Jo Ackroyd’s Big Biking Adventure

The simple things are seemingly so easy but in the end they take the lions share of your time.

I have this idea that I need to focus on the many tasks in front of me. I need to compile my lists and start with the most arduous and idiocyncratic tasks first because they will take organisation and time and mental acumen.

So off I go, trying hard to live up to my own expectations of delivery, to manifest all the things my imagination conjures and in the right space in the right time and to the right quality. The reality is, it never happens. Then I persecute myself for having not delivered the goals I should thought of as casual and could have drawn in by crayon, fuzzed around the edges and simplistic by design rather than the bold hard black marker pen I’ve drawn the detail into.

So, I either have my backs and fronts and ups and downs and insides outsides around and sprung and that then means I confuse the simple with the complex, because its always the simple that’s just buggering up my life. It’s the easy simple crap that’s just not working.

4 bolts for a BMW - we all know AF threads will not fit! So why did they give them to me?

2 fork seals each a cm too big.

Camping gear and patience because its snowed and been returned and needs ordering again…

There are so many of these simple bits that planning and organisation slip over like a stream running over pebbles leaving them unturned and un motivated to fit into the bigger pond.

How do you know when you have planned and thought enough. How do you know you have considered all the right things?

How would anyone else measure their success in a task that is quite so undefined as the one that faces me now?

Is preparation an excuse because I cant measure up to the ideals of spontinaety?

Do I persuade myself that I’m quite an individual but really I’m hiding behind ordinary.

Spectacular is and extra ordinary word.

I feel as though I have been bleached by long hours in the sun, I’m colourless and worn, frayed and a little tatty. In the last year I have been both entertaining and entertained but currently, the bleached, dried grey and weary has taken its toll and i feel as though the spring in my tigger has been lost.

I’m sure its not far away.

Confused as I have been and will continue to be, I do now know that I prefer myself as Spectacular and Extra ordinary than I do as grey and sun worn.

NO matter what the cost I prefer me as me and not as the model citizen others predispose me to be.

Look forward to finding the spring. I enjoy being eccentric, I enjoy the fun it invokes, I don’t enjoy the lack of humanisation that is commensurate with it.

Next time yo see a tigger, also see the difficulty that tiggers face - because they are the only one.

Expedition Preparation, Random Thoughts

Communication. It’s key really. Anna has asked how many languages I speak, it’s a crucial question really when you consider the French nations in Africa, the Islamic nationals in Iran and how many Russian speaking countries I intend to visit.

Unfortunately the answer is one and a half. Even that is a thinking positive answer!

So how will I communicate?

It’s very crass to consider the English man abroad. Speak clearly, speak louder, as understanding doesnt dawn in the eyes of the listener, shout and point.

If I were to ask for a pint of Watneys Red Barrell then the Monty Python sketch would be complete!

So how shall I communicate?

With Faith.

Smiles and kind words, listening and self deprocating humility and by remembering the idea that these people are not foreigners, they are locals they are the incumberants inhabitants and I am the stranger in a normal and peaceful land.

I’m absolutely sure that the sound of a voice will at times scare me and suprise me after hours of silence. Any voice of any language wil make me jump and be gladly recieved. But I’ll be talking to myself, it’s inbuilt into me. I can’t help but have a substantial chat, I often hold a debate in my head and feel as though someone else is winning as it bursts out!

So while I’m riding along, I’ll be chatting in English. Just to keep in practice.

Smiles and faith.

Look on the bright side. If it all goes wrong…I won’t understand anyway!

Communication, Random Thoughts

I cant truley say that I quite woke up smiling, but at least it was very soon afterwards.

(Is that how you spell Truley or have I spelt it in the same way as Truley Scrumptious from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang? Now there’s a women to wonder over…wow!)

I put on my Kalvins (pants) and as I brushed my teeth I realised that they had come up just that little bit too far at the front. This made me smile as the elastic twangged on my stomach. I must have lost weight.

I’ve had an incredibly average day, not a spot of inspiration until near the end. (Other than seeing the spectacular Sabrina in Cambridge!)

I bumped into an engineer who has recently been out to Khazakstan and told me interesting bits about the country and the neighbouring countries.

I’m being constantly amazed at the moment by how many people have something to offer, a piece of information, a smile an interest in the ideas I have about Faith. It’s very heartening to be reminded that people are generally interested in much more than their usual hard nosed, head down lives.

Then I got home and had to smile for the second time.

The reason my Kalvins were high at the front, and probably why I had had such an uneventful day - I’m quite sure of this - was because they were on back to front!

I stood for a moment, taking in the full glory (of the days events) and thought to myself;

“I don’t think I have ever put these on back to front before…
I’ll be gald of the warmth of these,
My I’m such a tease,

will they still be white?
will they still be tight?
My, think of all the ladies this view would please.”

hehehehehehe

Random Thoughts, Underpants Random Thoughts, Underpants