Keynsham

At 0530 this morning the TV and alarm clock came on within seconds of each other to create the cacophony necessary to launch me out of bed and on my way down to the Brussels Midi train station to check in for my Eurostar back to London. It wasn’t too far to walk, and with my GPS/TomTom contraption still doing a sterling job, I had no problems finding it in time to locate my seat for the 7am start.

Less than two hours later, and with a little bit of help from the Channel Tunnel, the green countryside of Kent appeared on either side of the train and a mardy British bird was trying to get people to buy soggy £5 sarnies from a wonky food trolley. Ah, England, my home, our overpriced land of dope and past glories! I hadn’t been away long enough to miss the place, but I was of course looking forward to being reunited with a few individuals again, the first of whom was Ron.

The brand-spanking new St Pancras Eurostar terminal was a lovely surprise – it’s not often you see investment happen in England – and sat at odds with the tired old station I’d left in Brussels. I didn’t linger though, heading straight to the freight office to pick up Ron. He’d arrived in one piece on an earlier train, so I saddled up and within moments I was out on the streets of London.

Luckily I’d missed rush hour, but it was still quite a hairy fifteen minute journey across to Paddington, in stark contrast to the joy it had been to cycle in the French capital. Reaching the station without coming a cropper under one of the thundering buses, I jumped on a train westwards, stashing Ron in the guards compartment for the duration, and emerged at Bath Spa station an hour and a half later.

I picked up the Bath-Bristol cyclepath homewards, recalling that I had walked a length of it on my very first day of wandering six weeks ago, which paradoxically felt both an age away and just the other day. I left the cyclepath at Saltford and cycled the roads back to my front door to be gladly reunited with my folks, PG Tips tea, cheddar cheese, Branston pickle and other things I’d missed during the journey.

That evening was the first time I had really considered what I had achieved in the last forty-four days. My little jaunt had taken a self-confessed couch potato seventy miles on foot through the beautiful English countryside and a further three hundred and twenty miles on two wheels through selected (read flat) parts of six European countries, with the remaining mileage being covered by train and boat. Ron had done me proud, more than living up to the reputation of his forefather, the trusty Nissan Bluebird that had taken me round New Zealand without fault.

And me? I was pretty chuffed with myself. But there was an even bigger journey waiting ahead.