The big box
(I need to pack my bike for the plane ride home)
Walked across town to find a bike shop, and hooray they have a load of cardboard bike boxes from recent deliveries sitting around, more than happy for me to take one away - slightest catch is the size - fully assembled e-bike size rather than efficiently packed size - still, too big is better than too small right?
Until the airport transfer guy says its too big. Not that a brompton folding bike would have fitted in his minivan. Idiot. Thankfully Aleks the helpful hostel manager conjures up a better minibus driver and I get to the airport still much earlier than necessary, where they don't seem to care about the size, ( even though it definitely exceeds the max length in their small print by 40cm, but I guess they haven't read it)
And back to Luton, uneventfully, the box is battered but the contents is undamaged and soon reassembled.
Finding the way out of airports is always a challenge and i have to keep repeating "drive on the left, drive on the left" as it seems so weird and unintuitive. 10km of dark lanes later (fortunately I did remember to charge my lights), and I'm in a pub for a pie and a proper pint of ale, what a relief after nothing but pilsner all summer!
Contemplation of a pavlova, text commentary of Liverpool vs Salzburg, and unintentionally eavesdropping on some entitled tory snobs on the next table, thinking how weird it is that I can understand what everyone around me is saying, (and thinking I preferred it when I couldn't) is interrupted by the arrival of four more cyclists, a surprise at 9pm on a dark night - turns out they are part of the local C2C cycling group, out for a regular evening "pub ride" - they have spotted my bike outside and all profess to be very impressed and jealous with my trip, although by the sound of it they cover more miles in a week than i have all summer. Generous ale fuelled offers of campervans to stay in and invitations to speaking engagements rebuffed, I'm off to find a nice field to sleep in under a clear starry sky and the Luton airport landing path.
Nice field turns out to contain noisy pheasants, but the rude awakener is a distant aeroplane engine morphing into a tractor roaring past exactly 6am. Poor farmers. Just a hint of a glow on the horizon, and in the chill of the morning I end up watching the horizon turn to molten gold, the sky from crystal blues to pinks and oranges, maybe not in that order, and finally the sun itself rises into view like a fried egg.
Signal failure at Doncaster
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