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My therapist has two wheels
I was happy but happy is an adult word. You don’t have to ask a child about happy, you see it. They are or they are not. Adults talk about being happy because largely they are not. Talking about it is the same as trying to catch the wind. Much easier to let it blow all over you.
The Passion, Jeanette Winterson
If it wasn’t for all of the rubbish on the ground I could have been back home. Puddled woodland trails had given way to the scrub and scent of Eucalypt forest. I was on a gentle downhill, the kind which lets your ego believe you had just become really buff lately, when the familiar twang of an Australian accent brought me to a stop. Read more…
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Always Accept an Invitation for Eggs
There was something unnerving about the way he straddled his bike. He couldn’t stand still, shifting his weight from pedal to pedal, and spinning them with the end of his shoe. My mother had told me to be wary of strangers, and this was a prime stranger to be wary of. Where did all his energy come from? He claimed to be exhausted from his morning of cycling, but he looked like he was ready to run a marathon. Read more…
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How We Found Our Inner Gypsies
Family and friends are probably wondering why we changed our names, so here is the low down.
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The Sale of a Lifetime
Clearing out a whole house full of STUFF is not as easy as expected. Sure, the appliances will go quickly. A fridge, TV, washing machine, vacuum, iron or printer will probably be snapped up in a day or two. But then you are still left with the odds and ends that sneak into your home like mice through unseen cracks and crevices. Half finished paint tins, assortments of screws and tools, photo frames, cutlery, utensils, spices, clothes unworn for months and years, electronic hair curlers, house plants, STUFF hanging off hooks and screws, STUFF shoved to the backs of draws and dressers. Read more…
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How NOT to Plan a Cycling Trip
With routes to choose, equipment and bikes to research and hunt down, visas to obtain, and possibly shots to inject, most people agree on one thing. A trans-continental cycling trip is not something to rush into. The general advice is around 12 months of planning and preparation, including test rides. General advice? Ha! I laugh in the face of general advice! Two and a half months would be plenty. Read more…
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Belgium’s Cycling Salamis
Not far from where the pancake plains of Flemish Belgium meet the waffled mountains of the French speaking Ardennes, is the small city of Leuven. A charming city injected with the vibrancy of a large university population. A place of harmony where old buildings stand alongside modern sculptures. Where the rundown building of a giant beer corporation becomes a squat house with live music on Sundays. A place where high end shopping is around the corner from a bakery with no name. It was living here that gave me the chance to study local cycling culture up close. Before long patterns emerged and I found that you could generally categorise cyclists into 4 different groups – Cruisers, Chameleons, Billboards, and Salamis. Read more…
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Duster & the Dutch Renaissance
Cycling across the world with dogs was never something I had put any thought into, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. The last time I had owned a bicycle it was the late 80’s in suburban Australia. A time and a place where it was cool to have multi-coloured plastic pieces on your spokes, to match multi coloured fluroescent t-shirts. For a brief time my pride and joy was an overwhelmingly red ‘Duster’ BMX. Red frame, red grips, and red tyres. No extra fluff like gears, just pedal forward to start and pedal backwards to stop.
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Short Tails from a Long Trip
Musings by country…
- Swedish Hospitality
- Svartisen: A Tromp to Norway’s Second Largest Glacier
- The Great Escape (Norway)
- Love at First Hug: A Latin/Scandinavian Love Story (Norway).
- The Good… Schwalbe re-tire-ment package (Norway)
- The Bad… Stolen Underwear (Norway)
- And the Ugly… No Whales, Seasickness x 3 (Norway)
- Someone Crazier than us (Norway)
- Ask and you shall receive (Norway)
- When the Van breaks down, ride a bike (Norway)
- When the Bike breaks down, find a Norwegian. Northern Exposure – Z Grade Scandinavian Celebrities
- Capsizing for Dummies
- Midnight Screams in the Tent
- Spirituality and Stinging Nettle Soup
- Above the Vodka Bar in Montpelier
- Why Not?
- Adios Espana, Bonjour France: The Smooth Border Crossing
- Empty Chairs by the Highway
- Wild Camping in Badalona, Barcelona’s bad ass sister
- Blowing in the Wind
