August 27, 2016
Hold on to your hats: Things are about to get interesting
Alright, alright, alright! I've dragged this out long enough. The time is finally here for me to get this journal finished so we can all move on to exciting new things. Hold onto your hats, folks, things are about to get interesting (I mean it this time, I really do!)
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After giving my talk at Rodding high school we cycled southeast to Haderslev, where Dea's sister Sara and her partner Flemming live. It was good to visit them and be introduced to more of Dea's family, people I had been hearing about for so long. Now I was finally meeting them.
We stayed a couple of days, which was good because Sara runs a dental surgery and it gave me a chance to have a piece of my tooth removed (those keen readers with good memories will recall the dental dramas of Iran, China and Indonesia). We'd been through a lot together, me and this tooth. I was pleased that in Denmark they have very competent dentists (or one, at least, probably more) and Sara finally sorted this troublesome tooth out for me, by which I mean she took it out and put it in the bin.
After a couple of nights with Sara and Flemming, Dea and I pressed on towards Copenhagen in the warm summer sunshine. It was lovely cycling, it really was. There's not much more to say about it other than that.
We were using the small country roads, and on one very quiet one we found something incredible. At the side of the road there was a large collection of puzzles built on wooden posts. They were all there free to be tried by anyone. As a man who loves games and puzzles, this was a magnificent thing to stumble upon. Dea and I leaned down our bikes and had a go at some.
They were all very difficult. Most of them involved trying to free rings from being stuck on ropes tied in knots with balls and obstacles around them. I enjoyed the challenge, but soon grew frustrated as it was quite impossible to get any of the rings off. We turned our attentions to another little puzzle that involved rearranging red and black blocks. Dea was doing quite well at it when an old man appeared. He wanted to help, and quickly showed us how it was done.
"Can you do these ring ones?" I asked.
The man nodded and walked over to them. With rapidly moving hands he twisted and turned one ring and had it free in seconds. He moved on to the next and repeated the trick. It was impressive.
The man's name was Arne, and he lived just along the road. It turned out he'd been responsible for making all of these puzzles. He wanted to show us something at his house, so we followed him down the road. He led us to a garden pagoda/conservatory thing and it was like stepping into a little magical wonderland. Filling the walls on dozens of shelves were hundreds of little wooden puzzles. Most of them had been hand-built by Arne. He showed some of them to us. It was amazing, and Arne was an amazing guy. He stumbled about and shook a little. "I'm not drunk," he explained, "I've just got Parkinson's."
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Arne's daughter came out and told him that his dinner was ready, but he said he couldn't go without first showing us his orange cannon. He then went to his garden and found a long tube. It looked a little bit like a cannon, but I was disappointed to see that it was grey. Just as I was about to tell Arne that what he had there was not an orange cannon, but a grey cannon, he sprayed something into the tube and then pulled out a satsuma and rammed it in the end. But before I could tell him that what he had there was not an orange cannon, but a satsuma cannon, he'd set the damn thing off. There was an almighty noise and the citrus fruit shot out at 190 kilometres per hour, disappearing off into the skies.
And that's the real beauty of cycle touring isn't it? Meeting people like Arne. And there's not much more to say about the day after that, except that we cycled a bit more, and saw a fantastic sunset from a bridge, and then found a great campsite. It was one of the best, because it came with a football goal right next to it. We played several rounds of penalty kicks. I lost, of course.
25/08/16 - 50km
27/08/16 - 60km
Today's ride: 110 km (68 miles)
Total: 57,393 km (35,641 miles)
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