It's been a while! So what's been going on? Have I got tired of cycling? Swapped the bike for a surf board? Become so gorged on Cornish pasties that my saddle no longer will bear my bulk? Have the wicked hills around here finally made me admit defeat?

I'll break what little suspense so you can breath easy - of course not!

Things have been going well, so swimmingly in fact that the year has just been flying by without a tour getting a look in. We're well settled in Cornwall and I've been loving being back in the Westcountry; the new job I started last year has been super interesting, and has certainly kept me busy, with a particularly intense couple of months of good satisfying work coming to a successful conclusion (it all works!); and me and Caroline went on a non-cycling trip to Turkey, where we saw an enormous number of extremely ancient cities and ate our weight in baklava.

I actually got off to a good start in the year cycling and fitness-wise: after seeing with horror the scale passing the 93kg mark on New Year's Day, I resolved to lose some weight. This lead to a bunch of healthy changes, including some rudimentary ones in the diet: first I gave up drinking beer (apart from special occasions, like erm being in the pub). Then I saw how many calories were in G&T and gave that up as well. It's nice to have a drink from time-to-time, but it's now much less of a day-to-day thing, and I'm pretty happy to keep it at that level. My body's thanking me too: I feel generally much healthier (especially in the digestion), the weight's fallen off (back down to 81kg, which is a nice level). My alcohol tolerance has also decreased to comical teenage-like levels. This makes me a much "cheaper date", but also means there is hangover potential in that second pint. This may become relevant later in this journal.

Of course I also wanted to keep up the fitness, and so have been cycling every weekend since January (when we've not been in the sea). Ironically, I've probably been in better shape aerobically (and certainly in hill-climbing ability) in the spring than for many years. I've kept up the day-rides around the local area, my calves have grow - and that's somehow been enough. It's low-key, I haven't really been taking photos, and it didn't quite seem worth posting them.

So somehow August has come around and I still haven't got a tour in the diary. I was toying with the idea of getting the ferry to Brittany, and I have lots of leave left to take off from work, but September is busy and it would now be looking like October. I'm not so sure that the French Atlantic coast in October is a great idea weather-wise, or for campsite options.

One of the things I can't miss in September is a reunion with my University friends - who I first met 20 years ago. Every time we've had a get-together in the past I've cycled to meet them. This planted a seed of an idea for a mini-tour...