Sorry about that.
It turns out, when you go back to your Normal Life, the world comes crashing in with all sorts of demands.
Before you know it, you’ve got bills to pay again, a job to do, and, most frustrating of all: a seemingly endless list of things to fix. The more stuff you have, the more needs taking care of.
Not so much of a problem when you’re living out of a bike pannier bag!
We had the best of intentions of keeping things ticking over here while we got stuck back into Normal Life. It seems we have failed you. 😢
But let’s not dwell on past failures.
Particularly now, as we reach ever-hopefully towards the new year, let’s celebrate what a year it’s been!
You know about the skiing, and the sailing, and the cycling. You know about Austria, England, Miami, Galapagos, the Pacific, French Polynesia, and the whole of the US West Coast.
And if you don’t – now would seem the perfect time to go and acquaint yourself with them.
But What Did They Do Next, I hear you (maybe) ask?
Well – if you didn’t want to know, you’ve come to the wrong place to not find out.
This is what we did next…
First thing to say: Lisa went back to her job at the end of June – just a couple of days after flying from LA to London. Malaria vaccines don’t make themselves!
I (Will), however, got another month of gallivanting around the globe before the desk-job lured me back. And I was determined to use it well… which of course meant more cycling, and more writing.
Let's talk about writing first (this is a blog, after all!)
Those of you with long memories will recall that I have occasionally posted blogs (two, in fact), promising that I creep ever closer towards publication of my first novel...
Well, dear reader, it happened.
After some really really encouraging (and helpful) feedback from a number of friends, my debut novel, Where Innocence Ends, was published and stuck up for the world to judge on Amazon in mid-September.
And so I owe you all another apology. For while I have been busily pressing the buttons of the social media whirlwind, I have neglected this blog. And frankly, if you've stuck with us through all the blog updates, you must be a keen reader - so there's every chance you'll like what I've written!
The reviews have been incredibly positive - after 19x 5* ratings, I got my first 4* a couple of days ago, and realised I shall have to up my game for book 2.
So exactly what have I written, I hear you cry?
Well, Where Innocence Ends is historical fiction, set in the early 19th century, at the end of the wars with France. It's a classic coming-of-age story, in the vein of David Copperfield, or Great Expectations. But, if you haven't buried yourself in Charles Dickens recently (and full disclosure: I'm a big fan of his), don't worry. This is no dusty, creaking tome in 3 volumes. It has just as much in common with the adventures of Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe, or Patrick O'Brian's Master & Commander. This book rattles along. One person described it as 'Indiana Jones meets Great Expectations'. A couple of people told me they read it in just two days!
There are swordfights and fistfights, love and betrayal, intrigue, murder, spies, frauds, scandals, and plenty of genuine historical fact and figures, woven in amongst my main characters.
The action starts in London, and ends up in West Africa. (That took a lot of research. Whilst there are plenty of books about Regency London, there aren't so many about Ghana.) Along the way, as my protagonist tries to find his path, we see a society around him where honest people are cynically exploited by a handful of oligarchs who treat the world as their playground. Sound (depressingly) familiar?
I'm really happy with how it's turned out. I wanted to write something with 'teeth'. Something that went beyond a standard genre pigeonhole, and which made people think as well as feel. The feedback so far tells me I succeeded. This is more than the traditional ‘Regency romance’ or even ‘historical novel’ tags (though fans of those won't be disappointed), as it deals with colonialism, exploitation, and attitudes to greed and capitalism which are very current.
But don't take my word for it: have a read, and decide for yourself!
If you like it (or even if you don't, I suppose) please leave a review on Amazon, or even on Goodreads. And tell your friends, tell your family... it gives me the motivation to write the next one (and means I can spend less time on self-promotion, more time on writing!)
Last thing to say: I can promise there will be more. I wrote a prequel short story while we were sailing. I even sent it to a few people for feedback. The feedback, however, was not quite what I expected...
'This was brilliant. It absolutely needs to be a full-length novel!'.
'I need to know more about his backstory - make it a novel!'.
So you see, the prequel will be delayed. Because I have to add about another 70,000 words to it.
And before I can do that, I need to finish the sequel, which I am currently about halfway through. So read this blog, read Where Innocence Ends, and then just try to be patient. More is coming!
So that was writing.
On the cycling menu, I lined up 6 days in June/July with some friends in the foothills of the French Pyrenees, before 5 days on my own right in the centre of the Pyrenees, based in Argelès-Gazost.
You’ll have noticed that throughout our adventures we lean heavily on our wonderful friends – and this escapade was no exception. Our good friend Tom has family with a bolthole in a small village south of Limoux, and we’ve got into the habit of making an annual trip with him to cycle, drink, cook, eat, sleep and repeat. So, thinking that I hadn’t yet had my fill of crazy cycle adventures, I packed up my bike again (this time without the panniers), and went to ride up some mountains with Tom and Dan.
The breath-taking views just keep coming round here – every climb rewards you with a panorama, and sometimes even the flats (along ridges) and descents (through gorges) have their own gifts to give. Blend that with some great company, good food stops, and wonderful weather, and it’s not hard to see why we keep coming back.
Highlights included the trip to Carcassonne, the expedition up the Col de Jau (14 miles and 3,500ft), and the mandatory cycle through the Gorge de Galamus and up the Col St Louis (which the Tour de France tackled a couple of years ago).
In between 2-wheeled adventures, Tom and I also staged an impromptu stag party for Dan, who seemed to believe he’d got away with getting married (in August) without any sort of rite of passage. I have pictures, but it would not be the gentlemanly thing to share them.
All I will say is that there was a fantastic jazz band in a brewery, and that we decided to have a ‘rest day’ the following day…
Sadly, after a week Tom and Dan had jobs to go back to – so I packed up my things, jumped in the hire car, and drove myself off to the wonderful (and bike-friendly) Au Primrose hotel, in Argelès-Gazost. I was sad to be on my own for this leg of the adventure, but this was also the bit I’d been looking forward to most of all…
So I set out to France with the single goal of pedalling my way to the top of a big Pyrenean peak. And the one I settled on was the Tourmalet.
I’ve always loved the mountains (see our skiing adventures earlier this year!), and my family took me on walking trips to the Lake District as soon as I could blink for myself. But cycling up mountains has its own special following. When people talk about the big, famous cycle routes, you usually hear Paris-Roubaix, and you might even hear of the Tour of Flanders. But you’ll definitely, definitely hear of Alpe D’Huez, and Mont Ventoux, and the Tourmalet. These are peaks that have earned a place in cycling folklore – challenges for the brave and the foolhardy to test themselves against.
I figured if I couldn’t knock one of these big names off after all the cycling I’d been doing this summer, then I was never going to be able to: I’m not getting any younger!
So I set out to France with the single goal of pedalling my way to the top of a big Pyrenean peak. And the one I settled on was the Tourmalet.
A warm-up day to take in the beautiful (and UNESCO-listed) Cirque de Gavarnie turned out to be more of a challenge than I’d anticipated… the ride profile looked manageable: an out-and-back route with just the Col de Tentes at halfway to think about, where the climb steepened. But the map didn't show the strong headwind for 3 miles, where the road hit 12%, and I found myself locked in a mental battle to keep going. But keep going I did, and having reached the summit, the whole second half of the ride was downhill – 30 miles and 6,600ft. Plenty of time to recover from the effort!
After that effort, the Tourmalet challenge (13 miles and 4,700ft) suddenly seemed less daunting, and I knocked it off in style the next day, happy to sit in the sunshine at the top with an Orangina and a sandwich from the convenient café up there. The long descent back home was punctuated briefly by the obligatory mountain cow photo – these guys just have so much character, and when you’ve been grinding away uphill for a long time, the sudden appearance of another life-form through the clouds can really lift your spirits!
I’d never cycled in proper, big mountains before, but after this, I’ll definitely be back. The views were incredible, the sense of achievement was huge, and the abundance of cafes, selling all manner of ice-cream, coffee, pastries, cakes and sandwiches, was extremely welcome!
So that just about rounds out the year for me. It's been a busy one, but it's been one to savour. I hope you've enjoyed coming along with us. Who knows where next year will take us?