Heart

0

Comment

0

Link

Log in to comment or reply

IT RAINED in the night and it rained for the rest of the morning. I don't mind rain when I'm camping wild. And last night I was in a scruffy field of long grass and bushes just back from the road. In a well-ordered world, I find my spot, put up the tent and cook dinner. After that it is permitted to rain. I encourage it; nobody goes out in the rain to see if there's a cyclist in the woods.

It's when it rains in the morning that things go too far. Riding through Britain, I used our tunnel tent. It's not enormous but it has a decent vestibule. I can sit in the dry and watch my coffee boil out in the rain. For the rest of the trip, I'm sleeping in a one-man tent with space to store bits and pieces but not to sit.

So this morning I revelled in my talent for self-pity and wrapped the tent flaps round me and wished the world would go away. The long grass that hid me yesterday was now a soggy trap. The earth so soft when I slept had become a slimy, slippery slide. And the road through the long wood was dark and forbidding.

There's nothing more comforting than starting with something to moan about. If nothing else, the day can only get better. Or so I hoped.

The car people were up and about. I'd slept on because the dawn was so dark. I turned on my back light as I rode through the wood, and the flashing light on the back of my jacket. And I left both going as I sploshed through open fields in the supposed daylight.

Again, as ever in Poland, I didn't feel at the slightest danger from those who passed me.

The high-sided, open trucks were still there, though. But two towns on I remembered what the Belgian lad had told me - that somewhere there was a long stretch of road closed because of roadworks.

"You can ride it for an hour and not see anyone," he said. "And you can get through where they're working."

He couldn't remember where it was and I had forgotten. He thought about 15km from where I started the day and it turned out nearly 40. But who cares? Hey-ho for the unopened road!

Sure enough, the sign for Jedrzejow had been taped over when I reached a new roundabout. To the surprise of others, I signalled that way. And, yes, for a while I had nothing but local traffic, an occasional driver. The occasional high-sided lorry, too, because this was where they'd been headed all yesterday.

And then, after a long, happy saunter, I came to the red and white barrier closing three kilometres of road. Where before I had tar and puddles, now I had sand, stones and sludge. The workmen in their helmets and bright yellow jackets paid no notice.

I balanced my way on hard tracks left by diggers and bulldozers, rejoiced at occasional stretches of newly dressed road, stopped for coffee and sticky buns at a marooned garage delighted to see me, and in time came to where the diverted traffic rejoined my route. The fun was over. But so were the roadworks.

I reached Jedrzejow and looked for the station, which is on the edge of the town and not obvious from the road. Asking entailed moving my arms like the pistons of a steam engine and making whoo-whoo sounds. People are still talking about it.

Krakow is a fair-sized city and I'd lost interest in riding through suburbs and factories on a soaking day. Because it had started raining again. A short hop on the train would be another contact with Polish life - the driver left his cab door open so he could chat to passengers - and get me to Krakow's centre without feeling I had survived an endurance test.

Tomorrow, I'm off to see Auschwitz and reflect on the folly of humankind.

[] I sent a card today to my friend Lou, in that last town in Germany. I was delighted to find the Polish for "Germany" is Nimice. It means "I don't understand what you're saying." Now that's the way to deal with foreigners!