Monday 19 February 2018

On the road again!

Greetings to all the family!

{scroll down if you can't be bothered with a poem}

[Excerpt from the diary of well-worn traveller, elk masseuse and all-round tarot-man, Cory Zabiggie // Titled Don't make me work at the weekend, Tony (Don't make me work in the week), not to be taken salty]

February is the cruellest month--
But this the winter of our content
Shall not unlike a hyacinth
Unfurl and marry to th'intent
Of purchase on a marlèd ground.
So butter swept and money spent
Are better than that honeyed sound.
Was mead the spark to which they leant?


If Turkey is as turkey does
And March still marches, west to east,
To feed on soil and grain and gust,
Or west to east, as like a feast,
(In nighttime, while the sky is best)
Then flowers on the wind do make
An angel, and, like beads on string
Do talismans of angels sing.

For now, at least, like spoons in cream,
Two roads are laid in print. But know:
When eye turns back and sees the night--
When Didi met with harlequin
And found resolve, if met with like,
To curlicue, and so with you--
It glisters upward, scripts a wave:
Awaits a secondary weave.

-

I am due to set sail again on my bicycle in mid-March. I'm raising money again (for more info, follow this link: www.justgiving.com/fundraising/cycleaid18), this time for Refugee Action. Read all about them here: www.refugee-action.org.uk/about.

My current plan is to cycle from Toulouse, that is, mi casa, through Italy, Slovenia (aka paradise), a bunch of other places, Turkey and Georgia and eventually reach Baku, in Azerbaijan, on the Caspian Sea. That's 8,500km and LEG ONE. I've actually broken down the route into smaller legs, but for the sake of illustration this can serve as Leg One.



LEG TWO:
From Baku I will probably double back, cycle west back through Georgia to the Black Sea coast, to a town called Batumi, from which I will travel on a very ferryish ferry to Chornomorsk, Ukraine. I will weave through Moldova and Ukraine to Poland, and end up either in Berlin or Helsinki. The latter means travelling through Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Big ups to the Baltics.

The alternative or "Plan B" is to say bunkum to all of Europe, take a big ship across the Caspian Sea and sea what's going down in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, maybe Xinjiang Province (China), or what, I don't know. There are complications that way, so I might just go to Poland. It's easier.

As before, I'll update with pictures and the like on this site. To get into the spirit of things, here are some pictures of my bike in some places which prove to myself that I can do this because I have done something like this before, only smaller.

-

1. The first one is in where? You guessed it - Vienna.


2. 5 points for--yes, correct, Austria.


3. Any takers on this baby? Hungry for clues? Oh haha, it's Hungary!


4. My bike isn't in this next one so you can't be sure that I even took it, but on my life I swear I did! This is coming down from the Reschen Pass from Italy into Austria, right next to Switzerland, aka one of the best places to be coming down from and ho mama look at all that alpine.


5. This is my favourite place in Namur, up on the citadel.


6. Hello Germany and your beautiful pines.


7.
i point to the field of yellow outside
sunflowers worship the sun i tell him
only when it arrives to they rise
when the sun leaves
they bow their heads in mourning
(etc.)
- Rupi Kaur, who is NOT Czech but THESE are:


8. Surprise! I'm back. Only I'm not, because I haven't really started yet.


More to come.

P&L