Yes, the wonderful cycling and feeling good about the world couldn’t last forever. Payback time. Some of the wettest April weather the region around Geneva has experienced for decades, and getting soaked two days running has landed me with the mother of all colds.

But thank the universe for Bob and Doodie Evans here in Geneva – my first Reuter bureau chief and his spirited Irish wife from mid-70s Moscow who have swept and warmed me up, filled me with good food and cold remedies, ready to, yes, take the train to Berne tomorrow to meet up with another old Moscow friend Clare aka Julia Slater.

The picture here by the way is the fabulous view today of Mont Blanc from the Evans’ flat just across the border from Geneva into France. Yes, you have to look quite hard to see anything other than cloud and rain. In fact, rain and cloud is all there is.

I will come back to the question of why one does this kind of thing in the next few days. Blogging perhaps as well as cycling ridiculous distances in the first place. Tricia Worsnip just says I’m incorrigble. Yes, guilty as charged, but it goes of course deeper than that as well. And in extremis, as in, terrible weather, I’m flexible about taking a short train trip. So maybe a bit corrigible after all.

And as for rain gear, Mary Self in Wales reminds me of what her cycling-addicted husband Richard says about weather. There’s no such thing as bad weather. Only bad clothing. How Right. She’s also had some wise words on the soul symbolism of the physical journey, but back to that later.

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