Fyne Tyne to Rhine - 2

Our rail journey to the ferry in Newcastle was stressful as we had expected. Three separate trains and fitting the bikes into each one's storage space was a challenge, either because the doors are too narrow or else because a group of Canadian tourists had dumped their enormous suitcases in the bike storage area. The final train from Edinburgh to Newcastle required us to hang one bike from a hook in a small cupboard then squeeze the other one alongside it. Then having arrived in Newcastle we had to push our bikes over a bridge to get from one platform to another and reach the station exit. The forty minute ride from there to the ferry terminal was quite straightforward after all that and thankfully a calm sea journey was what we hoped for and we got it.

The motion of our ferry as it sailed across the North Sea could barely be felt inside our cosy cabin.

Having eaten our breakfast on board we were ready for off as soon as the ship docked. This part of the route we had ridden last year so we knew that just a few minutes ride from the ferry terminal was a National Park with a completely traffic free cycle path through some amazing woodland. It was easy to find the start but there was one change we hadn't expected - the Highland cattle.

These creatures are released into the woodland as an efficient means of managing the undercroft with no human intervention. We first caught sight of these enormous beasts as they ambled along the path in front of us so we simply stopped to let them pass. They presented no danger as they were clearly used to humans, on bikes or otherwise, and they didn't seem to mind having their picture taken either.

After the woodland came a long stretch of riding through the dunes (part of Holland's sea defences) and the highlight of the day came as we stopped for lunch beside the twisty cycle path.

Whilst pausing to eat the pears we had snaffled from the breakfast bar on the ferry we noticed a woolly caterpillar scrambling over the sandy soil and when I offered him the end of my pear he stopped for a big lunch before eventually staggering off again. My knowledge of the Dutch caterpillar language is rather limited so I missed hearing his words of thanks.

Less pleasant for us was the cool wind blowing against us as we rode  down the coast.

Holland may be very flat but a headwind has the same effect as a hill when you are riding and by the time we reached our accomodation for the night we both felt done in. Hendrina, whose house it was, made us very welcome and showed us to our attic bedroom. We have stayed in many Dutch homes, most of which have high ceilings and tall doors because Dutch people are generally taller than other humans. One consequence of this is that the staircases inside are much steeper than we are used to, sometimes frighteningly so, and much care is needed, particularly when descending.

There was a lot of rain in the night but by the time we set off riding  through the dunes again it had stopped.

The few straight sections on the path may seem like a motorway at first glance until one fits in some cyclists to give it perspective.

The odd shower did little to discourage us and by late afternoon we had found our next Vrienden house in a place outside of the city of Den Haag called 'Monster'. Again we were made welcome by the house owners despite their being distracted by the imminent birth of their latest grandchild at a house not far away. By morning their new family member had arrived safely and we bid them farewell as we rode off towards Rotterdam.

Fyne Tyne to Rhine - 1

As the start of our holiday adventure in Holland approaches we feel the urge to prepare our bodies as best we can when a day of sunshine beckons. An air temperature barely above our agreed cycling minimum, eight degrees C, is enough to coax us onto our bikes for a training ride.

We bring the bikes inside for a good clean then drive with them to Ardrishaig. We unload, batteries are attached, helmets fixed on our heads and off we go, crossing the main road to rise up to the Crinan Canal towpath. We have some sandwiches with us plus something to drink and we know from doing this ride previously that by following the canal towpath we will not be faced with anything resembling a hill. Better still, the wind is blowing from behind us so riding is effortless, no electric power is needed as our bikes are light enough to pedal easily on the flat. We are hardly out of breath.

When we are close to Crinan at the end of the canal the towpath is closed due to repairs to fix a breach in the canal itself but a short detour on the road takes us into the village where there is a snack bar waiting for us and we can refresh ourselves with coffee and a piece of cake. Here we meet another cyclist who is clearly contemplating going down the electric bike route and we chat with him on the merits of our machines. After we leave, another diversion tempts us to ride up to the Beaver Centre, located beside a small loch above the canal. Beavers were released here some years ago and they are now a tourist attraction for those brave enough to risk the loch side path in the dark when the animals emerge. We are not there to observe them, however, merely to learn more about them and eat our sandwiches for lunch. The ride back along the canal to Ardrishaig is upwind (of course) and by the time we arrive back we are grateful that cycling is done for the day. Distance run: Maybe a little over twenty miles.

For our next training ride we decide to attempt the 'West Loch Lomond Cycle Path' which runs between a busy main road and the loch for a large part of its length. We soon discover that this path is poorly maintained and only casually signposted. The broken surface of the first section is very close to the road and we swerve about dangerously to avoid the stones, the soft muddy bits and the rubbish that is strewn everywhere. Sadly from here on nothing changes and after riding some 15 miles we give up and return to the start. How on earth this can be promoted as a safe route for cyclists is hard to understand and by the time we arrive back at our start my rear tyre has been punctured by riding over a sharp piece of rubbish. Distance: around thirty miles of horrible riding.

After a day's rest we find ourselves riding again, this time a local run to Kilberry, a village some fifteen miles away from home along a single coastal track road.

This is a ride we have done before so we know what to expect in terms of hills, some of which are quite vicious. It is a quiet road and thankfully most of the car drivers we meet are kind enough to wait for us at one of the many passing places along the way. The road surface is far from perfect but after our recent Loch Lomond experience this is nothing we can't cope with. Our only disappointment is that the roadside 'Cake Shed' we pass on the way back is empty - baking normally taking place on a Friday.

As I write this we have just a few days to go before our departure yet strangely we seem to have a lot of things planned right up to the last day. Just two days before we leave is the Kintyre Ultra, a marathon running event in which competitors tackle a route which takes them through some of the wildest parts of the Kintyre peninsula and which for the past few years we have assisted by manning one of the check points.

This time we were at Grianain, just north of the village of Carradale, where we were on duty with plenty of fresh drinking water and snacks for those who needed it. For us it is simply a matter of checking the competitors as they come through and topping up the bottles of those who wanted it but was also a day that took our minds off the process of packing our bike panniers and other bags with all our life's needs for the foreseeable future.

At least the 'getting to the station' part of our grand tour is nicely arranged. We have a  friend whose car can carry our bikes and our luggage in exchange for which we are 'babysitting' by picking up her children from school on a day when she is working. Our train tickets are now all booked, the ferry crossing being organised months ago, so for the first time we can focus upon where we will be staying for our first and then subsequent nights in Holland.

Here is how it works.
With a map of Holland in front of us we start by estimating how far we can cycle on the first day after we disembark from the ferry at around nine in the morning. We have the experience of last year's grand tour behind us so we are fairly confident of being able to ride some thirty or forty kilometres in a day, stretching this out with rests and lunch stops so as to arrive at our destination towards the end of the day. From the ferry terminal in Ijmuiden we will ride south, along the coast, which puts the town of Noordwijk within reach. Next we fire up the Vrienden op de Fiets website and load the map page to see what is on offer. We randomly choose one address, a vrienden member's house which might be available for that day, and send off an email, introducing ourselves as fellow members of this amazing community. We are thrilled and delighted to receive a reply just fifteen minutes later saying we are welcome and giving us a suggested arrival time. It does not always happen this quickly but this is the process we shall be following all the way across Holland, making bookings one day at a time just a few days ahead.

'Bikepacking' seems to be a term used by touring cyclists who camp out overnight. We use it to describe the process of carefully squeezing all our belongings into our panniers, checking off each item from the long lists we have been building up.

We set aside a full day for this process then finally the day of our departure arrived and we stuffed everything into our friend's car for the journey to Arrochar, our nearest rail station. Here we had booked a night in a hotel so we could take an early train the next day, a hotel with luxury bike accomodation, as it turned out.

Algae and smoke

The rather exciting title to this particular blog entry refers, in part, to our garden pond which currently lies beneath a floating carpet of the first part, algae. Heavy rain will sink some of it to the bottom but any sunshine brings it up to the surface again as it has inbuilt buoyancy due, so we are led to believe, to the bubbles of oxygen it extracts from the water. Pond algae is a type of cyanobacteria that absorbs carbon within its structure and it has been used in some countries as a fertilizer, amongst other uses. All of which is very interesting but when it covers the pond to the extent that it prevents any light getting to the creatures and plants that live beneath the water then it is not welcome.

Our garden slopes downwards from the hill behind and shortly after moving in we made the decision to dig a pond part way down the slope. It lies hidden behind an overgrown bank (to the right in this picture) created from the extracted soil. Inevitably though, being part way down a slope, water from the higher ground seeps into the pond which then overflows onto the (rather boggy) area further down. A pond that manages its own water level seemed like a good idea at first but the algae problem has made us realise that something is not quite right.

After discussing this problem with my brother, who I now realise is something of a pond expert having created one in at least three of the last houses he has lived in, a decision has been made to modify our original pond design in the hope that this will reduce the likelihood of algal growth. It seems that algae rather likes the runoff from the higher land as this is full of phosphate laden nutrients so perhaps if this runoff could be diverted in some way before it reached the pond then this might change things. Since the pond water itself is contained within a plastic liner which has stones placed all around the edges to secure it then perhaps by digging a ditch around the upper edge of pond this might divert the runoff elsewhere.

A rare dry day arrives so immediately, digging begins. The ground is very wet from all the recent rain and as soon as the first soil is removed the trench begins to fill with water from the land above it. This is water that would previously have found its way into the pond and even as the digging progresses water slides slowly along the bottom of the new trench. This shows that there is sufficient slope for the runoff and we make use of an old piece of drainage pipe to help prevent blockages and some leftover bits of decking timber to form a walkway over it. At this point the new trench is completely full of water and it even starts to overflow lower down onto an area below the pond. 

Clearly all the ground around the pond is completely sodden so the trenching is extended a little further on the opposite side too where the slope goes in a different direction. All in all this represents just a few hours hard labour but I am pleased to say the end result is...well not as bad as I expected.

As a finale I scoop up as much of the algae from the surface of the pond as I can, being careful to return to the water any animal life that gets caught up in the net. Dragonfly nymphs have been living there for some years now, the parents returning to mate each year at the end of summer before laying their eggs, so I pick these little creatures out of the net before pouring away the jelly-like algae.

By lunch time the rain has started, putting a stop to my garden activities, but the next day is very wet and windy which gives me an opportunity to see how the pond modifications are coping. The initial ditch is completely full but it needs somewhere lower down for the water to go so I cut a narrow channel to carry away the overflow and this allows the level of water in my trench to drop below the pond water level. The solution is clearly far from perfect as it is simply dug into the soil and will not last long in its present form but if it discourages the algal growth then we can create a more permanent solution in due course.

This is not, however, the only garden work we have been engaged in. On an earlier rain free day we both spent time outdoors, my aim being to incinerate the pile of gorse bits that I had been removing from the wild land beyond our garden fence.

Gorse is a highly volatile plant but the smoke generated by my fire was largely due to the recent rain which had soaked my pile of gorsey clippings. None of our neighbours had washing out so thankfully there were no complaints.

This will not, however, be the last time the incinerator gets used. There is much more to come from all the gorse and rhododendron we are cutting back from close to our rear garden fence. Clearing this has revealed and given daylight to a handful of small birch saplings, a small rowan and some young hollies, clearly the offspring of a taller well established tree. All these young trees were previously in the shade of the gorse which grew taller each year so they are seeing the light of day for the first time thanks to my hard work.

The land from which all this growth is being cleared is beyond our boundary fence which does raise the question as to whether we are doing the right thing by managing land that does not belong to us. Who, indeed, does it belong to? One could ask the same question about much of Scotland's wilder places, land that lies beyond the gardens of those living more remotely, and the answer would likely come down to quite a small number of land owners. Our laws give us the right to roam across such land but they impose little by way of obligations upon such land owners when it comes to caring for the land. The hill beyond our garden fence is now completely unmanaged, even the sheep that grazed there when we first moved in are no longer to be seen, which leaves the many deer free to roam wherever they fancy. We see their fresh droppings in our garden from time to time and they have already taken advantage of the clearing we have created beyond our fence, using it as a daytime resting spot.

The argument we would deploy, were our activities ever to be challenged, is that the presence of the gorse so close to our boundary represents a serious fire risk which the owner of the land was taking no action to reduce. After a long dry spell we have seen wildfires burning locally so we know this is always a possibility and the absence of an established woodland on the hill behind our house (largely due to the many years of sheep grazing) makes it very vulnerable. The upper slopes are covered in gorse shrubs - the bright yellow flowers give them away - but at least those closest to our land are now being cut back due to our efforts.

Cycling for ever

Closer and closer it gets. The day of our departure for another mad cycle touring adventure  approaches and inevitably this focuses our minds upon making sure we have all our ducks in a row. We have a box of 'not to be forgotten' items into which we toss more things from time to time in case when it comes to the final packing we inadvertantly leave something behind. We also watch YouTube videos featuring cyclists touring around Europe to see whether they can provide us with more detail on what to expect on our intended route, or what not to forget. The most recent of these featured someone who forgot to bring his wallet with him and who also left his cycle helmet behind but despite this he still managed to continue and indeed to film the whole journey quite successfully!

One of the main reasons why we choose to travel to Holland for our cycle touring is that the infrastructure has so much more to offer when it comes to cycling on safe, quiet paths and roads. To find this locally we have to transport our bikes some distance away from home by road to a location that has a recognised cycle path then unload them to go for a ride. This has proved quite easy up to now but with recent troubling world events now impacting all motorised forms of travel we find ourselves imagining how we might continue to live the way we want to live in a future world, preferably without moving house to a new location. We have electric bikes and at the present time these are considered by many public transport operators as too dangerous to be carried safely due to the risk of fire should their batteries become damaged. Like so many other things, our news media will focus disproportionately upon instances where the lithium-ion batteries fitted in bikes, scooters and cars have caught fire or exploded and this is used as an excuse even when the risk is very small for a properly made machine. Our local long distance buses will carry bikes in their storage area but not if they are electric, which means we have to use our own vehicle if we want to go off cycling somewhere else.

But what if there was another way, something that defeats the system, perhaps.

We think back in our lives to a time when we were living and working in London and, having made a conscious decision to be car-free, a pair of folding bikes were our means of getting around. We later had them with us whilst living and travelling around Britain on our boat and they gave us the means to move around easily on land close to where we were berthed or moored up. We notice that some of our travelling YouTubers are riding folding bikes, the smaller wheels and a frame that hinges in several places allowing the machine to be collapsed so that it can be fitted inside a bag. At this point, of course, the bike becomes invisible! It is no longer a bike at all - it is merely a piece of luggage. One of the big attractions is that these bikes can be folded up for travel by train or bus then unfolded at the other end and for those living and working in a city the 'foldie' can be easily taken into the office and stashed next to a desk until needed for the journey home.

Then we discover that there are now electric foldies on the market, expensive but practical alternatives to a full-sized bike in some situations. So could one of these perhaps be used where a full sized electric bike is not welcome? Of course as soon as we discover this then YouTube begins to bombard us with videos of travellers using such machines, a feature we suspect some form of artificial intelligence is responsible for, but this soon gets our brains buzzing with ideas on whether we might invest in a couple of electric foldies for ourselves at some point in the future. We note that there is one model in particular that has its battery inside a removable bag, hidden from view and mounted on the front of the bike when in use.

We may live a long way from the nearest train station but we do have long distance buses which we use regularly. So here's how it goes...

We wait at the bus stop with our bikes neatly folded, minus their batteries which we carry in their conveniently small bags slung across our shoulders, a bag similar to what most passengers are carrying. The driver opens the bus storage space and we put the bikes inside. Should he ask whether they are electric (unlikely if the bikes themselves are enclosed in a bag) we can say that they are not, which of course is correct if there are no batteries attached. The perceived risk associated with lithium-ion batteries does not extend to phones, battery packs or other devices which use them nor does it include electric wheelchairs, which have quite large batteries. All these things are allowed to be carried on public transport. The restriction on electric bikes seems to be associated with the risk when carried in the storage area beneath the bus where they could be thrown about in transit resulting in the batteries getting damaged. In this case our batteries would be safely contained in our rather attractive  bags.

At our destination we unload, unfold and reassemble our folded machines then head off on the ride of our choice.

Again, based on those YouTube videos, we learn that these machines, small though they are, can carry considerable luggage on racks at the front and the back which gives us even more wild ideas. We already do shopping trips to distant supermarkets using our buses (travel on which is free for us) so this is really just an extension of the same thinking, one that opens a whole world of possibilities. The possibility of a future cycle touring holiday using public transport has been born, in our minds, if nowhere else. The world we live in is changing, more rapidly than we would like, but unavoidably. Some of these changes are already impacting on our lives - higher fuel prices being the main one that will not go away quickly no matter where our world leaders take us. At present we have a motor caravan, smallish but still a large vehicle and we ask ourselves whether we could manage with a smaller vehicle, perhaps electric. Then we think back to that time when we had no car at all. On the odd occasion when we wanted to venture further afield we might have hired a car but generally we were happy to be car free and it was only when we moved into a house in a remotely located village that our needs changed. This car-less period gives us a background of knowledge and experience which we can apply to our present situation, enabling us to ask the right questions; how would we do our shopping, get to hospital appointments, travel to see the family, get about in the cold of winter and so on.

Are bikes always going to be the answer? Probably not. Age and infirmity will catch up with us some day but if the immediately foreseeable future is what we imagine then our thinking is helping us to prepare. Maybe those reading this will also be encouraged a little too.

First ride of the year

So far, as I start to write this, we have yet to get out and about on our bikes this year as the Spring weather where we live has been either too cold or too wet for us. We seem to be caught in a pattern of weather which shifts randomly between cold squally showers and bright sunshine which bursts through in between. If we leave home with the sun shining then almost certainly there will be torrential rain before we get home. We try to be patient. Surely Summer will soon be here.

Winter has passed, or moved on somewhere else, and our daffodils know that Spring has arrived as they are bobbing their flower heads about in each gust of wind. And there are plenty of them. In fact there seem to be more every year as we view them from the house. On the rare occasion that the wind has abated it has been raining, maybe only a light drizzle but enough to justify us staying indoors. Not that this is where we want to be, far from it. Our bikes are lying idle waiting for us to take them out, and we are keen as ever to bring them into action but cycling in the rain has never been appealing. We might be tempted out and find ourselves caught in a shower but setting off in the wet is not our thing at all. We do get the odd dry day, clear blue sky, which calls us outside to stumble around the garden wrapped up against the cold. Once again the thought of cycling does not enthuse us. The cold air rushing past our bodies, chilling our fingers, making the eyes water and the nose run. Once again, this is not our thing.

Then one day we hear a weather forecast which gives us an idea. We need to do some shopping to top up the food supplies, something we would normally do on foot with a shopping basket on wheels to make the return uphill journey easier. Rain is forecast for later in the day but the morning is sunny, warmth in the sun, and the wind is reasonably light too. We decide, suddenly, that our bikes should take on the mission. We both have panniers which fit easily onto the rear carriers and, of course, we have electric power which we can make use of to ride back up the hill for the journey home. Then, maybe before loading up the bikes with shopping, we think about cycling a little further so we can justify waking the machines from their winter storage. This has become our first ride of the season and it will also be an opportunity to try out our latest bike modification, the handlebar extensions.

We move quickly. The weather forecast gives us a timeline to meet if we want to avoid the rain so we don't hang about. We don some appropriate clothing - light but windproof - fit the panniers then wheel out our machines ready for action. Can we still remember how to ride? Might we have forgotten how to use the gears or the brakes since last year? It seems not. After a quick wobble we are both riding smoothly, chased along our narrow road by an impatient car driver (who we ignore) and soon we are flying down the steep hill to the main road. We swerve across the carriageway so we can turn off to ride alongside the harbour quay then start to relax. Here most of the hazards are pedestrians strolling about in the sunshine, walking their pet dogs or else pushing a pram. What wind there is feels cold on our faces and on any exposed fingers but we press on past our ferry terminal then follow the shore road to its end where there is a viewpoint across the loch. This is our turning point so we dismount here, smiles all over our faces brought on by the experience we have just completed.

We pause there for a chat with a local man who is out for a walk and, so it turns out, is also a keen cyclist. Before we know it we are comparing different ride experiences, both local and further afield. He has yet to experience the joys of cycling in Holland but  understands perfectly why we have chosen this particular day for a ride. He is even perhaps a little envious. But then we recall our mission, which is to do our shopping, so we bid him farewell, remount and ride back into the village. Our local supermarket has recently undergone a complete refurbishment so it is disappointing to discover that there are still no cycle racks outside but after locking the bikes securely to a railing we enter the shop. Our shopping mission doesn't take long and we trolley everything outside so we can transfer what we have bought into the panniers. We can immediately feel the extra weight but set off undeterred back up hill to our house. Some firm pedalling and a boost of electric power is required for the steepest section but we are soon back home, mission accomplished. This short ride has given us so much joy and the new handlebars work well too.

As it turned out the rain held off until mid afternoon in the end. Not that we cared in the slightest. Each day now we study the forecast in detail for the coming days, looking for the next cycling weather window.

Touch Typing

In a conversation recently I was prompted to think back to my time spent at College in my late teenage years. I spent the duration of the course (two years) living in the spare bedroom of an elderly (as I perceived her at the time) lady who would provide me with breakfast together with a meal each night when I returned from my day at college. By coincidence it was during this period that our country changed from imperial to metric coinage; a shilling became ten pence and we lost farthings and halfpennies along the way. My landlady, having been brought up on pounds, shillings and pence, was quite disturbed by this change and I can recall her asking me whether our clocks would also be changing, minutes and seconds becoming decimalised. I hope I gave her the assurance she needed.

As part of my Diploma course I was required to produce a 'thesis', the subject being of my choice but the end product had to be a set length.

It so happened that around this time my parents had bought me a portable typewriter, a heavy clattery thing that went 'ping' each time you got to the end of a line and had to shift the paper to the next row. The positioning of the letter keys, what we now call 'qwerty' after the letters on the top left row, was developed in the 1870s by a man called Christopher Sholes and it was designed to prevent the typewriter levers of character pairs used most often when writing in English from jamming against one another. The layout has broadly survived since then although the French have 'azerty' and the Germans, 'qwertz' to suit their own languages.

If my typewriter still exists it will be on the shelves of a museum somewhere by now and I cannot recall using it much, if at all, after my college course finished. At the time, however, something prompted me to use it to type out my thesis and in doing so I made a decision which still lives with me to this day. Rather than simply pressing the keys with one finger, the simplest way for a non-typist, I deliberately made myself type using all my fingers, each key having a 'correct' finger allocated to it. I forced myself to learn to Touch Type. Thinking back I have no real recollection of what made me decide to do this; I was under no pressure from anyone to learn this skill and had no need for it for many years afterwards. Furthermore it slowed down considerably my efforts to produce a typed thesis since correcting my mistakes, of which there were quite a few, had to be done with 'Tipp-Ex', a white fluid that had to be painted on carefully with a brush then allowed to dry before it could be over typed. I struggle to recall what prompted me to put myself through all this.

The use of computers in the home came along some years later and then finally I found myself faced with a computer and keyboard in my workplace. My fingers were delighted to find themselves facing another qwerty keyboard where they were pressing the very same letter keys that they had been taught to touch years before so they didn't complain at all when they were asked to type something. 'We've been here before', they shouted, as the old skill came back. And it has stayed with me. I still far prefer using a keyboard to write anything more than a short message. My brain has memorised the position of the letters so well that I only have to think of a word and my fingers know where to go. This all happens without any conscious effort. Even when no keyboard is present I can tap out the shape of a word on any flat surface if requested.

 

The technology we use in our everyday lives keeps on changing and today we have small pocket sized computers (we call them 'phones') but these things will still present the user with an image of the qwerty keyboard on the screen. This has resulted in a new form of touch typing, this time using the thumbs to tap the screen whilst the other fingers hold the device steady. Some people can do this very rapidly, maybe even close to my own typing speed when I am going flat out. And our phones will go one step further by presenting a suggested word on the screen after only a few keys have been pressed, something my typewriter could never do. Phones are even clever enough to type the words we speak into them, although both of these talents can lead to rather embarrassing mistakes for which the bottle of Tipp-Ex is no help at all.

Today, those of us who still prefer to type with all fingers on a qwerty keyboard can also go small by using a folding version of the gadget. This is (naturally) powered by a rechargable battery hidden inside and the absence of any connecting wires indicates that it will send signals to a nearby screen using Bluetooth radio waves. Somehow I cannot imagine my elderly landlady coping with such cleverness were she still with us today.

Unthinkable

We are in the habit of following The News to discover what is happening in the world. Earlier in our lives this would have involved buying a newspaper or perhaps listening to BBC Radio 4 at certain times of the day. The Time Signal, known in my family as the 'pips', was something we were familiar with since it always came before a news broadcast. If we skip a generation or two, the modern way to access the news is via the internet and today we read the news on the screen of a tablet (the modern day word for a small self contained computer). We subscribe to a newspaper (a word still used despite the absence of any paper) and this gives us a view of the world that we can cope with. Clearly there is bias in what we read just as there is with any source of information but we can live with this since it broadly agrees with our own views. So that, and the occasional television news programme is how we keep ourselves informed on what is happening at home and abroad.

This strategy enables us to be selective about what we read or watch as there are many items of news that we simply do not want to follow too closely as they can be too unsettling. Many of the unpleasant things happening in our world are beyond our control and we adopt a strategy of un-listening in order to shut them out. [Stoic principle: We cannot change things that are outside of our control but we can change our attitude if we are pained by them. We can wipe out our judgement of them.]

Our own limits on politics-related news are quite low, not just due to a lack of interest but also because we have some difficulty understanding what is being said. The interpretation of political ideas and debate by journalists always seems to assume prior knowledge of the way politics works in a particular location and whilst we might be familiar with things at home and know the 'wing' to which one political party is leaning it is unlikely that another country will follow the same simple right or left distinction.

The other common element when listening to or reading a politician's words occurs when a question is put to them by a journalist. The lengths they will go to avoid answering seem endless. We even have a word for what they are avoiding, the 'straight' answer. Their reasons for doing this will clearly depend upon what it is they are trying to avoid. It might be their own embarrassment or perhaps that of one of their colleagues or maybe the whole of government is at risk of being tripped up by an admission should it be put into words. Rather different is a conversation one might have with someone in the street or with a group of friends so that to our ears a politician often stands out as someone we cannot bear to listen to. One wonders whether someone entering politics goes through a training programme on 'question avoidance' so that they are ready for their first encounter with the press.

There are exceptions to this general rule, of course, but generally it seems that the higher up the ranks you are the less likely it is that you will give a 'straight' answer. Avoidance is vitally important when speaking about the past or the present, historical things for which your political party might be accountable or things that it is doing right now. When it comes to speaking about future events, however, when making promises about what your political party will do then a switch to straight talking makes perfect sense. Accountability will come later or if not elected perhaps never at all. Politicians are under constant pressure, this coming from the party they represent as well as from those who might have chosen to vote them in. These are not necessarily the same and indeed many of the views thrust upon politicians will conflict with their own. It is a world where everyone is being pushed and pulled in different directions and any beliefs held before being elected will inevitably become tainted.

So in some ways the question avoidance strategy is easy to understand, particularly given the ease with which modern day social and other media enables spoken words and views to be disseminated. Gone are the days when privacy could be relied upon so long as nobody was in earshot. But at the same time it does put us all at considerable risk since we are liable to be influenced by untruths just as easily as the truth. The era when it was difficult for an individual to air their views widely has gone and as a result we often feel we are being bombarded with more information than we need or ever want to hear. We can try to be selective by testing the veracity of someone's comments, particularly those question-avoiding politicians, or alternatively we can decide they are just not worth listening to and switch off.

Recent world events [enough said] seem to be driven on by this same desire to avoid the truth and instead to present the facts in a way that suits some other purpose, despite the fact that we can all clearly see what is missing. It is even more alarming to think that in some circumstances today the very notion of 'straight talking' might be considered illegal in the eyes of the law, which may result in these words not surviving here for long. So read it whilst you can!

Battling for bike space

Once again the topic here returns to preparations for our grand cycling adventure planned for later this year, a planning process that we have been through before so one might think that there is little more to say. Booking early pays off, as we have discovered many times over the years, and by this time, barely two months before we depart, surely all our train and ferry bookings should be in place so we can focus on getting our bodies fit enough for the journey we have planned. (For those new to this blog this link will explain more.)

Looking back to our cycling tour around Holland in 2025, the journey with our bikes to the ferry port in North Shields (near the city of Newcastle) could not have been more complicated. Two ferries, an island crossing, two overnight stays, three different trains then finally a cycle ride along the banks of the River Tyne to the ferry port together made it by far the most complicated and stressful part of the whole holiday. Transport bookings we had made in advance all had to go smoothly as a single delay in just one leg of the journey might have put in jeopardy us making it to the ferry on time. So naturally with all this in mind we started this year's plans with the intention of making the home to port journey simpler and less liable to disruption. But our options are still limited. The location of our home on the west coast of Scotland where we have limited road choices, many of which are dangerously busy, will always make travelling with the bikes a challenge unless we just strap them onto a rack and drive somewhere with them. Rule out this option and we are back to relying on trains. Luckily these things run to timetables and so long as the changes between one train and the next leave sufficient time then any slight delay becomes insignificant. Sounds simple, eh? And so it is for humans but as soon as you include bikes then the problems start. They need to be booked on board as part of the ticketing process and this is where the whole system falls apart. 

Plan B which we are following and for which, as mentioned before, the ferry is now booked and paid for, needs a section which reads "Getting to Newcastle" by train, the first part of which is the sub-plot of getting us and our bikes to the nearest railway station, some sixty miles distant from home. What would be useful at this point is finding someone with a motor vehicle big enough to carry us, our bikes and our luggage who is also willing to drive us where we need to go. Here we are in luck! Visiting us from time to time is Gemma, a lovely lady friend who lives not far away, and after a little experimentation we are pleased to discover that our bikes will fit into her car. Better still she seems to relish the challenge of delivering us somewhere. All that remains is for us to book some train tickets. Simple, one might think.

Our route starts at our nearest train station then goes first to Glasgow, on to Edinburgh then finally down the East Coast Main Line to Newcastle. One would think that arranging this as a single booking would be simple and for humans, yes it is. For bikes, no chance. We know from our previous experience that trains on the final leg from Edinburgh have only limited bike spaces (and once on board they must be lifted and hung up in a small cupboard) so we book this section of the journey on its own and reserve two bike spaces. This just leaves us the other two legs - starting point station to Glasgow then Glasgow to Edinburgh - so these we try to book. We soon discover that between Glasgow and Edinburgh there is no need to reserve bike spaces at all. They can travel free so long as there is enough room. Our nearest station to home is 'Arrochar & Tarbet' so we try to book ourselves plus bikes on a train that will bring us into Glasgow with time to spare. To do this we can use the internet or else a phone app but whichever way we go we meet obstructions. The app says we need to reserve spaces for the bikes but it won't let us do it at the time of day we need to travel and the website tells us that all the bike spaces are fully booked on all the trains. We find this hard to believe so resort to calling a helpline and eventually discover that the internet is lying! Apparently booking bike spaces cannot be done until closer to the departure date, but nobody can tell us when this might be. Again, we can buy tickets for humans but not for bikes. Already these complexities are complicating our home to port journey, just as before.

Simply getting this far has involved us in hours of research and frustrating phone calls (most often speaking with someone whose accent is difficult for us to understand) with all the stress of wondering whether we should not simply revert to one of our earlier plans and drive ourselves all the way to Newcastle. Our van would then sit there happily waiting for us to return when our holiday was over. What could be simpler?

But then it happens. After multiple failed attempts at train booking, one day, quite by chance, we fire up the app again and suddenly it is allowing us to book spaces for our bikes on the train we want. Jumping past yet another stumble (the app won't accept our payment) we hit the website and make the booking. It is done!

Finally we can relax. There's just the small matter of getting the actual tickets and these must be obtained in advance from a ticket machine... which is when we discover that our starting point at Arrochar seems to be the one place in the entire country that does not have one of these. How wonderfully unhelpful is that! To remedy this we now have to plan another journey to a train station that has a ticket machine. The battle goes on...