Freddy’s just sent this to me, and I think it’s a beautiful example of reckless costly generosity and gratitude: Going back a few weeks, on Easter Sunday while  my family and I we were at Gitega, we went to church where our kids from Homes of Hope go for Sunday school. During the service the…

Happy Easter! Well, it was such a pleasure to wake up back in my own bed, with even a lie-in until 634am when Josiah (2) woke up. Things have changed in my absence. He no longer wears nappies/diapers at night, and he said totally unprompted: “Can I share one of my eggs with the orphans?”…

I fell asleep on the sofa last night and woke up cold at 3am, so it was another bad night’s sleep. But hey, thanks to my terrible lack of sleep throughout the whole trip, this blog happened, so my loss has hopefully been your gain! At 6am, Brent and John showed up from Charleston to…

We allowed ourselves a lie-in this morning, until 730am, as we only had a short ride – we are too far ahead of our planned mileage, and in fact could have made it all the way back to Charleston today at a stretch (c.130miles) but we have cool hosts planned for this evening with me…

We were up at 6am for a great breakfast prepared by Chris. My neck’s sore from fighting Ron in the pool yesterday, so maybe I didn’t get the better of him as I’d thought. As we ate, Brian talked about Northerners coming down and taking some of his business with obscenely low contract bids. He’s…

Last night we were hosted by David and Valerie, and their two daughters, Sydney (20) and Connie (18). The girls were immediately swooning over our accents, and sat down to listen to us, not for the content but just the sound! It’s funny, the number of times I’ve given talks around the States and afterwards…

I forgot an important detail last night, and that was Ron’s transparent white boxer shorts. When we went for a quick cool refreshing dip in ‘the blue hole’ at the RV campsite, Ron jumped in along with the rest of us, but when he got out to jump again, the poor teenage girls voted with…

We scoffed lots of food at 6am at our Hampton Inn before heading out on this last week of our epic adventure. The sun blazed down on us all day, which was mostly spent on Highway 10 from Pensacola to Marianna, where I am now writing to you from a grotty room at the inappropriately…

  Oof! We’re nearing the home straight. Last week saw us complete 126miles on Monday, then 108, 103, 110, 108, and 110, bringing the total up to 2,501 miles so far in twenty four cycling days. Six to go, and I can’t wait to be back to Lizzie and the children. I honestly can’t believe…

We had an early start, 530am, to get to the ferry which is part of the ACA Southern Tier Route. It had been lashing down with rain throughout the night, and so we had our first grim drizzly cycling session, but only for 8miles until we came to the ferry terminal. As it was raining,…

It only takes one second for an accident. Life is full of small margins. I will not forget today in a hurry… Before we get to the day’s big event, there’s another family event going on across in Europe that I want to mention. Today is my parents’ 44th wedding anniversary, and I’m so grateful…

Last night was spent in Baton Rouge with the delightful Dentons. As soon as we got there, we were grateful for having made the long drive to get to them because they were so generous, had prepared great food, and having a hot shower, comfortable bed and a massage chair is always a bonus. But…

Last night, we’d stopped off at a nasty motel and booked just the one room so we could all have showers, and then crashed out, some in the RV and some in the dank, manky, musty room. At about 1130pm, what sounded like a loud drunk started jabbering away on his telephone just outside our…

(Synced Cycling)  I might be emotionally unaware or insensitive, but had you asked me yesterday about team dynamics and how things were going, I would have given an unequivocal shining report about all things having been sweetness and light amongst each one of us over the last three weeks. The fact is, with all of…