Devastated

Yesterday was a day of great disappointment. After only just making it to Lockerbie the day before, I think I had gone beyond the limit of what the tendons in my knee could handle. No quantity of frozen sweetcorn and anti-inflammatory pills could fix it. I had made it all the way from Warrington to Lockerbie nursing it, but it was having no more. I only managed about 2 miles out of Lockerbie yesterday morning, taking about 45 minutes to do it. I even tried pedalling with just my left leg, but that was literally getting me nowhere.

It eventually became apparent that I was not going to make it to John O’Groats with my knee in its current state. I was devastated. After the euphoria of reaching Scotland the night before, and with something like 600 miles behind us, I had never been so eager to finish. I was feeling fitter than Cornwall too; all this exercise had done me some good. In that moment I felt helpless. In Cornwall I felt like I might not be physically fit enough to make it, but at least then I could push through the tiredness and pain, but now with every pedal stroke I could feel my knee evaporating underneath me. I didn’t have any strength in my knee to push with it, and even the motion of the pedal was excruciating.

I think we spent over an hour at the side of the road, in the middle of nowhere, contemplating what to do next. I was determined to finish, but I was never going to make it there in the week remaining. We decided that Dan would carry on and finish it now, and I would come back. At the very least I will come back and finish the stint from Lockerbie, but I am also determined to do the whole thing again, and in less time. I felt so good knowing that I had made it to Scotland, and want to get that same feeling knowing I have made it all the way to John O’Groats myself, maybe doing it in something faster like 12 days. I am determined to make that very generous £3k that people have given feel deserved, and this will not be my only attempt.

After much dilly dallying around, the slow walk back to Lockerbie, and the arrival of a hire car to take my bike, Dan was able to make it Moffat that night. In order to catch up with schedule, he had about 75 miles to cover today to Striling, starting off by tackling the first Scottish mountains. To add to his misery, today was a day of diversions. 3 times Dan was sent on extended routes to avoid closed roads, which appear to be commonplace today. Arrival at our accommodation was rather late as a result – 8pm we rocked up.

We arrived to find no management, just another hopeful guest looking to find somewhere to stay. Maybe our latish arrival was to blame, but this guesthouse appeared to missing out on some business. Working our way into the hallway, Dan went on walkabout (an aboriginal term for an extended trip through the bush – or so our MENSA quiz book tells us)* to look for a Mr and Mrs Fawlty, but only found other bemused guests looking to return their breakfast slips and empty bedrooms.

Other passersby came and went responding to the vacancies sign outside, before Mrs Fawlty arrived with her shopping. We were shown to our room (in a different house to the B&B), given our keys (before swiftly having some of them taken off us because she had lost her own front door key) and given a breakfast selection at 9:30pm, to be returned no later than 9pm. We are now however safely tucked up in bed, looking forward to another day of painful cycling for Dan, and peculiar jealously for me.

With regret, Will

*This MENSA quiz book, has filled our time with many delights during the wasted hours of our trip, has also come out with a couple more comic gems. In the easy section of Food and Drink, we were asked ‘What is an Aubergine’. The correct answer was ‘A vegetable or Aubergine’. Also, apparently the currency in Belgium before the introduction of the Euro was... the Euro. I am not sure MENSA is all that it is cracked up to be.