SUMMER

 

 

ONE

 

The garage floor is littered with all I will need for a long bicycle trip. At least I hope so, because if I have forgotten anything vital, it’s too late now. We leave for the airport in a couple of minutes.

My bike is already encased in the special cardboard box designed to protect it in the aircraft’s baggage hold. I’ve taken off the pedals and twisted the handlebars sideways to run parallel with the frame as per the instructions on the airline’s website. There’s a whole reel of gaffer tap holding the package together and though it’s awkward to lift and manoeuvre, I’m pretty sure it’ll still be in one piece by the time we land in Biarritz.

La Velodysée is the longest cycle route in France, twelve hundred kilometres running from Hendaye on the Spanish border to Roscoff in Brittany – depending on your direction of travel – most of it on special cycle paths well away from cars and roads. I’ll be making the journey from south to north before catching the ferry home again to the UK, but only after ten precious days camping with my grown-up daughters in Biarritz. Ours is a swish campsite. We will have two ‘bedrooms’, separated by a bit of canvas, a hob to cook on, and even a fridge, with our own little terrace outside the tent. There is a pool and the publicity says we’re only a few minutes walk from the beach. We can relax, and spend time together again after so long apart because of pandemics and lockdowns, but also because of life. 

Because my ‘girls’ are women now. Megs is thirty-one. Lilly is soon to turn twenty-seven. They were eleven and six when their mother and I divorced. I gave up my job in London to become a single dad so I could spend equal time with them, and we’ve been close ever since. Really close. 

I didn’t think much about having children before getting married. I was a television producer, and the job had taken up all my time and most of my headspace. When Megs came along – she was conceived on a six month tour of India and Thailand – I had no idea that she would open up a whole new world for me. Being a dad. When Lilly followed almost five years later – after a difficult time in the marriage – I found I was even pretty good at being a father. And though time has passed, for me, not much has changed. They’re older now, adults in fact. I’m older too, though whether I’ve grown up is another matter. Hence six or eight weeks on a bicycle with the ambition of feeling that same sense of freedom and adventure I had when I was nine years old.

My route hugs tight to the Atlantic coast virtually all the way, often only metres from the dunes and the sea, until it cuts across Brittany, tracing old canal paths and railway lines to the magical Pink Granite Coast. Most of it is as flat as a pancake, perfect for an old man who has done little in the way of exercise for years. My only concession to preparing myself has been a regular eight or ten-mile ride to a bench surrounding a Beech tree on a green outside a village. There I sit, as old men do, meditating on the meaning of life whilst sipping a thermos coffee. That’s all the training I need. I’ll get fit enough on the ride, and I’ll amble and there will definitely be no Lycra. Figure hugging does not suit my age and stage, and I’ve never been competitive.

I will make the journey on my old bike, bought second hand for forty pounds so many years ago it’s like an old friend. It’s a Claud Butler – a make that sounds French, but is actually British – and a model that happens to be called the ‘Odyssey’. Given the route, and the bike, the temptation to think of myself as a latter day hero on a mythic quest to reach home is tempting, though I have no intention of sharing that thought with anyone other than you, dear reader.

What I do have is a very fancy trailer with sporty wheels and a waterproof sack perfect for taking bulky stuff like the tent, the sleeping bag and a self-inflating mattress, and heavier items such as cooking kit. It’s a Californian design, outdoorsy and showy – a little too much so for my taste – but immensely practical. It was bought for me on my last birthday – my sixtieth – a joint present from my ex-wife and my two daughters. That was just a few years ago now, and though four or five more birthdays have come and gone, the big day has finally arrived.

 

My daughters will be on their way to the airport right now, I can picture them on the train even as my sister asks me – with a certain edge in her voice – if it might be time to stow the remaining stuff still laid out on the garage floor.

‘I’m making a mental inventory.’

‘Alongside some physical packing, perhaps?’

‘Check.’

‘Passport?’

‘With the ticket and the campsite booking, right here. And money and cards.’

‘Good to go then?’

‘Absolutely. Five minutes, at most.’

I don’t think my sister believes me, but she should. I’ve packed and unpacked several times to make sure everything has its place and that all this stuff will fit in the trailer and the panniers. On a bike, you have to be economical in deciding what you can carry, even with a fancy trailer. You don’t need much in the way of long distance cycling experience to know that. It’s simple physics.

I run through my list again: two pairs of shorts, one pair of lightweight Rohan trousers, three T-shirts, short socks times five, because I’m going to get sweaty in the south-west of France with the August heat, and four pairs of pants for the same reason. Swimming costume, first aid kit, lotions and potions for insects and sun, insulated water bottle – empty – solar-powered light and solar-powered phone charger, battery-powered torch, wash kit with quick-drying micro-fibre towel, pair of flip-flops for the regular trips to and from the tent to the campsite showers and loos, plastic drinking cup and plate, penknife, a large scale map of the whole Atlantic coast so I can track my progress in the old-fashioned way, sans sat nav. Why? Because I want to make this trip ‘unplugged’ as fas as in humanly possible in an age where not having a smartphone and a smart card is heresy. All too soon, I shall soon be, ‘Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything’, and I want to use those declining faculties to the full for as long as I possibly can, and that means predicting the weather, not by studying fluffy graphics and cartoon suns on a screen, but by looking up and feeling the wind on your face.

And, as further proof – were any needed – of my old man credentials, I have a selected edition of the sixteenth century philosopher Michel de Montaigne’s Essais as reading material for this trip. Pretentious, moi? Little bit, yes.  But his thoughts on everything from farting to facing your own mortality are short and easy to read by torchlight in a tent, always thought provoking, and he’s funny, especially about his own weaknesses. I like the idea of my favourite Frenchman as my travelling companion, albeit he’s coming along for the ride in an English translation. He and I have been having imaginary conversations for years. I’d miss him and it’s only right that he’s on this trip especially, because we’re travelling to his part of the country. Montaigne was a Gascon first and a Frenchman second, and we are on our way to Gascony, a region that once had its own language and customs, and its own king in Henri de Navarre, later Henry IV of France. D’Artagnan from Alexandre Dumas’s Three Musketeers was also born…

‘All set?’ says my sister, rather pointedly as she brushes past me on the way to the car.

‘All set.’

‘Shall we then?’

‘We shall.’

 

Our journey to the airport where my daughters will be waiting to greet us is only forty miles, and on the motorway it should take us an hour, tops. Only we’re not on the motorway. Soon after we set off, the red line on the road traffic information app signalled a problem. The radio confirmed a delay of up to two hours, with cars backed up for eight miles, apparently because of a flood.

It’s true that it rained hard last night, sounding tropical at one point, but not for long. And though it’s August, this is still summer despite the ravages of climate change. But there’s no point in railing against the gods. If I’m to make the flight, we have no choice but to opt for back roads one car wide that meander through sleepy villages that might themselves be under water. I don’t even want to think about tractors coughing from field to farm at twenty miles an hour. It’ll be touch and go.

I text my girls – I can’t help but refer to them as girls, even now old habits die hard – to make sure they’re on their way. They are. The train to the airport was running fine and they are already there. We arrange to meet outside the terminal where it will be easier to find each other. Then I focus on giving clear directions to my sister who is doing the driving. She is gripping the steering wheel with one hand, the other poised on the gearstick, ready to change down and keep the revs high through any water obstacles we might encounter. We’ve had to skirt some impressive bodies of water thus far and one torrent from a river that had broken its banks. My sister has a disposition that makes her one of kindest people on the planet, but she’s taking no prisoners today, changing down a gear to accelerate and make the most of the open road when we get the chance. I’m impressed, and quite content to be navigator. I’m even enjoying the ride.

‘Junction ahead,’ she says, with military concision and a quick glance in my direction demanding a crisp response. Her life partner was a guy called Darrel, a former Sergeant Major in the Canadian Airborne Regiment, used to barking commands at raw recruits, and his ways have left their mark on my sister. They met in Baghdad in the nineties, where he was part of a weapons inspection team for the UN and she was the field editor for a CNN news crew. They should have regarded each other with suspicion, but instead they fell in love and spent more than twenty-five years together, until three years ago. He’s with someone else now, and she misses him still, even though it was her decision. What makes things worse for her, is the man she still loves and the tough paratrooper she spent most of her adult life with, has just had an operation for oesophageal cancer and the prognosis remains uncertain. I know his fate is on her mind all the time, despite the ocean between them.

‘Hello?’ she says.

‘Sorry. We take a left,’ I say, trying to sound like Darrel, Canadian accent and all. ‘It looks like a single lane road, so prepare for anything coming the other way. Long straight, then two or three miles. Should be quicker, and wider.’

She gives me a look, but can’t quite decide if I’m making fun of her or just being irritating for the sake of it. Because that’s what I do. Neither can I, and despite the urgency of our mission, I have a tiny, but growing urge to laugh at our predicament, or more accurately, my predicament. Nerves maybe. It would be a tragedy to miss the plane or have my daughters left stranded at the airport. Still, I wonder if I should try to lighten things, if only to keep us from breaking the law or ending up in a hedge. It’s a risk, but then what are brothers for if not to keep their sisters earthed?

‘You know, we’re good at this. Maybe, when Mum’s gone, we should think about the Paris-Dakar, or Route 66?’

She keeps her eyes on the road and gives the thinnest of sarcastic smiles. I have clearly misjudged the situation. I should have known better.

‘Roger that, skip.’

 

Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home

 

              Matsuo Bashō