Bakewell Wool Gathering 2013

Recently, I went to the Bakewell Wool Gathering (19^th - 20^th October).  This was the first actual Bakewell Wool Gathering, although it was apparently born out of another event that did not proceed. Held in the picturesque Peak District, surrounded by farmland, this seemed an ideal location for such an event.

The Wool Gathering was very much for people who do crafting things, with lots of raw and prepared fleece for spinning, beautiful skeins of hand spun and hand dyed yarn, drop spindles and spinning wheels, felting and dying supplies, in fact all kinds of woolly goodness that I’m really not experienced enough know about!

While most of the supplies on sale were for people to use to create, there were also many finished artisan goodies. Things that had had been spun, dyed, felted, knitted, crocheted – all kinds of combinations to wear, display, hang on the wall, and love.

I was very busy at the show working with my mother in law on her stand, Simply Sheepish (she doesn’t have a website yet, although I am trying to persuade her…) There was a lot of work involved in setting up the stand and tweaking the layout to make most use of the space and to keep it eye catching. While my mother in law is a very skilled and talented lady at many things woolly – spinning, weaving, dying, knitting, felting etc etc, her stand for shows is mostly focussed at supplies for other people wanting to have a go. Therefore she does end up with a lot of variety, and consequently a large quantity, of stock to get organised. And to learn about if you are the brand new assistant who has never done this kind of thing before!!

Being so busy helping and learning and assisting customers, and a bit of demonstrating my crocheting, I didn’t take a huge amount of time to look around. Don’t get me wrong, I did look around, but I would have needed a lot more time to ask about all of the new and interesting things that caught my eye. There were some truly spectacular things on display, and many yarns and felted objects called out to me. I really found myself drawn to watching spinners at their wheels too. Something so captivating and hypnotic about the wheel going round, and the rhythm of the spinner feeding in the wool. I definitely felt inspired to learn a lot more about felting, spinning, and then maybe dying as well…

Foolishly, while I did take my camera to the show I didn’t actually remember to use it. I did however do a quick bit of shopping before the end of the last day, so let me introduce you to my new purchases (how exciting!!)

First up, is this wooden scarf pin. Now I’m ashamed to say that I can’t remember the name of this stall. They were next to us at the show, so being to the side I couldn’t see their banner, and I didn’t get a card from them when I bought the pin as my mother-in-law actually knows them. So slap on the wrist for me…

About the scarf pin though, it is hand turned out of cocobolo wood, which I was told smells like chocolate when you’re working it! The wife of the man who made it had taken up spinning, and her husband started to make her drop spindles, which lead to him learning the art of woodturning. I thought that was a rather sweet story!

The other great thing about getting this scarf pin is that I can finally wear last year’s birthday present from my mother-in-law – this beautiful knitted capelet/scarf in Noro yarn, this is the ‘Wingspan’ pattern available from Ravelry. I think they are perfect partners!

Next up was a very unusual piece of work, in the shape of a multi-strand hand spun and hand dyed necklace. This was made by the lovely Monika at Wool Stories  (she also has a facebook page)

Monika is a young lady from Poland, who is a self-taught textile artist creating fabulous and unique accessories, yarns etc. All the chatter from the more experienced people at the show indicated that they had never seen anything like her work either, so I felt very lucky to get a piece for myself. To top it off, Monika was also very lovely to chat to – and unbelievably she doesn’t even have a workshop, but manages to create her wonderful work in a small space in her shared house!

I have only worn it once so far, but I do have a trip to the theatre coming up and am looking forward to giving it another outing for that special occasion :)

My final purchase (although I wish I could have made more!) was from the gorgeous stand of needlefelt artist Jenny Barnett (Website, blog, or facebook). Jenny is very talented, and while she had a range of things on sale (just look through her photos!) the pieces that really leapt out at me were her needlefelt British animals. Seals, hares and foxes in various attitudes really vied for my attention, and it was so difficult to choose between them – if I had the money I think I would have come away with one of each!! 

After an extremely difficult decision that took a whole day to make, I eventually opted for the fox. By the time I had made my decision, unfortunately there were no foxes left who had black ‘socks’, which I really preferred – but they were very wonderful people and when I looked disappointed at this news they immediately offered to speak to Jenny (when she came back from her own wanderings) about putting some black socks on to my chosen fox! How fantastic! When she got the news Jenny sought me out and we had a brief chat about what I wanted, and she finished him off the following morning. Apparently I wasn’t the only fan of the black socks, as he was drawing quite a crowd of admirers as he sat on display (disappointed admirers I’m afraid, as he had his ‘sold’ tag on) so I let Jenny keep him for the day to display, and I collected him when the show finished. I also collected a kit for making your own seal as a gift for my mum.

Jenny also runs specific workshops for making her designs, so I will be keeping my eyes peeled for one I fancy, either the hare or the seal perhaps, as I already have the fox. I would also like to find a seal workshop that I can take my mum to, so she can get some practice for her own seal kit…

So there we are, an exciting and inspiring event for me, and a few goodies to keep! I love that they are all unique items, hand-made by individual people who have lovingly learned a skill and really care about the quality and design of their art. Makes me feel all fuzzy inside :)

Safi Baby Blanket (Neat Circles in Squares) - Fin!

I’ve been so busy lately!!

Last week I went and stayed with my Aunt and her husband in Somerset. We had a lovely time together, and I brought loads of yarn to their house for her to choose the colours she wants for the blanket I’m going to make for her. She’s allergic to wool, so this will be another Stylecraft Special acrylic blanket – but grown-up sized this time! (More about that in another post though)

From there, I went up to stay with my in-laws for a few days to help my mother-in-law on her stand at the Bakewell Wool Gathering. I arrived the day before to help load the van and set up the stand, then we had really busy days over the weekend. It was a steep learning curve, getting to grips with the features of all of the stock items and learning how to best advise the customers about different things. (In fact, as I think about it, maybe the Wool Gathering needs its own post too!!)  It’s always lovely to visit with my in-laws, so I ended up staying there much longer than I meant to, and helping a bit with the animals – which I really love doing.

Then I got home in time for my best friend to come and stay for a few days with her family. We’ve known each other since we were about 11, and been close friends since we were about 13. Even though I’ve lived a long way from home for the past 11 years we’ve remained good friends, and make an effort to visit each other whenever we can. It was great to see them all, but exhausting having boys aged 15 and 9 to keep happy! Such different interests at those ages, so hard work finding something that can work for them both…

I was sad to watch them all leave this morning, but it did also feel kind of nice to just have some time to myself after so long around other people – I really have got used to being on my own, and I find it a bit tiring to be sociable for too long! Haha    Being alone also gave me the chance to finish off my Neat Circles in Squares Baby Blanket that I started here.

Once all of the circle-in-square patches were finished I used (UK) single crochet on the right side of the blanket to join the squares together along their remaining sides, having joined the rows of the blanket together as each was completed. I really like the effect of this method, with the raised join forming a nice decorative feature, and the crocheting together giving a nice, straight, firm join. It obviously adds an extra element of work to a blanket compared to joining as you go, and therefore uses more yarn, but I still think it will be a technique I’ll use again on future blankets. And of course there are still more techniques for me to learn!!

For the border I decided to keep it plain – partly because I had made the blanket a bit small to start with, and really I should have taken it back and made more patches… It took a little bit of trial and error to get the first row stitches to lie flat with the rest of the blanket, but sadly as I increased the rows I somehow wasn’t able to maintain the flat-ness and the poor blankie has ended up with a slightly ruffled edge. I hope it will be ok! I’m hoping that with washing and use it will all settle down nicely.

I used the background colour in UK trebles, and put in rows of UK doubles in each colour to pretty it up. I finished off on a coloured row of DCs, and as they rounded the corners I put a little picot in to give a little shape to them. I like the effect of this, I might use this again in the future too where I’m doing an otherwise plain border.

So here it is finished. I’m pleased with some bits – the layout of the colours, the joining of the squares – and feel that I have room to improve for other bits – the border being ruffly – but I have enjoyed making this little baby blanket, and I’m very excited to give it to my friends, ready for their new arrival!

Voyage on the Sir Winston Churchill ~ part 6

Thursday, 27^th March

We arrived in Swanage after travelling across an angry sea, with high winds whipping foam off the waves. As in Fowey we were at anchor rather than moored in a dock, but this time shore leave was impossible as it was far too rough for the small tender to go ashore. Instead, everyone stayed aboard and worked on their acts for the Sods Opera to be held that evening.

After lunch all hands assembled aft for the next part of the inter-watch competition: the quiz. The Mate asked the questions while the Doctor ensured fair play. Each member of a Watch was pitted against their opposite numbers from the other Watches, and were asked questions that involved locating something technical on the ship, or tying a particular knot correctly. Our number 8 Charlotte scored first for us, but the point was disallowed. I was next to score, and this time the point stayed. Throughout the quiz we made an amazing recovery in the rankings. We had been about 8 points down against the other Watches at the start, but by the end we were second to the leaders Main Watch by only one point.

At 2000hrs all were watches were abandoned again, and all hands were called to the afterdeck for the evening’s entertainment. I had been in the galley again, this time on mess duty, so was very glad to be called out. The Watch Officers distributed bottles of Becks to their Watches, and charismatic trainee, Ben, was called upon to be Master of Ceremonies.

The running order for the night was:

Mizzen Watch: ‘Sailing on Churchill’ (I wrote our song to the tune of ‘Waltzing Matilda’. The writing of it compensation for the fact I am so dreadful a singer!)

Ben: reciting a poem he had written

Main Watch: ‘Main Watch People’ (Their song to the tune of Pulp’s ‘Common People’)

Fore Watch: ‘Sailing Over the Sea’ (Their song to the tune of ‘The Animals Went in Two by Two’)

                                      

The permanent crew members then sang a selection of shanties and comical songs. Requests were taken, and a good time was had by all, laughing, joking, drinking and singing in true sailor fashion.

Friday, 28^th March

We upped anchor and left Swanage Bay for our final day of sailing back to Poole. There was an air of sadness as we entered harbour, knowing that the voyage was over and this was to be our final night together aboard the ship. We were to wake up and bang our heads on the ceiling or bunk above us for the last time.

We had our usual tidy up once the springs and mooring lines had been secured. We also had to put up a small marquee on the aft deck as there was to be a cocktail party for the Sail Training Association trustees that night while we all went out in the town.

Once all aboard was ship shape everyone sat down in the marquee for the wash-up, the Captain’s debrief of the voyage. He covered all of the gruesome details, even shaming those seasick individuals who had puked into the wind and “got their own back”! The Doctor had organised a sweepstake for how many nautical miles we would cover during the voyage, and the winner who guessed nearest to the actual total of 623 nautical miles claimed a huge £5 prize. The inter-watch competition results were also revealed: first was Main Watch, followed by Fore Watch, and last but by no means least was my Mizzen Watch. A crate of Becks was awarded to the winners, and silly leaving gifts were also given to the Watch Leaders. More Becks was distributed to the rest of the crew, and everyone hung around taking group photographs and swapping postal addresses.

                                                     

Once everything was finished we all went out, trying to find a pub that would let us all in as we were quite a large group (the Cook’s Assistant was supposed to have booked somewhere, but hadn’t). We were finally allowed in the Poole Arms, so while I settled down to a coke as I couldn’t get served again, although one of the older trainees did smuggle a drink over for me, giving me my first ever taste of a G&T, and two of our Watch went off to buy our Watch Leader’s leaving present of a bottle of rum.

Things got going full-swing, and the night was certainly cheered up when trainees Ben and Gordon arrived in skirts and make up! Soon everyone was drinking and singing, and the 0000hrs end of shore leave quickly came around. Our Watch had clubbed together for a sneaky bottle of rum and some coke though, and our Watch Leader managed to sneak us off ship for a few more hours during the changing of the watch. The revelry continued, and the last of us managed to stagger back aboard at about 0300hrs.

Saturday, 29^th March

We woke up at 0500hrs and just about managed to roll out of bed. We packed all of our things eventually, no mean feat as my bag seemed to have mysteriously shrunk during the voyage, though looking around I wasn’t alone as several others were also jumping on their bags to get them closed.

We had an extra long, extra thorough happy hour, took down the marquee and loaded on fresh stores before signing off and collecting our valuables back from the Purser. Everyone had ordered lithographs of the ship, and we all signed each other’s as a memento of the great time together.

Skippy, who came aboard in St Malo having cycled from Greece to France

Before our Watch signed off we presented Amanda with her token bottle of rum. We then had to hand back our smocks, harnesses and pillowcases to Rupert, the Boatswain’s Assistant, which seemed to prove it really was all over. There were big hugs all round on the quayside as people began to leave to return to their lives on land. My family arrived too to bring me home again, a slightly more worldly teenager than the one dropped at that same quayside just two weeks before.

                                                        

                                                   

Introduction

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Baby Blanket - Neat Circles in Squares

So my second baby blanket…

This one is a pattern new to me that I found here at Sarita Creative. I loved the fresh, modern look that it had, and I was also in the mood to work a new pattern.

I had been playing around with some colours from my Stylecraft stash, which I had ordered online from Deramores after reading so many good reviews about it. I had also just added to this with some extra colours as my Aunt had made a request for a blanket in purple and pink shades, so I decided to stock up while I was at it!!

I had loved the way that the Aspen (aqua colour), Saffron (yellow colour) and Fondant (pink colour) looked together, and I thought that they might look pretty good as circles in a white background. Then when my new Stylecraft order arrived in the post I found that while the Shrimp (melon/coral colour) didn't work with the purples and pinks I had ordered it with, I liked it with the Aspen and Saffron even better than the Fondant!

Aspen, Shrimp, Cream & Saffron Stylecraft Special DK

I wanted to work the colours so that they looked scattered across a white background, and to add to this effect I decided to make some of the squares totally white. This gave me four colour patches to work with, so I planned the colours in square blocks of four. I used numbers to work out a pattern that didn’t look too regular, but that also didn’t have any clumps of the same colour near to each other – so the colours were evenly distributed. This approach actually made me think that using Sudoku puzzles could be a great way to plan colour distribution in any future blankets that use 9 colour combos! After doing the number grid, I then drew myself another grid to use as a ‘map’ for my squares, colouring in little circles so I could see how it looked and follow it easily.

My colour map - ticking off the rows

Then I began hooking up these delightful little circles – they really are very straightforward to do, but give a lovely result, and at only 3 rounds each they are really quick too!! The pattern was so simple that I only needed to read it through once and then I was off. It was so enjoyable to make these little stacks of bright circles :)

As I was finishing off the final, square round, it became apparent to me to that trying to join these squares as I went along was not going to show them off to their best. This got me frantically searching for advice on crocheting or sewing together squares. In the end, I went for crocheting as then you’re not dragging a whole length of yarn through over and over again. When I started I followed Attic24’s advice to crochet on the back, but I didn’t like the way this left the front looking so after a few rows I unpicked everything and started again, crocheting the front!! Lots of extra work, but well worth it I felt – I was very happy with the result.

So far, I’m finishing up all the patches for one row at a time, then crocheting the whole row onto the previous one. To do this I put together the first row to begin with, without sewing in the ends from the joinings (I normally sew in ends as I go along – I’m terrified that I’ll never get around to finishing off if I leave them all until the end!), so I had one complete strip. Then the squares for the next complete row would be finished, and stitched along the sewn-up strip as the next row, and so on and so on. At the end I will unpick the short threads that held the first strip together, and then I can crochet up the lengths all in one go. This way I won’t have joins to keep tidy, and there will be fewer ends to sew in once it’s done.  

The squares are a little smaller than I had visualised before starting the pattern, and while I could of course just make more squares, I’m thinking that I might do a really wide border to add size instead. In my head it looks good, I hope it translates to reality… 

Here is my latest little blanket as a work in progress: I’m so happy with it so far, I wonder if any more of my friends will get pregnant and require baby blankets…

Progress so far - 2 more rows to go, then I can crochet the lengths together and add a border

Crochet Baby Blanket - Granny Squares

The last few months have involved me getting into mountain biking, something I haven’t really done in years and years, and as the weather has turned worse and the nights have gotten longer (and I finally realised how much I needed to rest a bursitis/tendonitis I have) I have gone back to my crochet.

I sort of lost interest in crochet over the summer. I think I was just restless to do other things, and while I couldn’t do everything I wanted to thanks to the bursitis/tendonitis, it didn’t stop me wanting to!! I also think that I need to have a project with a purpose – I do see a lot of beautiful things that I like, but if they don’t have a genuine purpose then I can’t bring myself to spend the money and the effort… And this is where other people’s happy news comes in very handy!!

A guy I’ve been working closely with over the last few months is to become a father again! He already has a little daughter, and the other week he and his wife found out that their next baby will be another little girl.

I had a stash of Stylecraft Special DK that I had bought from Deramores after reading about so many others who have loved it, and I picked out all of the ‘girly’ colours that I had – pinks, white and a yellow, 6 in all. I opted for a classic Granny Square blanket, as I think they are a bit of a timeless classic. I just added a slight twist to the pattern by doing each colour for 2 rows. I had seen some variations on this while browsing Pinterest, and I thought it would just make it a bit more modern looking (not being sure that the recipients would be into Granny chic!) I also did these joining them on the go, as I haven’t yet attempted sewing or crocheting squares together.

I kind of agonised over the colour pattern – I don’t seem to be all that good at planning colours, and this was going to be only the second time I had planned the colours in advance rather than going randomly. When you join as you go you do need to make sure you get things in the right place!  In the end I put the balls in a row, alternating as best I could between darker and lighter shades. Then I just made the colours graduate from the 1^st colour, to 2^nd, to 3^rd, all along the rows. With 6 colours, 6 squares, and 3 colours per square, this technique gave quite a pleasing effect in the end – although I wasn’t totally happy with the colour combinations.

(Before ironing - I didn't get an after picture due to rushing)

To finish off I chose 3 colours I did like together, and went round in 2 rows of UK trebles and a final row of UK double crochet. Very simple, but a nice finish I thought. 

It was great to give this gift to someone who has been a fantastic colleague through some tough times, although we were both so shy that we ended up sitting in a bit of an awkward silence for a time afterwards trying to think of what to say to each other!! He didn’t know what to say in gratitude, and I didn’t know what to say back! In the end the tension was broken when he said that he really wished he could do something back for me to say thank you, and I suggested he make the teas :)

Something that rewarding should be repeated I think, and luckily another of my work friends is also pregnant! She doesn’t yet know whether they will have a girl or a boy, so I gathered together some colours that I thought would work either way, as they are more about the mum’s taste than being too gender-specific.

I also picked a new pattern for this one, but more about that later…

Voyage on the Sir Winston Churchill ~ part 5

Monday, 24^th March

I was woken at 0600hrs for duty as Boatswain’s Day Worker, during which we were under the command of Rupert, the Boatswain’s Mate. Our Watch hadn’t contributed to Boatswain’s Day Worker up until now as we had been too low on numbers, but with Steve’s arrival we joined the rota. The Boatswain had a scary reputation, so I was relieved that I had missed most of the shift as it had begun prior to our joining the rota. I only had to join in with scrubbing the coach house roof before finishing at 1000hrs, and once this was over I rejoined my Watch on duty.

We were on second dog watch again, but on this occasion cloud spoiled the views of the sunset and the comet. We spent another night out of harbour at sea, heading toward the southern English coast.

Tuesday, 25^th March

         

                          

We arrived in Fowey, Cornwall, around midday, and were given shore leave. We were not in a dock this time but anchored in the middle of the small channel, so the lifeboat and rubber dubby were run as tender, providing a taxi service between ship and shore.

Whilst ashore I wrote more postcards and bought some souvenirs and ice cream before catching the 1600hrs tender back to ship at the end of shore leave.

                                          

                             

We were allowed off again in the evening to once again ‘splice the mainbrace’, and we even had a ship’s party organised. A group of us somehow managed to find the most boring pub in all Cornwall in which to wait for the party to begin at the Galleon Yacht Club, so a few of us moved on to somewhere more lively. We had a few drinks before getting to the party, where I unfortunately had time for only a couple of dances and a quick drink before catching the tender back again for my 2200-0000hrs three-man anchor watch. Once everybody was back again after the party we all sat up a while talking before bed.

Wednesday, 26^th March

More shore leave was allowed in the morning, so we decided to head off for a Watch Cornish cream tea, finding the Victoria Tea Rooms which fit the bill perfectly. Great minds think alike, and within minutes it seemed that half of the ship’s trainees had all found the same place – much to the consternation of the ladies working there, as 20-something of us settled down to delicious tea and scones.

                                            

Our Watch then went for a walk around the small lanes and pathways weaving their way between the houses of Fowey, before returning to the ship. 

                                                  

We had to queue on the beach for a while waiting for space on the tender, and once everyone was back on board we raised the anchors. It was the job of the Boatswain’s Day Workers to work down in the chain lockers as the anchors were raised, and they came up so covered in mud from the anchor chains that they literally had to be hosed down on the deck.

                                             

Before heading back out to sea we first travelled further up the channel to take on more water. The ship carries 35 tonnes of water, but this is soon used up when you have a ‘Happy Hour’ each day (“a clean ship is a happy ship!”) and 55 people need to use the showers and the heads.

Unfortunately we couldn’t leave Fowey in quite the same style as we had arrived as it was too rough to man the yards, but once out of shelter four of us went aloft to set the square sail and the course. I even managed to get a photo of the view from the crow’s nest, the wonkiness of the picture testimony to the roll of the ship in the choppy water.

                                                 

We spent yet another bumpy night at sea, this time headed along the coast for Swanage Bay.

Introduction

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 6

Bikepacking the South Downs Way

Bikepacking – I had never done it before, but decided that I really wanted to. I had already known about the South Downs Way for some time, and had decided that this would be the ideal route for my first bikepacking trip.

Not wanting to do the trip alone, but not knowing anyone who I thought would want to do this trip, I advertised on Explorers Connect for team mates. This turned out to be a brilliant idea, as I ended up with a really great group to do this with. We had a mixture of experience between us, and crucially one of the guys, Chris, was pretty experienced at bikepacking and it was brilliant to have him with us. The others were Moritz, who I had already met up with a few times for planning the trip, and a friend of Chris’s, Harry, who was also an experienced rider.

On the first morning I met up with Moritz in London to catch the train to Winchester, where we met Chris and Harry for the first time. Introductions complete, we set off down the hill from the station to find the start of the trail. 

99 problems...

The start of the trail was a little tricky to locate at first, but once we were on our way it was beautiful – although pretty hot!! The sun beamed down on us, and we all developed fantasies of finding a lovely country pub and sitting in the beer garden for ice cold drinks… mmmm…   We found the perfect pub, complete with beer garden, and closed! The next pubs were also closed, but when we found a lovely looking place with a cool stream at the bottom of the beer garden, we decided to wait until it opened. The sun-warmed water we carried with us just couldn’t hold a candle to the thought of a nice pint of something cold…

While we waited we did a bit of admin, sorting out bike niggles and cooling our feet in the stream. The pub opened, we got our drinks, and refreshed we headed off once again into the English countryside. As evening drew in and the sun sank lower, it cast a beautiful golden glow over the fields of golden wheat, rewarding climbs with glorious views over rolling countryside.

We continued following the single tracks, not making quite the progress I would have liked - unfortunately my fitness was not where I wanted it as I had been injured and unable to do any kind of training for a few weeks before the trip, and I was not used to pedalling with so much weight on my bike. We had also made a later-than-ideal start due to the restrictions on taking bikes though London stations during rush hour. Therefore we didn’t make it all the way to our planned first night’s stop, but instead wild-camped in a handy field. We lay out ground sheets and sleeping bags, then prepared and ate our camp food as the sun went down, and we even enjoyed a tot of whisky thanks to Harry and his hip flask. Then, lying under the stars with curious sheep for company and the glow of the lights of London visible above the horizon, we settled for our first night’s sleep on the trail.

Home Sweet Home for night 1

In the morning I was surprised not to be aching more after the unaccustomed effort the previous day, and after breakfasting and breaking camp, plus a little bit of posing with our various bikepacking set ups, we hit the trail again. More single track led onto some larger rolling hills and some very fast descending into the Queen Elizabeth Country Park (QECP), at which point coffee and cake was a lure too strong to resist. It’s a tough life on the trail… ;)

Coffee and cake at Queen Elizabeth Country Park

Here we discovered that we had inadvertently managed to coincide our trip with the Oxfam and Gurkhas Trailwalker event. This walk goes from QECP to Brighton via a significant section of the South Downs Way trail, and for the rest of the day we had to share the trail with hundreds of walkers, constantly calling out to them so they could move aside to let us pass – or in my case on the steep uphill sections, trying not to feel too disheartened as the walkers passed me!

The ground now is very chalky, and the clouds are rolling in. We divert a few kilometres off the trail to get lunch at a pub, and here Chris’s first aid skills are called upon as not only did Moritz take a tumble on the track down to the road, but an old lady arriving at the pub falls and injures herself, requiring an ambulance to be called. At this point I am pretty knackered, and with Moritz in pain (though not admitting it at all) and Chris busy helping various people, lunch is much deserved and we take a decent break before leaving again.

Moritz's poor knee

This allows the clouds to further gather, and it starts to rain. Chalk + water = very slick ground, and we have to work hard to keep control of the bikes. The wheels slip around making it slow going, and there is a real risk of falling at some points and picking up more injuries to the group. We push on as there is nothing else to do, but the rain falls harder and I for one can feel it leaching away my morale.

Descending again, carefully this time rather than enjoying the cruise, we arrive in a field to a round of cheers as the Trailwalker volunteers are welcoming in the Trailwalkers to a checkpoint. All the volunteers are really friendly and they take pity on us in the rain, letting us have some tea and cakes in their refreshment tent. Moritz is able to get some more attention for his badly cut knee, and his wrist is now hurting him quite a bit where he sprained it when he fell. We also make use of the giant route map they have up to try and identify a suitable camping spot for the night. While we’re there, I spot someone I know – I previously worked with one of the Gurkhas there, and he’s the site commander for this checkpoint. He offers us the chance to shelter at the site for the night, and we have a difficult decision to make. The point of the journey was to be self-supported and taking up help seems to defeat this objective, however our shelters are not really adequate for the heaviness of the rain, the wet chalky ground is treacherous and darkness is close. 

Photo courtesy of Chris

We settle on a compromise; identifying on the map a potential spot for the night, we decide to ride out to it. If it’s suitable we will camp there, and if not we will return to the checkpoint. We pedal off again through the mud and on towards the trees we saw on the map, but when we get there it realy isn’t a great camping site, and feeling soggy and chilled we all decide to head back to the friendly Gurkha checkpoint. There, we have the opportunity to dry off and get into clean clothes, and warm up with some very welcome cups of tea. 

Cooking dinner, Gurkha-style

The Gurkhas are awesome and really know how to look after themselves – they have a fire going and I join in for a bit as they prepare and cook up a brilliant communal meal. We all eat and chat and express our thanks to our unlikely hosts, and then us bikepackers head off to our shelter. It is full of midgies, and there is an interesting interlude as Harry plays a weird kind of Pied Piper, switching off all lighting within the tent and leading away streams of midgies with the light of his head torch!

Settling into our sleeping bags for the night, I realise that I feel really happy. I hadn’t been at all confident in my physical ability to cycle like this for days, had not felt hugely confident in my ability to organise it happening, hadn’t even been sure whether I would go through with it all! But here we all were, after two days on the trail. I had actually managed to overcome my insecurities and organised and took part in this trip. I may not have cycled as well as the others, but I had got out and done something, and it felt so good.

We ended our journey here – we had another day at our disposal, but Moritz needed to protect his injuries as he was to be a skipper on a charter yacht shortly after this trip. Chris had bad saddle sore despite his good equipment and experience, and my leg muscles were really starting to rebel with soreness and stiffness. Harry was fine, though he is a machine – at one point while cycling uphill on a road section, he had actually been strong enough to give me a push when I was struggling! We are near to Amberley, so we get breakfast overlooking the river and then jump on a train back to London together.

Homeward bound

The South Downs Way has not been completed this time, but that’s all the more reason to go back again.

** Chris also wrote about this trip in his blog, (Un)inspired Ramblings **