Day zero

 It was my fault, really. I woke up at 3am and heard the rain thundering on our roof, and imagined the state of the motorways. We were on the road by 5:15. As you drive through towns at that time, the only other people on the road are those who work anti social hours. Your brain functions enough for you to be classified as conscious but really you are asleep. Thus, we aquaplained our way south and woke up somewhere around Nottingham. 

It was a long day. We left the car in Southampton with Ron and Anthea who are friends of my parents. It is spending the next three weeks on the road opposite their house where we trust it will behave. Ron and Anthea gave us a lunch which was exactly what we could have hoped for and even offered to drive us to the ferry port in Portsmouth but by now the sun was out. We wanted to see if we could still do this. Cycling a fully loaded tandem is much trickier and it seemed good to iron out any teething problems in dear old blighty. Waving goodbye to Ron and Anthea and the car, we set off.

The ride to Portsmouth was a mere 20 miles but full of technical demands. We ducked and dived and bobbed and weaved our way along cycled lanes, main roads (where we had to) tracks, housing estates, quiet lanes, graffiti ridden underpasses, bridges and anything else cycleable. We arrived at the port characteristically early. Some people are always late, some are impressively on time and some are early. We are the latter...

The sun was still out and I found myself realising that I was realising a dream. I have longed to be one of those weirdos who turns up at a port armed with nothing more than a bike and here I am. And so is Kate!

It's now the next morning. I have all day to write a blog, as you can tell. The boat gets in to Bilbao tomorrow morning. Kate will remain horizontal for pretty well the entire trip as it's the only way she can cope with sea travel. I shall potter along to the restaurant for the odd coffee and spend the rest of the time wondering whether my computer will work in a foreign land or if our only means of navigation will be the sun...

Us with Ron and Anthea
Setting off. You can see that the car has already started to sulk...

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