August 3, 2016
Homeward bound: I've cycled around the world
I was awake at 4:30 in the morning and up and out of the tent soon after. This was a special day. I was on my way home, to my parent's house in leafy Buckinghamshire, the place where I had spent my entire childhood. Having been all the way around the world constantly chasing deadlines because of visas and cruises and girls, it should come as no surprise that I was once again in a bit of a hurry. My sister was visiting with my niece and nephew and would only be staying a couple of days, so I'd been rushing to get there from Southampton as fast as I could. Another early start it was then, so I could get there by early afternoon and spend as much time with the little ones as possible.
I passed through Oxford at first light, a historic British treasure that I was slightly underwhelmed by. The best thing about being here was the appearance of the sun, most unexpected but certainly very welcome.
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I cycled all day on small roads, relieved that the weather had finally decided to show me some mercy and keen to press on to see my family for the first time in over three years. I was following the signs for Milton Keynes, a city I knew so well. Through Steeple Claydon, where I used to sometimes play football as a kid. Then on into the city of Milton Keynes itself, the famous redways (great cycle path network) took me past Furzton Lake. Across the lake I could see a restaurant that I worked at ten years earlier. I stopped and looked at it now, remembered how I used to stare out of the window and wish that I could travel, wished I knew how, wished I could leave behind the boring job and see the world. Somehow I'd found the way. I'd followed my dream.
I continued into the city centre, other things now looking so familiar. I cycled past The Point, where I used to go to the cinema as a kid, past the shopping centre where I used to work and hang out, past the exact point where I'd had a fight with my first girlfriend. It was so strange. So strange to be back. I saw a guy I went to school with, crossing the road in front of me. I'd not spoken to him in fifteen years. He was wearing a suit and staring at his phone. I didn't try to speak to him, for I knew our lives had diverged too far.
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I got lost around Tongwell. Fifteen kilometres from home and I got lost. What made it worse was that I used to work in Tongwell too. Countless hours in a warehouse to finance the first trip. It was where it had all begun, how ironic to be lost there. I found my way, eventually, when I noticed a gas station I used to fill up at when I was a 17 year-old driving my car to see my girlfriend. How much I'd changed since then. How we've all changed.
I found my way to Tongwell Lake and sat to take one final break before home. There was no bench so I just sat on the grass and looked out at swans floating across the water and tried to make sense of everything as I stuffed my face with biscuits one more time. A man approached me.
"Where are you going with all that stuff?" he asked. This was the first time someone had asked me this since I'd arrived back in England.
"Actually I'm from a place ten miles away from here..." I paused for effect, then added, "But I've cycled around the world."
Arghh, I hated the way that sounded. Arrogant somehow. I'd waited six years to be able to say I'd cycled around the world, and now I realised that saying it just made me sound like a twat. I decided not to say it again.
The rest of the route was so familiar to me. I'd ridden it hundreds of times before. But somehow it seemed so much shorter than I remembered it. The corners of the final, winding country lane disappeared behind me quickly as I looked forward to seeing my family again after so, so, so long. Three years and two months had gone by since I'd cycled out of this village. This village where I had learnt to ride a bike. This village that I had for so many years called home. This village. This ridiculously named village...
Today's ride: 109 km (68 miles)
Total: 55,983 km (34,765 miles)
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