I know I said I wouldn’t post every day, but tonight, sitting in a warm pub in Old Warden, Bedfordshire, home of the world-renowned Shuttleworth collection of vintage aeroplanes which I’ll visit tomorrow, I couldn’t resist this one, of dinner this evening on a wing and a perhaps even a prayer. I’m preparing to camp … Read more …
Blog Posts
Up and Away
So, the journey begins. Forty miles north-east from Cirencester to friends near Banbury, and neither wind nor rain, nor even hills proved as challenging as I persuaded myself to expect. Averaging just eight miles an hour, progress across Europe will be slow – heading for Cambridge tomorrow, then Harwich, Hook of Holland, Munster, Bielefeld, Hanover, … Read more …
Forecast of 45mph headwinds – why am I doing this?
With departure set for the day after tomorrow, just 36 hours away, I was amused trawling old photos to find this first recorded evidence of my passion for spoked wheels. I guess I’m under a year on the left, and about three on the trike on right. The photos will have been taken in the summers … Read more …
One week left, Raven packed – and ready to star in The Standard
So, Raven is readied, panniers, tent and bags test-mounted and photographs taken for an article on the pending adventure scheduled for next Thursday’s local Standard newspaper in the Cotswolds. Fame at last… Below right is how my study looked with everything piled up in one great heap before being packed. (Note that Myshkin, aka Wussum … Read more …
Fundraising progress (£1500 and rising!) and the elasticity of time
Two weeks today, and I’m off. Blimey. Moscow, Beijing and beyond beckon, and nerves both emotionally and physically seem to be charging up, as I bid farewell to my very-nearly-85-year-old Mum (on the right at Braunston last weekend having a go at the tiller of our narrowboat the Molly May), and both greet and also … Read more …
26 days to go: Client endings & sobering reminder why maybe best to have quit journalism
With a rapidly closing 26 days to go until I pedal into the sunrise (going East, after all), three things to muse about in this weekend’s blog: The ending (at least for now) of the work of therapy during this coming week with some 20 brave individuals who’ve sat in that green chair in the … Read more …
One month to go, and thanks for generous donations…
One month tomorrow, Wednesday April 4th, the journey begins – reminding me of setting off four years ago this month on my so far longest, 4000-mile, round trip to Budapest, and of the nervous thrill of the first day’s journey across (picture l.) Salisbury Plain with its unexploded bombs. “Danger – do not leave the … Read more …
Raven – a Thorn bicycle made for the longest of distances
Cycling over to Stroud for my penultimate psychotherapy supervision session before heading off on (change of date) Wednesday April 4 prompted thoughts about a) the (at least temporary) ending of therapy for so many of my clients at once, and at a time not of their choosing, and b) the bike I’ll be using to … Read more …
Peking’s English Corner
I thought I had much better photographs of this wonderful corner of one of Beijing’s parks, where students and other enthusiasts for English would gather every Sunday to practice their skills on each other, and especially on anyone actually from the English-speaking world. Whenever I felt depressed by and about China, I would go to the … Read more …
Selection of China Features ’84-’86
On this page, I’ll list clickable links to a selection of serious, heavyweight, and very much less so, radio features from the first couple of years in Beijing, when I was trying to capture the normality of Chinese life. It all went down rather well with Radio Four, and especially the Today Programme, which – … Read more …