Afore we go....

So Alex is in fine fettle - bursting with energy although somewhat nervously awaiting gcse results tomorrow

Before I indulge in any personal reflections I would just like to record my admiration for my son who had the vision and the determination to carry it all off and so successfully.

I'm very proud of him. Job well done, Alex

And also a special thank you to my daughter who was such good company on the road and with whom I had so much fun

The boys did a great job of the cycling and have raised about £1700 so far which is tremendous

One or two closing reflections....

Cycling is fun. I would like to do something similar. Anyone fancy a spell as support vehicle staff??

There is so much of Britain to explore and enjoy outside London. It has genuinely rounded out my sense of our country; the beauty of the countryside and the continual variety of life of lifestyles as you roam from one end to the other. I'm well off London as a place to live and definitely not looking forward to returning

It is not easy staying in yha's but it gives you some wonderful experiences and chance encounters as well as some indescribable ones. I have a new appreciation of anything in the slightest bit luxurious. All round good for the soul.

Strangers are mostly to be welcomed , not feared. We met some very kind and thoughtful people and lots of help freely and willingly given

Road trips are great fun, even if you are are profoundly middle aged. Having a slightly mysterious itinerary and sticking to it is a good discipline and appropriately exciting (for the profoundly middle aged)

Teenage boys live life in the present. There's a lot to be said for it.

Blogging is fun and very satisfying if people are generous enough to read what you've written despite the terrible typos and lax grammar

So to all of you who looked in from time to time and got contact - a great big thank you.

And to everyone who donated so generously, thank you too

So until next time....

Toot toot

The last post

I always hoped, but never quite believed, that I would be writing this

The boys sashayed into John o'groats after just 41/2 hours cycling from helmsdale - known to be one of the most difficult patches of the whole ride - and a good 55 miles to boot

What a fantastic achievement by them, and so helped by just about the first day of brilliant sunshine that we have had all trip

John o'groats is beautiful but seriously remote and there is NOTHING there you would want to have anything to do with other than chatting to the sheep as you meander past up the coast line

So we did a super fast photo session and got back on the road.

After all that's what the blog is about

I shall be summing up my thoughts in due course (god help you all) but in the meantime there is a glass of champagne to be dispatched and a boy to help it along and a lovely support staff girl to make the jokes

Thank you all in the meantime for the fab support and sponsorship

Check in for one final go tomorrow.....

If you can bear it


Tooti toot toot toot!

Local Hero

.....could have been set here in Helmsdale. It has that end end of the line kind of feel.
Alex is humming the theme music as we bemoan the lack of both monopoly and scrabble in this clean but mirthless hostel that must once have been a frind's meeting house. And is about as noisy

It's been a long day, if only because the pouring rain this morning served to dampen our spirits rather effectively. It was a very short cycle for the boys who are now so proficient they managed to do 35 miles, in the rain, in just over two hours. Leaving an awful of the day left to kill. Time goes slowly in helmsdale

Isobel and I had another walk on the beach, although it is not nearly as beautiful here as in dornoch.

An excellent dinner last night with John shaw and his wife and two little angel girls. Steak and an excellent red wine. They have an enviable holiday set up here.

The sign outside says. John o' Groats 55.

I can hardly believe it.

Dunroamin

Toot too

Dank cells and cormorants

The last time I found myself in the corridor drying my hair was 1982. The young ladies of st hilda's college, oxford were deemed insufficiently responsible to have electrical sockets in their rooms as a result of which mornings in the corridor ressembled a cross between a tea shop and a hairdresser dryers, kettles and girls competing for joules and space

The cells in the yha at loch ness don't have sockets either and they make the accommodation at okehampton look good. Alex and angus room was a treat. Black curtains, no view, unbelievable lurking damp smell, further ripened by higher notes of smelly, cycling boy

They got on their bikes eventually looking a little dismal and tired, but at least it was not actually raining at that point. Thank goodness there are now only two days and less than a hundred miles to go. Heateningly the signs now advertise John o' Groats as a destination

The cycle to dornoch takes in three separate amazing bridges across various firths so I hope they enjoyed that. We are waiting for them to arrive of course

Meanwhile isobel and I had a fantatic walk in the sunshine a long way along the sands of dornoch. What a lovely little town. The sea reminds me of Norfolk at its remote and wildest best. For most of our walk we were shadowed by a bobbing cormorant called Bill. He seemed to be in his element popping up and down with the the little waves and moving purposefully and rather majestically towards some unknown destination. It would be hard to describe him as
anything other than having a ball. Not that I'm one to anthropomorphise or anything like that.

A bientot

Extraordinary juxtapositions

So here we are in a really crappy hostel with damp rooms and rubbish decoration
Yet
We finish our dinner, get ready to play monopoly, (alex having JUST beaten me at scrabble)and the view out of the picture window of the dining roomin the evening sun (que?) is breathtaking

Not only that, but isobel and my cell has a view directly on the loch too and it smellsmawful but what can you say? The view is fabulous

Who's going to win this game of monopoly?
Angus?
Alex?
Isobel?
Sarah?

What is the prize?

Haggis of course

Answers on a comment or an email

Winner gets the haggis and Respect. Man.

Toot tot

Loch-side at last

Alex and angus puffed in at about 5pm after another gargantuan effort of cycling through deluged. And smiling as ever - just.

The yha ia basic but is literally on the bank of loch ness so you can step down to a little beach and write your postcards in the company of midges, which is exactly what isobel is doing now. Ah no, it has just started pouring again so I guess she'll pop up any moment. Ah, here she is.

So only three days to go till we reach John o' groats. I wouldn't say it has gone quickly, but it has gone eventfully, and mostly in rather an exciting way. However I still can't believe that we're actually going to make it, so believe it when you read it

Pip pip

To the Inch hotel Loch Ness....a big thank you for the coffee and hot chocolate kindly donated on the house

To the Inch hotel Loch Ness....a big thank you for the coffee and hot chocolate kindly donated on the house

To the Inch hotel Loch Ness....a big thank you for the coffee and hot chocolate kindly donated on the house

Can't see the loch for the fog

It's the truth at the heart if the cliche: fabulously beautiful country; shame about the rain
The boys have over 65 miles to do today which is quite a big ask as they are strting to get weary and it's a bit demanding to cycle in this much water

So the faithful support vehicle staff have holed up in a hotel that may or may not have a memorable view of loch ness to drink cappuccino and veg out. Other activities today hcae included driving around in the car, drinking cups of coffee, driving around in the car a bit more and forgetting to buy baked beans. But that's ok because it'll give us a solid to reason to do a bit more driving around in the car. In a bit.

There are two rather lovely black labs in this particualr establishment that according to the owner double as extras from twilight movies. There's also aspectacular tartan carpet and a copy of Scottish bride magazine so isobel is is happy as Harry (those who know her well will appreciate the relevance of this comparison. In fact it's all rather nice and very

We are staying in the yha down the road.

So a bit more waiting for the boys to show - which is developing a zen-like quality as an activity. And a bit more driving of course. Hurrah.

More later depending on the Internet at the yha. So no gurantess

Toot toot

A cosy pub in the glen

Smelly, stuffy room, creaky bunks and rain at dawn. It's another Monday morning on the road.

The crianlarich experience lacked finesse somehow, but I should have learned by now about the yha lottery. Anyway the good thing about the crappy hostel is it usually opens the door to more uplifting experience the next day
In this case we learned by complete chance (and the eavesdropping of a walker on our dinner conversation) that the planned stay For Monday night at loch Ossian Eco hostel was flawed in a somewhat fundamental way, namely that there is no vehicular access and it's in a very remote spot
Quite how this had escaped the eagle planners of the trip is a bit of a mystery but as one of said planners i guess hold up my hand ...
Trigger total panic and rushed re planning and we managed to conjure up two beds for the boys at glencoe yha. I must admit here to a slight sense of humour failure - the day having been more than normally stressful - so the prospect of a night in the glencoe dorm with 10 hairy walkers was the end. Throwing caution to the winds I declared to isobel that we would find a nice pub to stay in

The drive over the highland mountains was spectacular in a slightly forbidding way. It proved fun cycling for the boys until they got to the top of glencoe when some serious rain and cold set in. They got here in good time - drowned again - and settled down to a marathon monopoly session

My fairy godmother being in fine fettle, we happened across a lovely pub just down the road form the hostel, and we got the last room so isobel and I are holed up in the inn, complete with comfy beds, towels, tea, and free wifi access downstairs

It's raining again outside, butnguess what? It Feels like heaven

Before I sign off, top marks to Cindy who had the guts to write a comment



Hail our latest follower all the way from the bottom of Africa. Hello Cindy!

Broken bottoms and the lost boys

Mum and I successfully saved the boys at halfords, the support team to the rescue! Did we get a thank you? Of course not. Mum and I drove around the edge of the beautiful loch Lomond and stopped for lunch in a roadside cafe, mum was very suspicious of the soup and checked a few times that it was vegetarian and didn't have sheep heart mixed in somewhere. After we giggled a bit at our awful Scottish accent imitations we moved on to the youth hostel which was nothing special, quite small. Now some people's attention may have been Taken by the title, I do believe I may never walk again after I slipped and damaged my derriere that is still quite painful. After enduring mum singing 'the Bonnie Bonnie banks of loch lomond' I am now at my wits end. At six we had a call from alex, knowing they weren't going to make it we are currently in the car on the way back with two tired, smelly boys on our way to the youth hostel arguing about who's name is more important and manly, alex argument is mainly 'alexander the great! Have you ever heard of a angus the great?' and angus's 'the angus burger is delicious and incredibly important!' boys eh? Time for supper and bed me thinks

A little morning sun and troubles with bikes

So all four of us finally set about 11 - getting the boys up and out is a major event every day - only to be interrupted 20mins later with a plea for a bike shop
Both sets of brake pads have given up and they need bike oil

Pre planning, anyone.

So isobel and I are now sitting outside halfords waiting for the Olympians to show and have their bill paid. If ever I wondered whether we were needed (and actually I have never doubted it) it is not now.....

The road to crianlarich is apparently high and narrow so more than bit necessary to have a functioning bike

New lanark was a bit weird. It's a world heritage site with dodgy visitor centre and hotel but a nice yha and really helpful staff
We had youth hostel dinner for the first itme. Chips and some more chips. And a bit of fish hiding underneath.


Veg anyone?

Anywaynthe new lanark thing is a well preserved set of early 19c bukidings build by mill owner and philanthropist Robert Owen. Startling scenery and a pretty river but as an experience it
left a lot to be desired compadednto your average national trust house, about which we are
both aficionados now

Sorry about the spelling and the spacing - can't see properly because of the sun

First sun for almost a week

Long may it last
Is suspect there will be no signal in crianlarich so pip pip for now

The girls

Total frustratio

I have written three posts and all have been lost before I could post because of the bloody wifi
So wait for tomorrow for vented spleen

Pip pip

Yes it's grim up north but......

We've had supper (delicious and cooked by mum) and time has passed and most important, we have discovered the historical significance of new lanark and looked at the yha on the net and decided it might well be a big improvement on Carlisle - where we have seen at least 5 under looting age boys cycling round on bikes brandishing golf clubs

Interesting how one's interpretation on of unfamiliar places and people is so profoundly coloured by current events

They could of course been on their way to play golf

Alex and angus are doing the crossword

I don't know. All this cycling is a terrible curb on their normal adolescent looting instincts

Pip pip

Depressed

Just when it couldn't get any worse, Carlisle reared it's ugly head. I could truthfully say Carlisle makes Okehampton look like a fluffy bunny. but back to the start of the day, still typically the north of England the rain poured from an overcast sky. After a reviving cup of tea where mum was still fuming about her parking ticket we drove across the motorway to a charming yet creepy national trust property high up in the lake district. It was part of a wild, stormy mountain valley up on the hillside. It belonged to ten generations dating back to the 1400s although it was just a cottage. Everything was made of dark mahogany and odd, weird shapes and grotesque faces were carved into it. Everywhere was slightly wonky and strange. We got out of there back into the drizzle pretty quickly and began our treacherous drive to Carlisle. The tom-tom chose a route high up the valley including heavy fog and sharp corners. Now everyone who knows mum will sympathise with me. When the shouting, increased stress and hitting the sat nav started I knew it was time to open the bag of S.D.E (sarah de-stress chocolate eclairs) and pop a few in her mouth to be on the safe side. Just being able to see the road did not help and we did not know wether it was a rocky, sharp cliff on the side of the road or just a harmless field with a few sheep. In that kind of situation it becomes easier to believe the first one (with some sharks and piranhas added in) finally we were greeted in Carlisle with some dank, depressing dark rooms, a massive youth hostel and spiders with a skyline of the Mcvities factory and some kebab shops by a main road. For the first time in my life I have seriously considered becoming a goth. Ah well, it can only get better!

Parking tickets and curry smells

Not a gReat night in Kendal, in fact I would say it has been down there with okehampton in terms of memorably grim experiences

Those of you who know me well will understand the impact on my night's sleep of a top bunk with a mattress ceased in plastic
Mmmmm joy

The room stank of curry and the under 18 judo team were partying till late in the room next door
Add to that a sore throat and an undeserved parking ticket and you get the picture

Anyway the good news is that Carlisle is not too far for the cyclists even if the weather is till unbelievably foul
Who knows what Carlisle will hold?

That's the excitement of life on the road......

Sarah

Hard rain

Alex and angus have just arrived dripping but smiling once again
65 miles of serious weather
Boys, I take my hat off to you

You wouldn't know we are in the lake district were it not for the profusion of Kendal mint cake and dripping tourists

To say it is misty is an understatement but at least it is not cold

Isobel and I have readjusted to tiny attic rooms and rickety bunks and are looking forward to meeting the other residents of the hostel, namely the British under 18 female judo team

But not as much as alex and angus are.

Arm wrestling anyone?


After a somewhat dispiriting afternoon we cheered ourselves up by going to marks and Spencer to buy eat in for ten quid for the team

Needless to say I will not be polishing off both bottles of wine

Yet.

I have also invested in the new Julian barnes which is good but not what you would call cheerful

Clean boys have appeared so that's me off to the laundry for while

Toot toot

Increasing clumsiness

Mum and I ventured out into the pouring rain yesterday for a stately home visit at tatton park after leaving a warm house and sizzling bacon. Tatton was a beautiful house influenced by young men's grand tours of Europe especially incorporating symmetry. After gazing in wonder at the fantastic library and no less than two canalettos of Venice we rushed out again in great stress because mum had read a text wrong and thought the boys were arriving early, I had time to have some chips and a hot dog from a van in the grounds. I took my food covered in sauce into the car again. Mum warned me 'do NOT spill that sauce in my car Isobel' I replied with 'mum, please, have some respect for a careful 13year old' less than 30 seconds later, the chips were on the floor, the hot dog in the middle of the seat, ketchup on my jeans and in my hair and the chair covered in sauce. I emerged, dripping in ketchup and a very guilty look on my face. It still pains me to write it! Earlier this morning I knocked over alex's coffee on the carpet and on my trousers and dripped my cereal onto the bathroom sink of perhaps the last hotel.I will mis the warmth and the comfortable bed! Still, we must power on though Ps some people have asked how to sponsor alex, you go online to just giving and type in his full name into sponsor a friend

Better drowned than duffers

A short post scriptum to congratulate the boys on a heroic bit of cycling and managing to turn up smiling
Not only that but it has now stopped raining and the north looks marginally less grim,but the outskirts of wigan won't win any prizes for bucolic loveliness
Tomorrow we are on to Kendal and back in the yha which is always preferable if only because of the fun of human contact with complete strangers who so often turn out to be charming and funny
There's a lot to be said for not having a lot of money

First blog comment correctly to identify the (possibly misquoted) title quote gets a special mention

Go on go on go on

Signing off....

Happy relieved mummy

Biblical weather

Apologies to our kind followers who were concerned about our going off air
We have spent a couple of days indulging in some magnificent shropshire style r and r chez John and Jess who entertained us royally with superb food, lots of fun, comfy beds and pigeon shooting (at which young decline aged 11 beat both sergeant angus and big alex - well done declan)

I am now straight back in to mega worry mode as there is no sign of the boys and the weather could not be more dreadful. Wind and rain like you would not believe and I was unable do more than 40 mph on the m 6 because visibility was so poor. So I am standing on a covered bridge between two buildings at the hotel with a bird's eye view of the drive drive waiting for the apparition of our drowned boys

It's been odd being on the road as London burns and even odder as the mayhem seems to following us up the country and London feels surreally unreal. We have had such a surfeit of utterly beautiful countryside and pastoral idylls as we have moved gradually further north west tHat it seems hard to believe these are part of the same country let alone the same culture, but I guess the point is that these young people, criminal as they are, feel they have no part or say in the mainstream of our culture. The independent says it is britain's
hurricane katrina moment and I tend to agree

This is one of our few non yha stops as the yha's locally are only in central mancester and Liverpool and that felt too much like hars work at the planning stage. I am now thanking my lucky stars that we are in the safety of the north wigan countryside and in central carnage

Isobel is excited and frustrated since this hotel - Che

Theynhave arrived

Hurrah hurrah

Miles and mills

Boys arrived , another69 mi,es chalked up and over a fifth of the way to j o g. Thye are tired but still smiling and now ensconced in band of brothers whilst I sort supper
Or write the blog - an idyllic spot in the open window of our rooming the old mill. Only the basing of sheep and the soinds of DVD gunfire in this remote and beautiful part of shropshire
Isobel is painting a water colour and life could not be much better except that we are missing dom who had to be dropped at bristolparkway this afternoon to return to the big smoke

Lost in bristol

Saturday was a long day for the boys.it started well with a leisurely breakfast and an enjoyable and meandering cycle to sixth of Bristol to meet godmother nanda for lunch
She proved appropriately able to converse about the technical aspects of bike wheels and armed alex with serious amounts of panforte and chocolate for the journey
Meanwhile we walked up the beautiful Glastonbury tor and Isobel explored the hip pier aspect of westncountry life in the world peace garden
We wre trying to discourage from continuing to drink from the waters of the well of tranquility. It doesn't smell too good

A swift visit to the gardens of tynetesfeld house, something of a Victorian monstrosity but with fab kitchen gardens
The big excitement was the arrival at the yha which really was a Norman castle and completely magical
Isobel was beside herself with excitement and tore round the gardens in the dark most of the evening with two other girls

Meanwhile we dressed up for the medieavel banquet (yes it really was and we ate with our fingers)and waited for the boys

....who had got very lost round Bristol and didn't arrive till seven thirty - one of then,ingest days yet.

Alex greeting to me 'what are you wearing mum?' admittedly it was a green velvet curtain
But I digress

So a very jolly evening of wine and song and made some new friends and we even had a rom that was big enough to walk around in
All in all a wonderful experience

Now it is Sunday morning and we saw the boys off to uncertain weather and starting to look a bit tired. Thankfully. After tonight at the yha at clun we will be going to the hotel og john and jester a tow night rest

Sadly we have to drop dom off at Bristol parkway shortly. But he has managed to have the biggest low and the high with us so far so he has a sassier of our life on the road...,,
T

Punctures and priests

So Isobel and I finished the washing and made for the pub. Or at least a lovely riverside terrace where she could do a water colour Jane Austen style and I could lose myself in the light moral philosophy of Isabel dakhousie.all very pleasant and tranquil

Then we visited the church in tiverton and were engaged in conversation which a splendidly charming vicar who offered ton pray for the boys

Hot line to god may have been missing the whiff connection however as the boys meanwhile were engaging in a series of punctures, heading across fields to find succour in non existent farm houses and finally (since neither boy had a working phone on him...) hitting the pay phone
'mum......' and of course that is what we're there for

So they managed to do 65 miles and thence scooped them up in Taunton just before it got dark

Getting to the yha after it had closed was challenging

But eventually we managed to out away plates of pasta very late in street and shortly after, oblivion!

Isobel's side of the story: This morning we woke up refreshed, luckily we weren't overly hot or had just 6 hours sleep. Instead we had a leisurely breakfast and stroked the new kitten, misty over crunchy nut. we took the boys bags from the youth hostel and went on to Glastonbury. we visited the tor, A huge, dramatic hill topped with a 12th century tower. After a breathless walk up the hill we experienced a panoramic view of three counties on a beautiful day. Later dad and I went to 'a garden of tranquility' where the hippy in the pay box said when dad's phone went off: 'such disembodied sounds utter from a human being' I had to bite my lip to stop myself from giggling and I then understood why mum, the skeptic of the century, decided not to go in. After paddling in the pool of tranquility and drinking from the healing fountain, which I have now been forbidden to drink because mum thinks it will make me sick we came to this lovely pub with a nice one-legged cat called smokey and we are going to meet nanda! X

Loud noises and launderettes

Sitting in a cafe in okehampton waiting to out the washing in the drier
It's all glamour on this trip
Okehampton yha left most things to be desired. Coking dinner in the 120 degree kitchen last night I felt like george Orwell doing his experience as a plongeur in Paris (shurely some exaggeration,Ed)
Sleep of variable quality owing to the continuous banging of fire doors from the early hours
However all that is as nothing compared to the magnificent feat of the boys who managed 84 miles in under 8 hours up hill and down Dale and so on and all in sub optimal weather
And they went off to do exactly the same thing again this morning except 4miles further
Heroic
Isobel is tired and cross with me for being on the blog rather than planning the day

So tootle pip for the present

Got to go and sort the washing
Next stop street in somerset

Sarah

If it's thursday it must be Devon
No post yesterday as we were residing in a small but very cost and friendly yha shack on the
Top of a cliff in perrenporth. No mobile communication but Isobel loved the home from feel and I managed to cook a large meal for us all whilst alex entertained the other guests with juggling (Dave he can do mitons mess now.....)and guitar playing in the garden next to a sheer drop. It's all straight out of Enid blyton in peerenporth yha

The boys had an easy and fast ride in the sunshine and arrived looking fit and nonchalant
Something of a contrast to their departure in deep cloud and incipient storm this morning.
Today is tough as they have to do almost 80 very hilly miles in poor weather conditions
Isobel and I on the other hand had a lovely time visiting the lutyens inspired 20c castle drogue near okehampton. Fascinating and beautiful with fabulous gardens

Isobel is frankly unimpressed by the okehampton hostel which is next to a station and in a dreary car park and no sign of any countryside

Mum went to wait rose (cheating) so supper should be edible even if the cooking experience lacks the sociable intimacy of Cornwall

We are waiting for the boys to get here but not expecting them till about 7pm in all probability

I am going to drag Isobel kicking and screaming out for a walk

Plus ca change......
Sarah

St just at last!

After hours in the car driving to what we hoped was land's end (but mum didn't trust the tom-tom!) we arrived at senen cove but we thought it was land's end and it was only after having an idyllic walk across the sunny beach and staring in awe at the gorgeous view that we realized over ice creams that it was not in fact lands end. so unfortunately we were back in the car...AGAIN. after what seemed like ages of frustration we have come to the sweet, old Cornish village of st Just where I can sit quietly in the local pub with my j2o and mum with her beer mildly aware of the fact it is a matter of hours before mum will declare she cannot live without her vi spring mattress. Ah, the gorgeous Cornwall

....

On the Road: The day before we go....: "Much muttering about lost cameras. Cameras found and then the focus veers off boring but somewhat necessary packing to technology. And blo..."