Sailing In Andorra

I'm officially over the hill. I don't mean that I'm in my forties and knackered, though that's true as well, but I have conquered what will probably be my highest peak of the entire three year ride - the Envalira pass to get from France to Andorra. At over 2,400 metres it takes some pedalling. And I didn't see a single other tourer on either side of the hill, just Tour de France types with their big, soppy, helium-filled bikes and total lack of luggage, something that made me feel good and filled me with a sense of smugness usually only granted to Tory MPs.

I didn't know what to expect of Andorra. When I posted my, erm, slightly negative comments about pointless Liechtenstein, I remember someone on Facebook saying that Andorra is just the same but higher. But he or she was very, very wrong. Andorra is absolutely gorgeous. It could be the delirium of getting to the top of the hill that made me think that, but I don't think so. It's just endless vistas of beauty. And of Andorra la Vella, the capital, I was expecting three houses and a dog, but it's a fantastic, bustling, little city situated in a natural bowl, with the Pyrenees on all sides.

I like it when I turn up somewhere new and I have someone to meet. On this trip I've met some great people. I've told you about some of 'em. But I met one of my favourites, Clare, the most inspiring, wonderful woman I've probably ever encountered, in Andorra. To look at her, she seems like any other 65 year old woman, but bloody hell has she had an amazing life? And she has the energy of a busload of 18 year old girls with firecrackers in their pants. She's driven across Asia, and sailed to everywhere except Jupiter, and has a million stories to tell. Her husband, a spritely if now slightly deaf 95 year old called Edward, is also a legend. He started sailing when he was six years old and continued into his early nineties. He's been around the world more times than the moon. I wanted to suck his sailing knowledge out of his head with a straw, but I suspect it wouldn't have helped his hearing.

People like Clare amass friends in the way that most of us amass bills - effortlessly - and she introduced me to several interesting ones, including an OU student called Kirsty, and Cathy, a motivational speaker, who's climbed Everest from both sides. That afternoon Clare was volunteering as an interpreter for non-Catalan speakers at the local, immaculately maintained hospital. She took me along for a look around. She introduced me to a British patient there and said, "This is Steven. He's just cycled over Envalira today. Can you imagine that?" I smiled. "Yes, I can," she replied. "A friend of mine does it every year when he comes to see us. He's seventy." My smugness withered and died.

I've tried hard to get my Mum online. She dabbles with the internet but it doesn't come easy. I didn't even bother with my Dad. But both Clare and Edward are computer demons. I showed him UGRIB, a freeware application for downloading global weather data, something unimaginable when he was sailing. To see him on the PC made me want to shake my Dad and say, "Look how much fun you can have with a computer!" But, if my Dad did use it, I know he'd only end up downloading naked pictures of Ann Widdecombe.

I stayed the night at Clare and Edward's. Their living room is stunning, with large windows that frame the mountain views around them. I would have loved to have stayed longer and heard more stories, but Clare was off to the UK the next day with an absolutely mental itinerary, seeing about four hundred different friends in a week that involved driving about two thousand miles. I spent less than twenty four hours in her company but I felt like I'd known her all my life. They've both written a handful of books about their sailing experiences. I'll hunt them out when I get home and get my stories that way.

So, if there is a God, which there isn't, but never mind, as I enter my sixties, please give me Clare's energy. And as I approach my mid-nineties, please can I have Edward's mental capacity? Hell, give it to me now. Half of it will do. OK then, a quarter. Just do what you can, God.

Smell My Finger, and other Christmas games

Christmas has been a mixed bag as far as preparation for the ride is concerned. On the one hand I received my own portable library in the form of a Kindle but on the other hand my foot nearly fell off.

The Kindle is mightily impressive but it's not without its problems. The screen with its magnetic ink is absolutely gorgeous and the clarity is amazing. But it has to be. The text within Open University PDF course books has a font size of about five points. Honestly. I was trying to work out what a word said the other day and it turned out to be a dead ant. If this blog suddenly dries up halfway around Europe, it's because I've gone blind. And although most pages turn in a second or so, page 32 of S283's An Introduction to Astrobiology took over four minutes! Now, page 32 is a lovely page but it's not worth waiting that long. Admittedly, without it I'd have no idea what a bilayer vesicle is but, now that I come to think of it, I'm still not entirely sure. But, on the plus side, the battery lasts for ages and if it can even temporarily replace my laptop for reading OU stuff then that means less time recharging batteries in one-star hotels and more time wild camping. So the Kindle may work wonders for my pocket, although perhaps not for my body odour.

The foot incident came about as a result of my family's ridiculous competitiveness. Christmas Day isn't a time for telly in our house. No, it's a time for games, and lots of 'em. Both my brother Dave and I had organized our own family Christmas quizzes. His was a straightforward question and answer game whereas mine included rounds such as Smell My Finger and another based on a former Lloyd Grossman show, which I called Through The Bumhole. The rules of Smell My Finger were easy; each contestant had to tell me what my hand smelled of. Despite familial concerns that loading my fingers for this round was going to involve sexually abusing my brother's dog Britney, in the end I plumped for the less deviant odour of salami. My dad went first, took a deep sniff of my forefinger and decided that it was aftershave, which is a bit worrying but at least explains why Britney loves him so much. Through The Bumhole involved identifying celebrities by photos of their arses. Unsurprisingly, everyone correctly guessed J-Lo's, but Ann Widdecombe's was more of a challenge. Next year I'll have to make it harder and make sure that they're clothed instead.

Anyway, after our two quizzes, and following in the footsteps of his dad, my twelve year old nephew Conor decided to do a gameshow of his own. This involved everyone thrusting his or her hand into the Bag of Doom and pulling out a number. Whoever selected the unlucky number three was then forced to undergo some stupid challenge. I lucked out and was the first to receive trial by snowball, right down the inside-back of my new Christmas jumper. This was pretty tame stuff compared to later items on Conor's deathlist. Dave was next, and his involved lying in the front garden for thirty seconds stripped to the waist in the snow. He took his position and started counting. Surfing a wave of Jack Daniels, I decided that what Dave needed more than anything in the world right then was to have extra snow kicked on top of him too. (Around here they call that "teabagging" but I'm pretty sure this means something else entirely where you are.) In my haste to cover him, I stood awkwardly on a rock, heard a tearing sound in my foot and then danced around the garden like a Native American. The game was abandoned after that. It was just as well because the third challenge involved a bear trap and a can of petrol.

So, for the rest of Christmas, I'll mostly be confined to the sofa with a swollen foot, but at least I have my Kindle to entertain me. Well, I will if it ever finishes loading page bloody 33.

Being mad

Since I first mentioned this trip to family, friends and online OU students, my sanity has from time to time been questioned. I know that these accusations are made with a tongue in cheek, but there's something worrying about proposing an idea and then being told: "You must be mad". Have I made a mistake? Have I underestimated what's involved? If I'd suggested eating a tree or indulging in a session of heavy petting with Ann Widdecombe then these people might have had a point but I haven't. It's just a bike ride. Yes, it's a thirty thousand kilometre bike ride, but it's still just a bike ride.

Some long distance cyclists however clearly do believe that they are mental. One of the best websites for cycling blogs is www.crazyguyonabike.com, originally set up by, well, a guy on a bike who thought himself crazy. Some people revel in the idea of their own insanity. They love nothing more than to think that they're utterly, toad-lickingly bonkers. But I've yet to meet a self-confessed madman who was anything more than a bit wacky. Real loonies tend not to know that they're barking. No, they think that they're Napoleon, or they're Scientologists.

Y'see, I'm not mad. I'm the sanest person here. The nutty ones are those who say that they'd love to do something like this (or some other type of adventure), but then never get around to it. They get old, and by then it's too late to do anything useful. And then they die. Or they enter the House of Lords.

Personally I think it's more insane to sell your finite existence to a company you hate, to work with people who get right on your areolae and to slowly decompose in traffic for an hour in each direction just for the privilege. Of course everyone needs to earn some money but in this short life you get what you settle for and if you're in a job that makes you want to take an AK47 to your co-workers, or if you're not enjoying the majority of your life for whatever reason, then it's you who's off your rocker. But of course you can change all that. Go on, buy a bike. Or an AK47.

So now that we've established that I'm not mad, I can tell you the details of my next charity venture. Yes, you've guessed it. After a lunch of deep-fried elm, I'm going to indulge in a session of heavy petting with Ann Widdecombe. Tongue in cheek? Only if she asks nicely.

Toodle pip!