Trip Day 1: Ba Ba Ba

It did not start well. This morning I woke up, not from birds chirping or my alarm – set for first time in weeks – but from a spider falling dead onto my face. A big one.

I sat up sharply. There may have been a yelp. Outside the window, all I could see was fog. Deep, milky, forbidding.

Fixing breakfast, I cut myself lightly with a knife. Outside sat three big black birds, rooks or crows. They inclined their heads and looked at me.

But all these shitty omens could not deter me. Today was to be the first leg of my trip. After a bit of a palaver with the shaman who passes for a village grocer – over eggs – and some monkeying about with my very cumbersom bags, I was off.

Now, the bike was very unlike its former self, thanks to the man at the bike shop, who seems to be a great saver of damsels in Spandex. He had shown no great previous interest in my welfare, and great previous interest in my wallet. Only when I dropped by to pix it up, wearing my new and shiny padded pants, did he decide to give me a brief lesson in mechanics, slice the bill in half and refuse to sell me any gizmos I would never use. Instead, he gave me the promise that the bike should work beautifully “all the way up and back” and if it didn’t I should just call him and he would come pick me up.

So on this gleaming piece of machinery I left the village, towing my mother, who had decided on the spur of the moment to join me for the first 120 k. In principle, our departure was grand. In reality, it was shrouded in rain and soon met with uphill climbs, stiff breezes and men driving great big vans and underestimating (!) their size.

What with one thing and another, soon before lunch, we decided to take a shortcut. I ignored the black cat, the bird of prey circling and the sign that said “no bike path ahead” and trampled on, only to be engulfed in a vast sanddune. And yes, this is when the sun decided to come out. Soon it was hot as all hell, and we felt increasingly like those brave chaps hunting down Rommel en desert, Rommel being in this instance a nice spot for lunch, preferably out of the blasted pit and in the shade.

When we did arrive at the end of the shifting sands and the beginning of a heath, we were overjoyed. So overjoyed, and so in need of the hard-got-by eggs of the South Swedish Princess of the Moon and Purveyor of Inferior Loafs, that we decided not to be intimidated by a big flock of sheep that blocked the way. Instead, I thought back to my Viking ancestors, and like a very flourescently clad Light Brigade, charged at the enimy, bells clanging and voice hallooing.

They got the message, and scambled. Quickly. For a minute I was overjoyed by this military coup. We had taken the hill! But then I saw, that among all the black wool, there was one little white lamb that had clearly been injured in the frey, and now it was limping off into the brush.

Briefly noting that my name in latin meens, verbatim, white lamb of God, and that this was perhaps the worst sign to date, I flagged down a man in a van and he promised to take care of it (said with evil look in eye and sucking teeth). Deciding that I had done what I could, and that one womans advance is another mans dinner, we cycled on.

And as if by a miracle, the view cleared. The mist lifted, and the sun cooled to a pleasant warmth instead of its former incindiery traits. We sat down on a beautiful grassy hilltop, overlooking all of the sea, and the very nice-looking gently downwards-sloping car free road that lay ahead. From lunch onwards, then, we rode in perfect peace, no featherd demons in the sky, and the bike holding true to the shopkeepers word.

The explanation is quite simple, really. At the start of any journey, you should of course, give an offering to the Gods. The lamb was simply my attonement for recent dating of Catholics, and a little something for the road for my old pagan patrons. A wooly piece of meet, perfect for a barbeque AND a comfy shawls, was the ticket for what now promises to be an exceptionally lovely trip.

Should only remeber, maybe, to send thank-you note to farmer whos liveliehood I so fortunately offered up.