Foreign Parts

24/11/12

So, this swanning around France, what's good then and what's bad?

This can be split into two parts really, the practical and the in my head part. Practicalities it is then.

The roads. There's not really that much traffic. I have the luxury of time so am telling the sat nav to avoid toll roads. I'm tootling along the lanes. French drivers are, I suspect a bit better than British. They'll overtake a dawdling van with almost breathtaking skill. They also manage hairpin descents in the fog like professionals. I scarcely feel endangered by them, I just feel they get on with their thing around the moving bollard that is Alison. The fact that they overtake me in 50kph zones when I'm doing that pace in the middle of towns kind of astounds me, but clearly their understanding of local roads and police measures is way in excess of me.

Sat Nav. My 6 year old TomTom that really doesn't work in the UK, has no holder, functions not without a battery and has happily taken 2 hours to find satellites in the UK, only to reliably lose them in the 15 minutes before reaching the destination loves France. It was only in the van by chance, it's been dropped dozens of times, it's chipped, it's huge and clunky but in a mystery move 6 years ago it seems I did get a version with European maps. I genuinely had no idea, and frankly life would have been incredibly hard without it. It has opened doors to me, and it deserves some kind of gentle retirement or maybe upgrade when I get home. I cannot believe it's working. In the UK, maybe 2 satellites. I always thought 5 was the maximum it actually could get, but in France, it'll get 7 or 8. It's amazing.

Driving on the right, never a problem at all, toll roads, no issue.

Buying stuff. I've found that petrol stations are best used on a self service basis, as the kiosk is on the left hand side and the window too low to access. You have to get out and walk round the van to have any success in paying for petrol that's not a stick your card in and get on with it. By the way, stick an English card in the slot and the machine knows you're English and changes language accordingly. How cool is that?

Eating as the French do. Now, beyond following little old ladies around supermarkets this is difficult. I'm working on it. Buying sausage sec, local cheese, the bread, the pastries. Just haven't really worked out how the single woman with limited fridge space manages in France. The sizes of the tins of haricot beans, cannelloni beans etc. is colossal, but I'm managing my bean & pork products kind of stews. I'm limited to tinned stuff because of the economising on gas, can't really give dried beans a good couple of hours. If it takes more than 20 mins to cook I get edgy. Which means that brown rice has to go in favour of the quicker long grain / basmati. Ho hum.

Buying French cake. This is fun. Studying the available stuff and going with something different each time. Also enjoying their weird pureed fruit pots, feeling virtuous but also getting pudding. I have even found something which works as a kind of Uncle Joe's mint balls substitute which is something of a relief, and am getting my head around the French species of cereal bars.

But when do these people work and when do they eat? It's confusing. I can't seem to find a cafe open at what I thought would be breakfast coffee & croissant time. Nor do they seem to open at lunchtimes either. Lunch by the way seems to start at 12pm and finish at 3pm. But at least it means local supermarkets are open at post bike ride o'clock.

Don't drink the water. That's what I've been told by the natives, and indeed the supermarkets do seem to do a roaring trade in bottled stuff. I'm carrying two kinds in the van. In the passenger footwell we have spring water or water whose sources were potentially iffy. I'm using this mostly for laundry and when I get desperate enough, hair washing, but also for washing the pots and pans. Water in the main body of the van is purchased and used for drinking and cooking and tea & coffee, because I'm on an economic mission and coffee out every day not really possible.

Internet. This is annoying. As is the fact that McDonalds, my main reliable source of the world wide web access doesn't open until 10am. What happens with their breakfast menu, I wonder? The providers of hot spots are for those who have contract phones with them for the most part. Orange have a £10ish for 10 hours deal which lasts six months and that's OK but they aren't the widest spread hotspot provider. A few towns, tourist info offices permit use of wireless so I can tweet, I can facebook, I can pick up e-mail but oddly can't send it and can't do a lot else. It's kind of hard to stay in touch. T mobile haven't much helped by seeming to change what I could and couldn't have, package wise between the time I looked into it and my arrival. I really can't tell even now what kind of costs I'm accruing. I have tried, and it is simply what it is. I can't live in a void.

We started

It's been a tremendously lovely two weeks since I left the world of the employed and started my meanderings on foot not just on paper. In a fortnight of two halves I have experimented with living in Shazza, the camper van.  I think for her and me it's the start of something meaningful, potentially with me needing to learn some rudiments of plumbing and electrics, but no matter, it's part of the road to discovery we'll be driving together. 

I am a cautious soul, or at least, I believe I am.  So the first few days with Shazza saw me within my comfort zone of North Wales, safe in the knowledge that if it all went wrong resolution was only a phone call away.  The van surprised me by offering me even more freedom than I've been used to when camping.  Instead of leaving a tent where it is because of the whole horror of picking up a bunch of wet canvas, attempting to stuff it in a bag, worrying about when to air / dry it or the next night's experience of finding the wet nylon (it's really not canvas these days is it?) affectionately wrapping it's clammy lips around your legs, you just drive off.  That's it, no fuss, you drive off.  This meant I went to places I  hadn't known I was going, simply following the mountain weather forecast for the Snowdon area and rejigging plans accordingly.  Three days walking took me up Cnicht (day one), day 2 Moel Hebog (kind of, most of the way until rain and visibility definitely stopped play), and day 3 a walk from Ybygy Ifan most days seeing me with a 700m plus height gain with 3 to 6 hours walking a day.  Just starting out on assessing where exactly my walking fitness lies after the "summer" of building up to the Mary Towneley two days on the bike.  Oooh, and isn't Cnicht a pretty hill?

And then finally ... I left the country ...

Typing this while listening to The Boss singing

"We sit in the car outside your house
I can feel the heat coming 'round"

Your dreams

Remember this one?  Drive by The Cars:

"Who's gonna tell you when, it's too late
Who's gonna tell you things, aren't so great
You can't go on, thinkin, nothin's wrong
Who's gonna drive you home tonight"

Yesterday I picked up the Campervan.  It's compact, and a real one woman vehicle.  I'd forgotten but in one of those moments of feeling complete in myself I'd signed up to a slightly smaller than standard bed to give more space for the bikes.  So the van seems virtually moulded around the shape of one 44 year old 5'4" woman.  That would be me.  I love the feeling of being held tightly by my one person tent, and suspect I'll feel the same way about the van.  Like it has arms around me, security and comfort.  I probably have childhood return to womb issues.

This is a quick shot of the front seats of the van.  Again, that feeling of being cradled applies.  I love my bright colours.  The back matches and is entirely pimping.  It's almost scary small but every new person who comes and looks at it with me (I have had a lot of visitors, and not all of them have had to be dragged in), I gain something from.

Logistics officer speaks to me about saucepans and the nestling nature of these, as well as about bike racks.  PA to Head Coach talks to me about power connectors, leisure batteries and scatter cushions (I have dismissed this girlie talk), and the Talent Manager talks of muddy bikes wrapped in duvet covers and of locking systems.  The Logistics assistant clambers up into the roof bed and makes the whole van bounce, apparently if the van's a-rocking, don't come a-knocking.  So I'm not only feeling embraced by the van, but weirdly by my colleagues. Who I am leaving, in just over a fortnight.

Vroom.

Enormous wellbeing

Despite having given my three months notice in, I have to say some days, and in fact more so since giving in notice, I really do love my job.  Love it.  I will  miss some stuff here.

Yesterday took part in a conference call with the providers of the funding and our "Head of Marginal Gains" - which in itself is a very cool job title to have.  We talked athlete profiling and Project Rio.  Which seems even more remote from me than ever since I definitely won't be here in 2016.  The plan was next for me and Mr MG to head off for an "off site" meeting at Manchester Climbing Wall to discuss the way forwards.  What actually happened is that call over we did indeed stop in the office to talk about what next.  At the moment that Mr MG said what we really need is to get the CEO in front of a whiteboard ... the CEO knocks on the door (he's so polite), comes in, picks up the dry wipe pen and off we go with the planning of the next step.  Ended up with a wind surfing chat (well, they did) and off me and MG trundled to Manchester climbing wall for tea, cake, chat and good times climbing.  I love that I work in a place where everyone does stuff outside.  I love that I can stop at traffic lights, feel a bump against my bike back wheel, turn round in order to berate the person and find myself saying hello to our cycling Finance Director instead, and benefit from a shared part of journey home including banter.  I do love my job.

Climbing last night, I was in a lazy old mood.  After running Monday, cycling to work and back Tuesday and walking Wednesday it's not that surprising I guess.  Explained to Mr MG that I was in chilled type mood, and indeed he was wanting to do some routes where he could succeed so between us we agreed a lazy plan.  And because he's a sports scientist he can always find a good rationale for such changes in attitude.  Conditioning.  Apparently doing reasonable volume of easy stuff can be chalked up to Conditioning.  So we mostly conditioned, chatted and put the world to rights.

And today I have agreed to a 2009 van with 40,000 miles on the clock but with air conditioning.
I have also asked the boss what the chances are of Bradley winning the tour. My lips are sealed.

And I leave you with a bit of Blur.

"I feed the pigeons I sometimes feed the sparrows too
it gives me a sense of enormous wellbeing (parklife)
And then I'm happy for the rest of the day safe in the knowledge
there will always be a bit of my heart devoted to it (parklife)"

My Own

Well, I have taken the plunge.  Ordered a van.  Decided that trust pure and simple was the way to go and placed in the hands of a total stranger the task of sourcing the van.  And once that decision was made, harder decisions then had to be made over upholstery (Royal blue & pale grey), flooring (sparkly bits), worksurfaces (charcoal grey), bed type, seat type, air conditioning (yes please), and the job as they say was a good un.  It should be with me for the end of August.  I'm excited.

Lonely planet guide to New Zealand arrived last week and Eccles library has given me food for thought with travel books now scattered around the dining room, amidst guinea pig cages, bikes in bits, climbing ropes and the normal paraphernalia of my every changing life.

And we're looking at something like this:

http://www.teahupoo.co.uk/gallery_2.html

And all is indeed well with the world, with today's lyrics from New Order:

"I would like a place I could call my own.
Have a conversation on the telephone."

Mmm, a place of my own.  With two double beds.