a 40 minute walk each way to the watersports centre each day on week one, and on the walk I tended to hang around near the back with the 10 year old girls, helping them carry their bags and encouraging them, and making sure they were okay.  The faster, stronger, older kids don't need this help, because they can take care of themselves.

4) If you're scared of something, do it with someone who's even more scared than you are, and spend the whole experience trying to keep them calm and relaxed.  It will rub off on you.  This happened to me during the caving, when I spent the whole trip trying to keep another team member calm.  Despite being in an environment that was very scary for me, I felt moments of real peace and calm while I was down there under the ground.

5) If you're scared of heights, distract yourself.  Look into the face of the instructor who's talking to you, or look at the abseiling rope, look at anything but the thing you're scared of.

6) Just because it's dark, it doesn't mean you can't play frisbee.  It's good to sharpen your reflexes sometimes by playing it on a campsite in the dark, where you only have a split second to avoid getting hit in the face.

7) Just because you're on an activity holiday, it doesn't mean every second needs to be packed with activity.  Sometimes everyone needs downtime.  If people are happy sitting and chatting, no real need to go all children's TV presenter / Butlins redcoat on them, and get them to play games.

8) If you do play games, sometimes it's best to keep them simple, with minimal explanation, rules etc, but with the maximum level of participation, running around, everyone involved.  My favourites were 'Grab a granny' 'princes and princesses', 'the numbers game', or just simply kicking a football or chucking a frisbee.  I'm sure some people are very good at complex games involving lots of props and equipment and rules and explanations, but I'm not.

9) Sometimes bad news can be good news.  Having to drive someone to A&E on the last night of camp when you're very tired and not getting back till 2.30 am may seem like a bad thing, but it was very quiet in A&E and I got to have some peace and quiet whereas the noise levels in the cottage would have been a lot more, and so it was probably a blessing in disguise to drive to Stockport and have a sit down in the quiet.

10) It's never too late to get a second chance.  Listening to AC/DC in a minibus full of 17 year olds transported me back in time to 1983 when I was also listening to AC/DC in a minibus on a rugby tour to London.  Like the Coast to Coast bike ride in June where I managed to exist outside of space and time, it was the sort of out of body experience that reminded me that age is just a number and at times it's a complete irrelevance.

11)  It's a lot easier to make a fool of yourself, if it's all someone else's idea.  For example, dressing up as a woman in full make-up and trying to do a catwalk style walk is a lot easier if you abandon all notions of free will.  I would never choose to walk into a room full of 140 people and draw attention to myself in this way, but there's something liberating about doing it when it's all someone else's idea.  My team dressed me up like this on the first and last nights at Edale, and because it was all their idea, I felt pretty relaxed about the whole thing.

12) Never be afraid to join in.  It's a lot easier to get to know a group by doing things alongside them, than it is from watching from the side.  There are things that happen in canoes, and in caves, and up ropes, and in fields and up mountains that you can't spot from a distance.  But if you're there with them, sharing the same space, everything is apparent.  

13) Try to turn negatives into positives.  Being given random inanimate objects by colleagues became an inspiration rather than a burden.  The tray I was forced to carry for a lot of the week became an umbrella, a seat, a dance partner, as well as a symbol of unity for my group.

14) If it's possible to become attached to inanimate objects just by association, how much more attached can we become to the people they remind us of?  Maybe it was because I knew I wasn't allowed to form any permanent attachments to any of my team that I found it hard to let go of the plastic lunch tray I'd carried for 46 hours, including up a mountain.    

15) Sometimes it's okay to go through the bins.  If you're living in a cottage with no drinking receptacles whatsoever that's up 94 steep steps away from the main youth hostel, and you've got a dry mouth syndrome, and you've just had a pee which suggests that you're dehydrated, and the kitchen's locked and the tuck shop isn't open, and you really need something to drink out of, it's okay to raid the bins for an empty water bottle.  Also, it's okay to salvage the occasional bag of crisps out of the bin too.

16) Just because you don't initially appear to have anything in common with some people, doesn't mean that you can't become close to them, and grow to love them.  Some 17 year old girls from the Wirral and Warrington who wanted to dress me up as a woman, a 10 year old girl from France with very little shared language, a 21 year old biker / battlefield re-enacter from Kent.  Despite having completely different lifestyles and experiences, we could still become very important to each other very quickly.

17) Just because you can't keep something permanently, and you have to let go of it one day, doesn't mean you shouldn't give it everything while it lasts.  I take it as a sign of me getting better as a person, that even knowing as I did that I will most likely never see any of my two groups again didn't stop me giving them everything I could while I was with them.  At one time, in fact probably a year ago, when I was being dominated by feelings of loss and sadness, I would have doubted the point of putting so much effort into something that was only going to last a week, but these two weeks helped me to rediscover the power of the present.

The past and the future are always beyond reach, and we can never really hold onto anything for long, but we can have fun along the way.  The past is gone and the future will take care of itself, but putting effort into relationships in the here and now, having shared experiences, and moments of togetherness and shared laughter is never a waste, even if it's temporary.

I guess these two weeks reminded me that things don't need to last in order to be worthwhile.  The present is its own reward, even if it is constantly disappearing.  That's probably why it's called the present.

18) When things are going well, we should be sure to notice it.  The day before I left for this two weeks of learning to be a leader, I received the news that a friend of mine called Alan had died on a bike ride.  I didn't know him well, but he was someone who, every time I met him, made my life better just by being in it.  He was always full of fun and laughter, and full of good advice and support.  I thought of him often during this past crazy two weeks, and although at times I felt sad, his passing was also a reminder to me that life is short and fragile and we should remember to treasure the happy moments we are lucky enough to find along the various paths we take.  And also that as long as we're alive, whatever regrets we may have, and whatever dead ends we have inadvertedly taken, it's never too late to start again.

I've been alive a really long time, and too many times in life, I've become bogged down in sadness, loss and negativity.  I haven't always made the most of the time I've been given.  In these recent months, with all these trips I've been taking out of my comfort zone, I've been trying to find the best of myself again, the essence of what makes me a worthwhile human being.

The process is ongoing, and it never ends, and after two weeks of random craziness, I'm not sure I'm any nearer to the answers than I was at the beginning.  But I met so many people along the way who made me want to be a better person, a better leader, a better friend, a better son.  Just better all round.

So I guess it was worth going for that reason alone.

Tales from outside the comfort zone - The Trilogy

Recently, I've been trying to re-invent myself, or at least recycle myself.  I've been trying to become Me +, Me 2.0.  A different way of saying that, is that I've been trying to avoid being a cynical, miserable, middle-aged pain in the ass.  At the very least, I've been trying to find my smile (see City Slickers, Billy Crystal, mid-life crisis, cattle drive etc).  I thought a good way to achieve this might be to practise leaving my comfort zone.

Sometimes it's good to break out of your comfort zone

A drawback of being in my comfort zone is that I can lapse into lazy ways of thinking, navel gazing, and generally moany and whiney behaviour.  I can get bogged down in negativity, mired in cynicism, stuck in a rut etc.  It's much easier to do this when things become routine, and trying new things isn't part of your regular pattern.  Historically, I've often been too afraid to try new stuff, and even when I have on occasion stretched myself by doing new things, like youth work, or going to India, or learning German, I've sometimes lacked the confidence to build on my new found experiences, so recently I thought it might be good to get myself out there and join in a bit more, and also it might help me make up for lost time.

As a result, amongst new things I've taken up lately are mountain biking, eating satsumas and pretending to be a penguin.  The eating satsumas thing isn't really a big deal, but I first took up eating them on the Coast to Coast to combat a dry throat from all the dust, and it has continued into the weekend just gone.  When I was a child I mostly only used fruit as something to throw at my brother, so it's good to use it for its proper intended use finally.

I suppose I could have taken up doing these new things with friends, but a lot of them are busy doing adult things, like working, bringing up children, mowing their lawns, getting their soffit boards painted (whatever the hell they are), generally caring about the fabric of their homes etc, all things I'm very bad at, and they're not always free to play out.  Also, I moved to Leeds recently, so as well as being busy, a lot of my friends are now also far away.  Not in the global sense, but a bit too far to pop round for coffee etc.

It's been a lot easier to commit to doing new stuff recently, because a lot of the old things I used to rely on to fill my time, like having a job, a wife, a home etc have fallen by the wayside, partly due to circumstance, and partly due to me managing to turn my life into a giant dog's breakfast.

Excuse me, is this the future?

So, anyway, to keep myself busy, and to get me out of the aforementioned comfort zone, I signed up to do 3 main activities this summer:

1) a Coast to Coast off-road bike ride with 56 strangers in June.
2) becoming a volunteer YHA summer camp leader (the camps are in August, and this weekend just gone was the training course, this time with around 74 strangers).
3) a Land's End to John o'Groats bike ride in September with 18 strangers.

As you can see, a common theme with all these activities is that they all involve boatloads of people I've never met before.  One of the good things about people I don't know, is that there are a lot of them around.  In fact, they're everywhere, whereas the circle of people I know is quite small.  One big advantage I've found that strangers have over the people I know is that they are: a) available.  Also, it's meant to be statistically safer to hang out with strangers, as most people who get done in, get done in by someone who knows them.  So, for me, it's strangers all the way!

The pattern on that carpet is literally mesmerising - It's like a kaleidoscope of Doom!

I wasn't always this willing to hang out with strangers.  I grew up in a time of hideous carpets and mustard coloured knitted cardigans and bad hair, otherwise known as the 1970s.  It was a time when the home phone was a giant beige thing with a dial on which you weren't allowed to use, because why didn't you just go down the road and call for people?  A time when televisions were made of wood, and couldn't be stolen because they weighed as much as a house, when a stereo was a sideboard and music was on massive vinyl discs that were so big they were almost too big to bring home on the bus after you'd bought them, a time when the internet was going to the library to read the Encyclopedia Britannica on an evening, a time when there was no point having plugs in your bedroom, because what would you ever need to plug in?

One of the ironies about the 70s, looking back now, is that there were lots of public information films on TV, advising us not to go off with people we didn't know (mostly we were told there would be clues to them being dodgy in that they would want to show us puppies, or buy us sweets).  In those days, although strangers weren't to be trusted, TV presenters were.  How times have changed!  In those days a lot of my good male role models were TV presenters.  What we never told at the time was how it was probably safer to hang out with strangers than it was to hang around with 70s TV presenters and DJs.  That wasn't in any of the public service broadcasts.

So it's taken some time for me to feel safe around strangers, but as long as you're careful, there's no reason why meeting people you don't know should be any more dangerous than meeting people you do, except for if you meet them in a disco when they're drunk (are they still called discos, probably not?).

Strangers - Like Friends, except you don't have to remember their birthdays...

Anyway, I've already done Part One of my Stranger Trilogy - the Coast to Coast, which I wrote about here.  In terms of encouraging me to be positive, and aspiring to be better, it couldn't have gone much better.  It was full of positive people, good role models etc, and was genuinely inspiring.  I even got to meet the famous popstar / singer Alistair Griffin who put me in one of his music videos and in time I will become an international superstar on Youtube, just by association (this has not happened yet).

The good news about Parts Two and Three of my master-plan is that they are going to take up most of August and September, which means I don't have to sort my life out until at least October....

Part Two is the youth worker thing, and I went on the training camp for that this weekend.  Unlike the Coast to Coast, there wasn't much of a variety of ages, in that they were all the same age (except me).  And the age they all were was about half my age, or less.  It turns out a lot of people with time on their hands this summer are young people, and although I have some stuff in common with them, like having two arms and two legs, it takes a bit of adapting to.  Luckily, I made an early start, like about 2 years ago.

My tendency to start hanging out with young people started at SLC, almost 2 years ago exactly, when I was inducted into Batching and Scanning Team, with a gang of people half my age, ie Joss, Lucy, Gibbo, Rob, Vicky, Pete etc.  They may have wanted to spend a lot of time getting wasted on coloured drinks, but at least they had some energy about them.  I found that as long as I didn't have to go to Avalon with them, I was fine.

I've just remembered... I need to go home and wash my socks

I've found, after having lots of different jobs, some where I was the oldest person around, and some where I was nearly the youngest, that the latter is so much worse.  If there's a group that's worse to work with than people who go out till 4 in the morning, and then come into work at 8 looking like the Incredible Hulk (Joss), it's people who've been doing the same job for about a hundred years, and who are now coasting into retirement, or perhaps even sliding into the grave.  Their children and their pension plans are a disappointment, the council want to put a bus stop next to their house, kids keep knocking footballs into their gardens, they've found a lump, they need a scan etc.

Joss - if you look in the mirror and you're this green, you should probably stay home...

I myself have had an alarming number of scans in recent years, along with internal examinations I'm not going to tell you about involving latex gloves going into places the sun doesn't shine, and cameras going into places you would think cameras really wouldn't fit into, but even if this is just inevitable side effect of being middle aged, like nose hair, I really don't want to hear about it at work over my morning coffee.

Retired people are even worse.  If you ever go out for a pub lunch, never go when the Pensioners' Special is on.  All you'll hear are disastrous anecdotes about angina, going down the big white tunnel towards the light before being called back, or at the very least a trip to A&E.  Or how they can't eat cheese anymore, even though they love it, and how they really shouldn't eat broccoli because it plays havoc with their irritable bowel.  Give me young people anytime!  Ones with bodies that just work!

What did I miss?

At times these days I already feel like I'm in a Time Travel movie.  Moving back to Leeds after 20 years away, I already feel like I'm in Back to the Future Part Two.  There's so many big new buildings, the former Odeon is now a Primark, my old school has now moved, the old school buildings are part of Leeds Uni, the rugby pitch I used to play on now has a cycle path through the middle of it.

Then this weekend, spending time with all those young people, training to be a youth worker, I felt like Sylvester Stallone in Demolition Man, like I was a fossil they'd defrosted to help with some unruly kids from the future.  Sitting around listening to people talk about taking their driving tests, knowing that they were all born after I passed mine, I felt like I'd just fallen out of cryogenic storage.

Although, to be fair to them, they must have felt like they'd been simultaneously projected into the past.  Because we were right in the middle of the Peak District, there was no mobile signal, which made it a lot easier to actually have a conversation.  Something I find difficult with young people these days, in fact people in general, is getting their undivided attention, what with them scrolling through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and online betting websites, or looking at videos of cats doing funny things.  There was none of that last weekend.  We were back in the stone age, in a geographical basin.

When you actually get to talk to most young people, without the distraction of technology, they're actually quite nice.  And they're a lot like me.  We've all got our hopes and dreams for the future, it's just that they have more energy to pursue them, and less aches and pains.  I thought I might get some opportunity to talk to them about my life experience, but in then end, it was me who ended up trying to learn from them.  To rediscover something I thought I'd lost.  Possibly my youth.  I didn't expect to find good new role models amongst the young, but I did anyway.

In that mobile signal desert last weekend, with no internet, running around, playing games, it was like being a child again.  And in many ways that was how I felt on the Coast to Coast.  I felt timeless and ageless, outside the confines and the circumstances of my normal life.  Spending time blindfold pretending to be a sheep, standing around being a statue, literally jumping through hoops, trying to put on clothes that don't fit, playing Monkey football, doing the Penguin dance, trying to put a magic stick on the ground, turning cone shaped things over and over without running directly into people, trying to walk across an imaginary ravine on milk crates that are supposed to be turtles, playing charades.

Here's me and my new volunteer friends - doing what Penguins do...

At one point, and for just a brief moment, when someone got a bottle out I thought.  'Holy shit, we're not playing spin the bottle, are we?  If we are I'm off!'  Thankfully it was a lot simpler game than that, involving blindfolded hand squeezing.

The people I played these games with last weekend, are the same age now as I was in the period 1986 to 1990.  After decades of living out different roles, and following various paths, here I am again, back at the same crossroads as I was then, with no job, no house, no wife, still wondering which way to go.

I suppose the difference is, I've been here before.  The good news is, I suppose, whatever has gone before, it's never too late to start again, to press the reset button, to restore the factory settings.  At least that's what I'm hoping for....

Two for the price of one - the other Tour visiting Yorkshire this weekend!

If you think cycling Coast to Coast is a big deal, you might be interested to know what two friends of mine Gill and Tony have been doing since the end of April.

It's a good thing the Tour de France was on - I didn't have to go far to meet you!

They've actually been cycling right around the coastline of Britain.  They started on the West Coast of England and so far they've been right around the edge of Scotland and back down the East Coast of England.  Here's a map showing their progress.  The black line round the top half of Britain is where they've cycled already.

Going to Harrogate - the long way round!

Thankfully because they had pre-arranged to come to Harrogate to see the Tour de France this weekend, they were passing quite near to Leeds, so I managed to catch up with them today and ride as far as York with them.  I last saw them in September in the Western Isles of Scotland, and since then Tony in particular has taken on rather a beardy and weather beaten look.  He says he's on his third nose since they left in April.

Last time I saw them on the ferry to Islay my head looked a lot fatter than it does now....

Gill and Tony also write a blog, and if you're at all interested in cycle touring, then it's definitely worth a look.  Here's a link to it.  It doesn't just tell the story of their journey so far and their reasons for doing it, it also has a lot of practical information in there about things such as deciding what to take on a cycle tour, what sort of bikes are required, and how to pack etc.

I find that my own ride reports about trips I go on have very little useful information in them, as they mostly seem to concentrate on who I met that day, and why they annoyed me.  In fact, I could probably rename my entire blog 'People I met on the road, and why they were annoying'.

I did interview Gill and Tony at length during our time together today, and I gave them every opportunity to have a moan about the downsides of cycle touring, but the only teeny tiny quibble I could get out of either of them was that it's sometimes difficult to keep thinking up new and original meals to cook when you've only got a one ring stove.  But that was it.

I think it shows how positive they are, that they don't seem to have found anything at all to moan about, and they seem to be genuinely having the time of their lives.  If it had been me, I'd have been whining before I even got out of Lancashire.

Anyway, it was great to see them and I wish them well for the rest of their journey....

Tour de Yorkshire - If this is what it is to be crazy, then sign me up!

For a long time when I heard the Tour de France was coming to Yorkshire, I thought 'So what? Cycling's such a rubbish sport to watch in person, why would I want to stand around for hours waiting for riders who'll be past me in a flash, what's the point of that?'

Hurry up and take that photo Gary!  The riders'll be here in 5 hours!

This view wasn't entirely based on ignorance.  Some of it was based on having been to see the Tour of Britain, where I was pretty bored on the whole.  As far as my phillistine brain was concerned, it was 45 minutes of standing around on the Quayside in Newcastle and then it was all over.  Much ado about nothing.

Closed roads - much safer to wander around on without looking behind you

It's not that I mind waiting around generally.  When I used to go to football I used to like to get there about 45 minutes early for kick-off, to feel the anticipation and to see the stadium fill up, to see the teams coming out etc.

With football, even if it's a bad game, you know you'll get your 90 minutes.  The downside being that it's 90 minutes of football, and it has probably cost you an arm and a leg to get in.  But getting to the scene of a bike race 5 hours early to see 20 seconds of action?  How nuts is that?  At least with a sport like Formula One if you miss them you know they'll be coming round again soon.

If you can't see over your fence, build some scaffolding!  Simples!

Well, if it is nuts, then after yesterday, I'm happy to be crazy.  The good news is I'm in good company, because everyone else in Yorkshire is just as crazy as me.

What I discovered yesterday was that it's not all about the 20 seconds.  There's so much more to it than that.

It's not every day you get to sit in the street for hours drinking red wine

My venue of choice for the day was Ripon in North Yorkshire, partly so that I could meet Stephen, Mark and Gary there.  Ripon is about halfway between where they live on Teesside and where I live in in Leeds.

I set off around 9 am to drive north to Ripon from Leeds (the riders weren't due through Ripon till after 4 pm), and it was during the drive up the A1, seeing hundreds of cars with bikes on the back, seeing the Team Cars heading for Leeds, it finally hit me.  This isn't just any old bike race, this is the actual Tour de France.

Like the Olympics or the World Cup, there's something about the Tour de France that makes it much more than just a sporting event.  It's impossible to define, but there's a magic to these events, that goes beyond running, riding a bike or kicking a ball.  There's a feelgood factor which draws people together in ways that you can't explain.  But usually, as with Steve Redgrave in 2000 and Mo Farah in 2012, my experience of these events doesn't go beyond sitting in a room jumping up and down and shouting at the telly.

So often Ripon is a place I'm rushing to get through on long bike rides on the way to somewhere else, I might pop into a shop for 5 minutes to buy a drink and something to eat, but I never really go there, in order to be in Ripon itself.  Spending time yesterday at places such as the Water Rat on the riverside and the Racecourse were added bonuses of being there for the cycling.  At one point I even had a pint of specially made beer called Black Sheep Velo.  The others kept telling me it had a fruity taste to it, but it just tasted like beer to me.

Excuse me barman, this fruit juice tastes a bit beery...

Of course Ripon looked at its best because of the great weather, and the collective good mood.  The closed roads helped too, as it freed the place up for cyclists of all shapes and sizes, on all different kinds of bikes.  From the heavily overweight, to young kids with their saddles at the wrong height, and people straining along on Aldi anvil specials, they all had one thing in common, and it was the same thing as the professionals.  They were all just people who ride bikes.  Like me.

The Tour de France - like a day at the races, except with less horses

The whole of Yorkshire seemed to out on the roads, and everyone seemed to be having a good time.  It was all smiles, even the people who were working or volunteering for the day, seemed happy and positive.  There seemed not even to be any frustration or impatience from the countless small children who were there, and even the many waiting dogs seemed happy enough.  Everyone was just waiting, and not complaining about the waiting.  In fact, no-one complained about anything.

Oh No, it's Watership Down 2 - The Revenge!

There was a bit of action a couple of hours prior to the riders coming through, cars with giant bunnies and Teddy bears and bags of Haribo on top started to come through.  McCain were there too, probably throwing oven chips.  And something you don't often see, the Police were so relaxed they were riding past high-fiving spectators.

Excuse me Officer, any chance of a fist pump?

There was no us and them, like there can be at football, where sometimes the relationship between crowd and police can be adversarial.  Yesterday, the Police seemed to be having as much fun as everyone else.  The French Police were managing the race, and the crowd was managing itself, practising Mexican waves and taking selfies.  The British Police seemed able to relax at a sporting event for once.

Check out the guy in the red - trying to be David Blaine...

Most of my experiences of actually seeing sport live are ones where you have to pay to get in, and you've got an assigned seat and you're kept at a distance from the action.  Certainly a lot further than at arm's length from the stars.

If we'd been any closer, we'd have got friction burns...

By the time the riders finally arrived, and within 20 seconds were gone again, they seemed almost superfluous to the carnival atmosphere, although of course they were the star attraction.  Just not a star attraction that you could see, because they were so fast.

When I ride, I'm a risk assessment on wheels.  Especially in a group, I usually ride as if I'm expecting that anything can and will happen, so to see 197 riders go past in a blur within 20 seconds, with such proximity to the crowds all around, you could only admire their riding technique and their fearlessness.

Slow down!  I'm trying to take a picture...

I usually put the brakes on going downhill just in case, even on completely empty roads.  If I can even see a sheep in a field, I've got my eye on him in case he makes a suicidal dash to throw himself under my wheels.  I've had nightmares about hitting a cow side on.

These Tour de France riders are contending not just with the physical demands of riding, but with the overwhelming sensory overload from all sides, and yet they get through it, day after day.

If I'd stayed at home and watched it on TV, I would have missed this...

The whole experience of yesterday had me reconsidering what it actually means to be a spectator.  According to the dictionary a Spectator is a person who watches at a show, game, or other event whereas a Participant is a person who takes part in something.

I used to think that being a spectator was just turning up and passively waiting to be entertained. But now I think that turning up to watch IS taking part.  

Papier mache bikes - very light but not too good in the wet..

The Tour de France blurs the edges between participants and spectators like no other sporting event I've ever been to.  Every rider, every bike, every village, every bit of bunting, every knitted yellow jersey, every polka dot coloured pub, every cheering child, or dozing dog, it all added something to the event that wouldn't be there without it.  I hadn't understood that before.

Sharow - home of the Marianas Trench - special bonus visit 

I watched the ITV4 coverage of the event last night and this is what Gary Imlach said at the end of the show, about the day.

Well, we've had 3 members of the royal family, one Prime Minister, assorted dames, knights, MBEs CBEs, and cycling legends here at the Tour today, but they've all had to take second billing to the great British public, who've turned in one of the great spectating performances in Tour History.

Well done Yorkshire. I'm proud to have been there.

Being called a liar and eating a Pork Pie by the Marianas Trench - Another 100 mile bike ride

So, anyway, since I got home from the Marie Curie bike ride 10 days ago, I've mostly been eating bacon sandwiches and Maltesers and watching the World Cup with my mum.  Apart from the Parkrun on Saturday, the only exercise I've had has been going backwards and forwards to the shop to top up on bacon and Maltesers, so yesterday I thought I should get my finger out and do some cycling.

Whoever's bike that is, I'm pretty confident I could beat them in a sprint finish

I don't know if you've ever worn lycra, but it isn't particularly comfortable.  Especially the shorts.  So if you're going to wear it at all, it might as well be for a worthwhile distance.  Also, I'm trying to improve my stamina on the bike for later in the year, and to do that I really need to be riding 60 miles plus at a time.  Otherwise it's just too easy.  So once again yesterday I thought I'd ride 100 miles.  It's a nice round number after all.

I could have gone even faster if I didn't have to stop for trains

After my last two attempts at 100 mile bike rides, I decided to a) set off early b) go on a road bike c) try for the flattest 100 mile route I could find.  I thought it would be easier that way, and I was right.  I only started to completely come apart physically and mentally quite close to the end this time, instead of shortly after halfway.  Also, instead of riding for over 9 hours like on the last two, I managed to ride for only 7 and a half this time.

Almost halfway!

I chose a route I know.  This had the advantage of me not having to waste time reading a map, which is just as well, because I don't really understand them.

I stopped after 27 miles for breakfast at Beningborough Hall.  They do good porridge there.  I must have made good time because I was there for them opening the door at 9.30.

Here's my new prescription sunglasses - I can see in the dark and everything

Since I rode the Coast to Coast last week, I've picked up my new prescription sunglasses from my friends Ann and Jane at Moorhouse Opticians in Garforth, and they made life a lot easier.  Prior to getting them I was playing eye roulette with the two options available to me.  Either wear normal glasses on the bike and have all sorts of debris go round the side of them into my eyes, or wear cycling sunglasses but be virtually unable to see anything except for vague shapes.  Now I can do both.  I call Ann and Jane my friends by the way, because apart from hanging out with my mum watching the World Cup, since I moved back to Leeds going into the opticians every week has pretty much been my social life.  Now I'm all full up with new glasses I don't know what I'm going to do!

Wath - look out for Morris Dancers!

There's a nice symmetry about me doing my 100 mile route now starting from Leeds, because the middle 20 miles are the same 20 miles as they were when I used to do the ride leaving from Teesside.  In both incarnations, Easingwold comes at around the 40 mile point.  I usually stop at the Co-op there to top up on Lucozade, Minstrels and Pork Pies.

Don't carry a camera in your back pocket on the bike.  When you sweat the lens steams up

It was 10.45 when I got to Easingwold yesterday.  There are about 27 benches in the little square outside the Co-op.  At 10.45 yesterday 26 of them were empty, and I was sitting on the other one, but as soon as I saw the old guy with the big bruise on his head coming towards me, I knew he was going to sit next to me, and start trying to interview me.  I knew this, because it's happened to me before.

What is it about Co-op convenience stores?  Does each one come with an ageing nutter, who claims to have been a top sportsman?  In 2012 in Tobermory it was Jimmy the ex-boxer who claimed to have trained all the boxing greats.  Of the two hours I spent in Tobermory with Ruth that day, approximately 1 hour and 50 minutes of it was being talked at by Jimmy.  Jimmy spent much of the time telling me how to completely disable someone in a street brawl simply by putting your thumb down the waistband of their trousers.  I didn't say so at the time, but there's no way I'm putting my thumb down anyone's trousers, even if they're trying to attack me.  Not without a written invitation and / or a legal disclaimer at the very least.

Don't go near the Co-op.  That's where they keep the nutters!

Not only do these nutters exist, but there seems to be some sort of exchange scheme going on, because in Tobermory they've got Jimmy the Geordie, whereas in Easingwold they've got a Scottish guy called Harry.  Call me cynical if you like, but it's when people start carrying on as if they're taking part in the World Name Dropping Championships, that I get suspicious.

What I really wanted was just to have a 5 minute rest to sit and refuel but of course Harry with the bruised head had other ideas.  It turns out Harry used to play football for Chelsea and Manchester City and that he was Newcastle United's chief scout under Kevin Keegan, and that he's a close personal friend of Neil Warnock (not sure why anyone would make that one up).  If I'd been able to get a word in edgeways I might have told him that I know Alistair Griffin.  That would have shown him!

Yellow bikes - They're everywhere

Of course, all of Harry's story is completely plausible, how would I know if it's true, I'm not Wikipedia?  And it's possible I'm just a cynic thinking that he was making stuff up, but the thing was, to add insult to my doubts about his own back story, he kept calling me a liar...

This is pretty much how our conversation went:

Harry:  So where have you cycled from?
Me: Leeds
Harry: Leeds? Today? Fuck off!  You've no cycled from Leeds today.  That's 50 miles away.  It's 10.45 in the morning.
Me: Actually it's less than 40.  I set off early.  I've been up ages.
Harry: Fuck off!  How old are you son?
Me: I'm 46
Harry: Fuck off!  You're no 46.  26 more like.  What year were you born?
Me: 1968.
Harry: Fuck off!  Have you got any brothers and sisters?
Me: Yes, I've got a brother.  He's 41.
Harry: How old does he look?  12?
It was then that for reasons unknown he started talking about Rolf Harris and Stuart Hall, assuming I'd never heard of either of them.
Me: Of course I've heard of them.  I remember them from the 70s.  Can you tell what it is yet?  It's a Knockout etc...
Harry: Fuck off!  You were no in the 70s.

And so it went on...

Holes in the road and mad old blokes - just two of the hazards of life on the open road

On reflection, I suppose there are various ways of saying fuck off, some of which are more offensive than others.  I had to assume that his particular version of fuck off was Scottish ex-footballer speak for 'Wow, that thing you've just told me, it really is rather surprising and unexpected'.

When he asked me how long it would take me to cycle back to Leeds, I said 'around 3 hours'.  There was no way I was about to tell him that I was approximately 38 miles into a 100 mile day, and that I was going a lot further North before turning round.  He would have told me to fuck off again.

By halfway I was going quite fast, but I did slow down later into the wind

Anyway, I made my excuses and let Harry go.

Me on a previous 100 mile ride with Graeme and Suzanne

From Easingwold I used the middle part of my original 100 mile ride from 2007 (the Easingwold - Raskelf - Helperby - Cundall - Norton le Clay - Marton le Moor - Sharow - Ripon - Hutton Conyers - Wath part).  It had a nostalgic feel to it, as it reminded me of other 100 mile rides I've done, and the people I've done them with, ie Ruth, Suzanne, Graeme, Stephen and Mark in particular.  A lot of the places I passed through brought back memories of those other rides.

The Marianas Trench in Sharow - It still hasn't been filled in

As I cycled through Sharow, I stopped for a while at the Marianas Trench, which Mark once fell down when it was full of water, because he couldn't see it.  It was even bigger than I remember.  As a tribute, I stopped to take some photos and eat a pork pie there.  I resisted the temptation to go caving.

Fall down that and you might never be seen again!

I also passed through Wath, and there wasn't a single person around, which contrasted in my mind with the time I rode through there on a century ride in 2009 with Ruth and Suzanne, and the Street Fair was on, and the streets were full of Morris Dancers.

Wath 2009 - full

Wath 2014 - empty

Wath 2009 - with Morris Dancers

Once I'd turned back towards the south at Asenby I also rode past Leckby House, a place which thanks to Nigel and Sarah has often been our midway point on quite a few training rides, including some 100 milers.  It's actually a mixed blessing going there part way through a 100 mile bike ride, because by the time you've experienced the wonderful food and hospitality, you just want to stay there forever and never get on a bike again.  All I can say is that we must have been really determined to do the training for our previous Coast to Coasts, because some of the weather we've gone back out into after leaving there was absolutely horrendous.  Of course, there was the time we had to leave Mark in a barn to warm up because he was literally turning into Papa Smurf......but that's another story.

Yorkshire - they've even got bikes up the trees these days

Anyway, the fitness I've gained by doing the Coast to Coast, and the lighter bike, and the flatter route, must have made a difference yesterday, because whereas on the two earlier 100 mile rides I did in June, I felt like I was grovelling home on my hands and knees from about 60 miles in, on yesterday's ride I only really started grovelling from 90 miles.  It probably helped that it was a lot cooler too.

Last time out, I stopped for a pit stop on a bench in Cattal at the 85 mile point and then I went on a trip to Wrong Turn City, so this time, I decided to stop, but not make a mess of everything from there on.

The bench in Cattal - last time it all came apart from here

Thankfully, this time I didn't make any wrong turns at all, and although I hadn't judged the distance exactly right, and I had to add in a small diversion of a mile or so near home to get the total up to 100, I was home by 4.30.

4.30?  That's not even a day ride.  It's more like half a day!  If I'd known I'd get round so quick, I might have stayed longer and talked some more to Harry in Easingwold....actually, probably not...

He would have only called me a liar some more....