All those who believe in this blog, clap your hands.
….

Hmm, can’t hear you.

ALL THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN THIS BLOG, CLAP YOUR HANDS!
…..

Ah. Did I hear the sound of at least one hand clapping? If so, the meditative part of this journey must be working. (Obscure Buddhist reference…)

It’s good to be seriously on the road and seriously, sort of, blogging again. And I hope there are at least of a couple of folk out there reading these musings…. I know Hugs is, which is great.

Today, I was going for the 100 miles-in-one-day from north of Katowice west towards Wroclaw, nice and flat, very lush and green though a bit boring, when at a pretty respectable 85 miles I chanced upon a brand new Agro-Tourist family who’ve together just rebuilt their family barn into B&B rooms and holiday flats.

Family Brzozka, email brzozka,m@wp.pl, in Chocianowice. Highly to be recommended. So I have happily stopped for Polish sausage and beer, a good wash, stimulating conversation in German (for this is former German territory and the Brzozkas are proudly Teutonic) and a perfect pitch for my tent. Picture tomorrow.

Today’s pic in contrast is of last night’s tent stop, generously hosted by Alina and Slawek in Wojkowice, with very full breakfast (yes, sausages) thrown in for free… As illustrated. As I said in an earlier blog, people are, on the whole and everywhere, just great, and thanks to them both.

The wonderful thing about cycling like this – with what the Poles delightfully call a Rover, their word for bike (so much easier than Kerekpar in Hungarian) – is just trusting that miracles will happen. And they do, every night, with the most warming encounters, and always somewhere safe and welcoming to stay. Probably helps that I’m travelling alone

Rode today through Jasna Gora in Czestochowa, Poland’s main pilgrimage site and famously, repeatedly, visited by Pope Jan Pawel Drugy, aka John Paul 2.

And boy, are Popes and Poles Catholic. The chapel of the Black Madonna in the picture above was heaving with young First Commumicands and their familes, as indeed every church in Poland, many of them vast, seems to heave as I pass with worshippers all day, every day. Communism never had the slightest chance here.

And finally – rather too many long boring main roads, as in the background to the final picture. But the foreground illustrates what happens to Brooks saddles when they’re been seriously worn in, as Raven’s now has.

Soft, supple, much richer and deeper colour. And comfortable as anything, perfectly shaped for this one cyclist’s bum. Compare and contrast if you’re curious with pictures in the archives at the bottom of this blog (appropriate place…)

Nothing like 2500 miles/3500 kms of gentle, sweaty massage to break the leather in. A saddle for a lifetime.

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