Three weeks left, such a short time; then you have to remind yourself that that's a year's worth of holiday allocation for many. A luxury for most and so must not be squandered. Yet........ I hate this bit. Suddenly, we actually have to start planning more than one day ahead. Now there's the imperative of not heading off in a vague, undisclosed direction, sniffing out a spoor, following a suggestion that's been gleaned from a snippet of information, or a chance remark from a passing stranger. Now we need to count the miles per day, factor in climatic imponderables. We need to keep our bikes pointing in a general direction of east and heading for the Atlantic coast, heading for the big conurbation. However, there's a problem with conurbations: people live in them. So many months of misanthropic meanderings, wanderings in the wilderness, studiously by-passing cities, plotting avoidance routes, shunning the masses, that we've got out of the habit of assertive cycling, competing for street space. Already the gloom mongerers are advising us to take a bus over the Pampa. 'Ten minutes and you've seen it all', the 'MAMBA' stories are coming thick and fast. The trouble is, I'm a cantankerous old sod and comments like these are a goad, a provocation to do otherwise. Anyway it's a little over 700kms, Cordoba to BsAs, a week with a tail wind; or have I just temped fate?Monday 4 April 2011
The Long Arm of a Home Society
Five months gone and a domestic, sedentary life seems and feels like an alien concept, an exotic notion; you know that it exits, you know that you once lived it. Somewhere in the subconscious you know that you will return to it. Yet........
Three weeks left, such a short time; then you have to remind yourself that that's a year's worth of holiday allocation for many. A luxury for most and so must not be squandered. Yet........ I hate this bit. Suddenly, we actually have to start planning more than one day ahead. Now there's the imperative of not heading off in a vague, undisclosed direction, sniffing out a spoor, following a suggestion that's been gleaned from a snippet of information, or a chance remark from a passing stranger. Now we need to count the miles per day, factor in climatic imponderables. We need to keep our bikes pointing in a general direction of east and heading for the Atlantic coast, heading for the big conurbation. However, there's a problem with conurbations: people live in them. So many months of misanthropic meanderings, wanderings in the wilderness, studiously by-passing cities, plotting avoidance routes, shunning the masses, that we've got out of the habit of assertive cycling, competing for street space. Already the gloom mongerers are advising us to take a bus over the Pampa. 'Ten minutes and you've seen it all', the 'MAMBA' stories are coming thick and fast. The trouble is, I'm a cantankerous old sod and comments like these are a goad, a provocation to do otherwise. Anyway it's a little over 700kms, Cordoba to BsAs, a week with a tail wind; or have I just temped fate?
Three weeks until the tentacles of a sedentary society apply their suckers and start to drag us back into its maw, back into the sticky clutches of its warm embrace. Or so I thought. Whilst checking our correspondence, we find that there's a notification that we've just paid for our first delivery of organic vegetables at the end of the month. I guess that confirms it: we are going home.
Three weeks left, such a short time; then you have to remind yourself that that's a year's worth of holiday allocation for many. A luxury for most and so must not be squandered. Yet........ I hate this bit. Suddenly, we actually have to start planning more than one day ahead. Now there's the imperative of not heading off in a vague, undisclosed direction, sniffing out a spoor, following a suggestion that's been gleaned from a snippet of information, or a chance remark from a passing stranger. Now we need to count the miles per day, factor in climatic imponderables. We need to keep our bikes pointing in a general direction of east and heading for the Atlantic coast, heading for the big conurbation. However, there's a problem with conurbations: people live in them. So many months of misanthropic meanderings, wanderings in the wilderness, studiously by-passing cities, plotting avoidance routes, shunning the masses, that we've got out of the habit of assertive cycling, competing for street space. Already the gloom mongerers are advising us to take a bus over the Pampa. 'Ten minutes and you've seen it all', the 'MAMBA' stories are coming thick and fast. The trouble is, I'm a cantankerous old sod and comments like these are a goad, a provocation to do otherwise. Anyway it's a little over 700kms, Cordoba to BsAs, a week with a tail wind; or have I just temped fate?
