It's been a good three years now since I've toured abroad. Lots of things got in the way, from the obvious (Covid) to a whole sequence of domestic rearrangements. Since 2020, when I just about managed to squeeze in a highly precarious trip through Austria, things got pretty grim: we've been locked down, I got chronically sick for a couple of months, we've sold the house - not an entirely smooth process - and moved across the country to my native Westcountry, and I've got a new and better job. A lot has been going on and it wasn't practical (or in 2021, possible) to take a multi-week tour outside the UK.

I've made up for it with keeping my regular riding up, fixing up and upgrading the 'Shift (see following pages) and doing lots of great day rides and short journeys around the UK. While the after-effects of the pandemic were still imposing I rode a long loop to Yorkshire around Eastern England, an area I'd never really visited; and more recently I've been thoroughly exploring Cornwall. More medical annoyances (bad back, ouch) meant I took this carefully, but fortunately my riding wasn't too badly affected and I even managed two camping trips in the vicinity last year.

Now things are really looking steady. My new job is not only saner and better managed, it also pays more and (more importantly) formally allows me to work from Cornwall (a situation which was rather preposterously fudged for over a year in my last role). I'd been in the last job for over 10 years, and while they'd generally been good to me even a cursory glance at the market made it clear that man they'd been underpaying/overworking us, to a ridiculous degree for the south-east. This makes the whole Cornish situation much more secure (indeed, the cost of living is surprisingly a bit cheaper here), and means I can disburse some of my savings I was hoarding in case everything went wrong and I couldn't get any work for years on the go (I may have been overcautious in this). That goes into the mortgage, which in turn reduces the (somewhat higher interest) payments and means we can live pretty cheaply down here, while simultaneously both of us are still fully employed. Meanwhile the house is beautiful, indestructible (it's made of solid granite and has been there for 250+ years), half a mile stroll from the beach and in 5 years or so we'll own it outright. I'm kinda pinching myself that we've made this all work, but we seem to have landed well here.

Unless I sound too smug, I got a succession of medical annoyances that drove me to distraction over the winter. My elbow blew up like a balloon, in a bizarre bodily malfunction (a "bursitis") where connective tissue just randomly fills with fluid. I got a proper "slipped" (i.e. herniated) disc in my back, which didn't hurt too much in itself but pressed against my sciatic nerve in a way that could sometimes be agonising. This has been a long time coming (I've really messed up my back with bad posture and lifting for a couple of years) so it wasn't a massive surprise, but it wasn't much fun. It really messed up my walking - for a few weeks I pretty much had to use crutches - and infuriatingly there was almost nothing that could be done for it. On the other hand the physio made it clear that however much of a pain it was, it'd probably just get better on its own - and indeed this is exactly what happened. Six weeks or so ago the pain receded, I could walk normally again, and now it's like nothing ever happened. The leg of course was totally fine, and cycling with it was never a problem.

Despite putting on a little weight after this (again not a massive surprise considering the pushing-40 and, well, the pasties) I've managed to keep pretty fit - in fact my hill-climbing ability has gone through the roof with the necessity of winching up the 15, 20, 25% gradients that are all too common around here. I seem to be riding slower than ever before, but I'm fairly resigned to this as a continuation of the long slow down ever since I was 20...