my tent is restored

Some months ago I discovered that I'd made a terrible mistake. Inexplicably, while clearing out the loft (which is once again just as full of junk), I rather stupidly managed to take the inner portion of our brand new Vango enormo-tent to the dump, leaving us with a £500 tent minus a rather important component. Our new tent was rendered rather too spacious without an inner.

So, back in September, I contacted the manufacturers, and asked if they had a spare inner, more in hope than expectation. They promised too look into it, I forgot about it, and I heard no more. A couple of weeks ago, I sent them a reminder. The very next day, a very nice person at Vango e-mailed me back - yes, I could have one, at the bargain price of £47 including postage. The following day it arrived, and our new tent is restored to full working order. So, thanks very much to all at Vango for excellent customer service.

Mind you, that loft is looking a bit cluttered again..........

A ride of two halves

Saturday was the final Cycale outing of the year, the traditional ride out to the Harwich Winter Beer Festival.

The weather gods again smiled on us, a cool and dry day, and a decent turnout with a couple of new riders. The roads must have been wet, though, as the bike was particularly filthy by the time I got home. Harwich, it has to be said, isn't my favourite town (it has that depressed, run down, end of the line feel that is common to so many east coast towns), although it does have a certain charm, and the festival has a pleasantly understated, relaxed feel.

Almost as soon as we began the ride, it was apparent that this was going to be very slow going indeed, with one rider again much slower than the rest of us. Keith, as befitting our Cycale supremo, took the executive decision to split the group in two, some going ahead, and some escorting our slower rider at a rather more pedestrian pace. Matt and myself volunteered to escort, and not for the first time I found myself on B****sitting duties. Now, I don't mind doing a bit of B****sitting now and again, and pedaling, freewheeling, stopping and generally cycling slower than I can ever remember doing was actually quite relaxing, if a little chilly.

I do have enormous sympathy for those that find themselves struggling to keep up with a group - it must be dreadful to know that everyone is waiting or stopping for you, especially in a group such as ours that doesn't go particularly quickly, and is more interested in spending time at the next pub rather than speeding along. I love to see people doing stuff outdoors, be it cycling, walking, playing sport or whatever, and I especially love to see folk who aren't particularly strong striving to improve their fitness and get out there and do something. That's why I spend so much time loitering and B****sitting at the back of our cycling group, keeping an eye out for those that aren't so fast. We've always had cyclists of varying speed and fitness, and none of us have ever minded. We aren't in a hurry, we just go out for a ride and a few drinks in the company of our friends.

However........there surely comes a point when one realises that

1. "I can't keep up, I might be spoiling these rides for everyone else"

2. "Perhaps I could accept with some grace the help that others are giving me"

3. "Maybe I could do something about this, by putting in a little effort to improve my fitness - it will be so much more enjoyable for me and everyone else"

Sadly, I just can't see that happening.

On a rather more positive note, the ride back was completely different. While most took the option of more beer and the train home, Nigel, Matt, Mark and myself cycled back to Colchester. Normally, a post-beer festival ride would be a sedate affair, but not this time.

For reasons that I can't really fathom, we absolutely caned it on the way back. By common consent, it was the the most effort we'd ever put into a Cycale ride, into a headwind all the way, utterly different from our usual rides. I think it was my fault, I led the way into the wind for the first five or six miles, wondering if the others behind were as knackered as I was. I pulled over, and, sure enough, they were. Mark and Matt took long turns on the front and we reached Wivenhoe, grinning, in record time. Nigel mentioned something about "hanging on to coat tails". Fantastic. Post ride, I felt that warm glow of tiredness as I dozed on the settee, the sort of tiredness that you only get when you've really put in some effort, and legs and lungs have been properly stretched.

On the way back we stopped off at the Black Buoy in Wivenhoe, newly refurbished and reopened as a community buyout, the money put up by a consortium of locals and regulars. The pub was full, and the beer was good, so the future looks good for at least one of our pubs.

Today is a glorious winter's day in Essex, low sun and deep blue sky, not a cloud to be seen and not a breath of wind. In fact, it's the perfect day for cycling. Ordinarily, I'd be out on the bike or walking. However, this morning I pulled a muscle in my ribs, bizarrely, while getting up from the toilet. Don't ask. It's just as ridiculous as the time I had to cut short a holiday in the Lake District, having pulled a muscle in my back while reading a newspaper at the breakfast table. Anyway, that's why I'm sitting here typing this, between hobbling around like an old man and listening to Rob the kitchen fitter dispose of the rest of my savings, instead of doing something really important

health and time

When I started this blog, it was largely for my own amusement, a diary of my outdoor activities, with the occasional rant, that perhaps some other like-minded folk would find interesting or amusing. I'm fairly certain that that's the way it will stay. However, something happened this week that I just can't get out out of my head, something I feel compelled to write about.

The BBC have broadcast, on a couple of a occasions, an interview with Joost van Westerhuizen, the former South African rugby player. Joost van Westerhuizen was one of the greatest sportsman of his time, who represented his country on 89 occasions, and was a powerful sportsman who played the game with great skill and athleticism, and, it has to be said, some devilment.

Three years ago he was diagnosed, at the age of 42, with Motor Neurone Disease, a hideous degenerative neurological condition, an illness that a few years back took the lives of two of my friends, Darren and Robbie. In the interview, he speaks eloquently and with great dignity about the disease and about his impending death.

That in itself would be heart-rending enough, were it not for the remarkable physical resemblance between Joost van Westerhuizen and my brother Lewis, who died from the disease last year. Lewis was a gentle man, who had just got his life back together after finally extracating himself from his hateful and deranged ex-wife, and the diagnosis came at the cruellest time, when he had once again found happines.

It's not just that they look so alike (both dark, handsome men, Lewis was one of those annoying blokes who actually got even better looking as he got older and more grey), it's the mannerisms and identical  effects of the disease that took my breath away. The slight tilt when sitting in the wheelchair, the wasted, bony shoulders, the difficulty swallowing, the movement of the head with the sheer effort of talking, and most of all the slurred, barely coherent speech (the BBC actually used subtitles for the interview). 

Watching the interview, I could have once again been at the nursing home where Lewis' life ended, desperately trying to understand the words that he struggled to say. Sadly, that's the memory of Lewis that is most clear in my mind, rather than the lovely, kind, laid back brother I should remember. My memory of my father, who died six months before Lewis, is similar. I should remember a strong, energetic man with a remarkable work ethic, but what's in my mind is a tired old man, rendered helpless by strokes, deafness and the gradual failure of his body.

In the interview here http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/24890861 Joost van Westerhuizen tells us that "there are two things that we humans take for granted, health and time". He's right. Nothing else matters. Everything else is trivial.

blackberries, trig points and birdwatching

Autumn has arrived in Essex this past week or so - after months of warm,dry weather it's back to cool, windy and wet. I even lit our first coal fire of the season. So, the outdoor activities have been curtailed somewhat, I've wimped out of cycling and resorted to a bit of ambling about.

We had a wander around one of my favourite places - Fingringhoe Wick Nature Reserve, run by the very nice people at Essex Wildlife Trust.

Our visit didn't involve much in the way of exercise, just a bit of a stroll, a bit of half-hearted bird-watching (the tide was out, so there wasn't a great deal to see) and the immensely therapeutic pastime of blackberrying (I'm not sure if that's a real word).

Strangely enough, I'm not overly fond of blackberries taste-wise, but it's immensely satisfying to harvest a bit of free fruit from the hedgerows, and if it's possible to overdose on blackberry crumble, I've come close the past few days.

Another reason for visiting Fingringhoe, apart from the free soft fruit, is this small but perfectly formed little structure

Trig points are a rarity around these parts, and, having spent much of my adult life blundering around hill tops and summit ridges looking for them, it's a real pleasure to find one just loitering in an Essex field, at a massive height, by my reckoning, of all of sixty feet above sea level (I've heard rumours of Fenland trig points that are actually below sea level). The re-surveying of this country using a network of trig points took a quarter of a century, beginning in the 1930's, and was a stupendous achievement that gave us our wonderfully accurate, and quite beautiful, Ordance Survey maps.

I took a walk down the river from the Hythe to Wivenhoe. The Hythe remains as shabby as ever, the ghetto-like new flats (sold,of course, as "luxury apartments") doing little to mask the overriding sense of industrial decay. However, once beyond the disused and derelict warehouses, the graffiti, the mud and the sewage works outlet pipe, the river is home to an abundance of wildlife.

I'm a fairly incompetent birdwatcher, but within an hour I saw, in no particular order, Herring Gulls, Black Headed Gulls, Teal, Swans, Robin, Moorhen, Great Tit, Carrion Crow, Mallard, Redshank, Black-Tailed Godwit, Little Grebe, Little Egret and Magpies. Not bad for a dirty, polluted piece of river, and well worth a stroll on a rainy day

Keith gets his cape out

Another Cycale trip, and 6 of us cycled about 35 miles through deepest Suffolk from Diss to Stowmarket. It was one of Nigel's routes, so that meant plenty of pub stops

Keith was with us on this one, so that meant and endless supply of inadvertently comic material courtesy of our nearly crowned Cycale Supremo. He began the day by announcing that he had pumped up BOTH his rear tyres, before completely misunderstanding Matt's request for some lube and offering him something inappropriate.

First stop was the Bell at Rickinghall

Then on to the Dun Cow at Bardwell, a Greene King pub with a "beer festival" consisting of three beers that weren't Greene King

Next was our lunch stop, the excellent Greyhound at Ixworth, a curry for myself and Keith and an enormous fry up for the others. However, the highlight of the pub was the inexplicably rare Greene King XX Mild, one of my favourite beers. Greene King may well be the least popular brewery in the country, with a reputation for buying up and asset stripping other breweries while retaining the "brand", as well as brewing rather bland beers, but XX Mild is a fantastic beer.

Next up was the Fox and Hounds at Thurston

 As we left Thurston it started raining, ordinarily not good news on a bike ride. However, with Keith in the group this was a moment to savour. Cycling with Keith in the rain can only mean one thing - Keith might get his cape out, with all the comic possibilities of one of the most ridiculous garments ever seen on two wheels. Keith, to his credit, is a man seemingly without any sense of embarrassment, and he didn't let us down. The only disappointment was that he didn't manage to accidentally set fire to it, as happened on a previous ride. Here it is in all it's glory.

 The Five Bells at Rattlesdon was my favourite of the day - a proper village pub, full of locals with Earl Soham Gannet Mild at £2.40 a pint.

Then on to the Kings Arms at Stowmarket for a quick half before getting the train home - an excellent day.

As the Cycale year comes to an end, I'm in a bit of a dilemma - I'm the inaugural winner of this coveted trophy, the Cycale Puncture of the Year Award

I was presented this in recognition of simultaneously getting a puncture and falling off on last year's Norwich ride, and it's my responsibility to present it to this year's winner. The trouble is, there haven't actually been any decent punctures on any official cycale rides this year, so I'm struggling to find a new recipient. I may just have to keep it for another year.

It's Challenge application time

For the umpteenth time, I've filled in one of these - it's The Great Outdoors Challenge application form

I first filled in one of these forms in 1996, and I've filled one in every year since.

It's difficult to explain the magic of the Challenge, and why it's dominated our lives since we first took part in 1998, but I'll have a go.

The Challenge is a self-supported backpacking event that takes place in Scotland every May. Each year, over the second weekend in May, about 300 people set off on foot from 12 start points on the West coast of Scotland, and independently walk to the East coast over the next two weeks, having planned and devised their own routes. That's really all there is to it, although actually there is so much more. We walk together or separately, we follow the same routes or different routes, we walk at different speeds and walk different distances, we follow summits or valleys, and walk on tracks, roads, paths or cross country through bog or heather. We cross rivers, we wild camp in the most remote spots and stay in the most luxurious hotels. We endure heatwaves, snow and torrential rain, and enjoy glorious days in the most beautiful landscapes. We go days without seeing anyone, and carry our food and shelter on our backs. And it's our holiday.

Most of all, the Challenge is about the people who take part. We are an eccentric bunch (a bit like CAMRA people!!), of all shapes, sizes and ages, and mostly grey of beard and hair. When I completed my first Challenge in 1998 I was 34, and was one of the youngest taking part. Next year, on my thirteenth Challenge, I shall be 50 and I will still be one of the youngest taking part. The Challenge is an event that is growing old disgracefully, and all of us keep coming back year after year, for as long as we can.

Between us, Joke and myself have completed 21 Challenges (23 if you count the truncated event of the foot and mouth year) and I'm immensely proud that neither of us have ever failed to complete the walk. We have enjoyed countless Challenge reunions in Derbyshire, Scotland and Holland, and we got married in Montrose at the end of a Challenge. The event has immeasurably enriched our lives, for which I am most grateful, and my application form is in the post.

dunwich heath

Another trip to Dunwich Heath this week, our third of the year, and almost certainly our last camping trip of the year.

The camp site at Dunwich Heath is reassuringly familiar, and our routine on these trips rarely changes - an hour or so of driving (it actually takes longer to load up the car with camping gear and bikes than it takes to get there), usually on a Sunday, a quick drink in the pub, put the tent up, a stroll through the heath to the National Trust tea shop, then back to the tent for dinner and a bottle of wine. However, disaster struck at dinner time - I'd forgotten the custard. So, we had our traditional camping pudding of fruit cake and custard, without the custard, which wasn't quite the same.

Invariably, it's a cream tea at the tea shop

and the walk back through the Suffolk heathland never disappoints, especially in the autumnal riot of colour courtesy of the heather and gorse

The setting of the camp site is exceptional - pitching in well established woodland, and literally just a few steps away from the beach

Next day, we had a gentle cycle ride down to Aldeburgh and back, stopping off at the the tea shop at Thorpeness on the way, complete with crocodile

Normally, I'd take exception to  a lump of metal being dumped on an otherwise pristine beach, but "Scallop" at Aldeburgh is rather impressive - sort of Suffolk's version of the Angel of the North

After a brief wander around the Aldeburgh shops (my attention span with shops is less than minimal), we cycled back to Thorpeness for beer at the Dolphin

then on to the rather fantastic Eels Foot at Easthorpe for a pint of Gunhill

Then back to Dunwich Heath, having stocked up on custard at the shop at Leiston.

The pictures below show that the new tent is particularly spacious. In fact, it's rather too spacious at present, a result of me accidentally taking the inner tent to the dump the other day while clearing out the loft. I did check with Joke before taking it, and she positively identified it as belonging to an old tent that we hadn't used for years, and that it was OK to throw it out. OH NO IT WASN'T!! and I really should have checked

So, we now have a brand new £500 tent with no sleeping compartment. I'm currently waiting on the very nice people at Vango to tell me if they can supply a replacement inner. Fingers crossed...

Incredibly, after decades of problem free camping, this was our second tent disaster of the year. Our trip to Derbyshire in April was cut short, when, on a not particularly windy day, our previous tent blew down. It was an especially poor quality Blacks tent with flimsy fibre glass poles, purchased by Joke for no other reason than it had "integrated lighting" (this consisted of four fairy lights on a length of wire), and had shown tendencies to flap about in the wind on previous trips. On this occasion, one of the guy lines snapped, causing a domino effect of more broken guy lines and snapped poles. It's actually incredibly difficult to rescue a car load of gear from a hideously distorted and flapping tent that's designed to be six feet tall, but is actually now only two feet off the ground. I'd seen this happen to other people, and always assumed it couldn't happen to me - how wrong I was. To make matters worse, we had an appreciative audience of bemused looking Duke of Edinburgh Award youth, just to maximise my embarrassment  Our old tent was last seen residing in a skip just outside Bakewell, and the new one is MUCH more sturdy, albeit with an important part now residing in a skip in Colchester.

Day three was our traditional walk to Southwold and back. Our route is always the same, through the woods, past the ruined windmill, over the heathland and the golf course to Southwold.

On arrival at Southwold, our routine is familiar. I buy a paper and a pie, and sit on bench reading and eating while Joke peruses overpriced shoe shops, happy in the knowledge that she hasn't got any money on her and so can't actually buy anything. She then returns from the overpriced shoe shop, enthusing about some "bargain" footwear, we return to the shop, look in the window, I point out that said footwear is "hideous", and we go for lunch. Happy days.

This time lunch was in the excellent Lord Nelson, an enormous coronation chicken sandwich and a pint of Gunhill.

On our way back, unusually, we took the ferry across the river at Walberswick, a bargain 90p to be rowed across, saving about a mile and a half of walking, before stopping at the Bell

Then back to Dunwich village, for dinner at the Ship and a walk back to the tent in the dark, then home the next day