Setting Off

Hello.... you may think of today as Friday 2nd of August but Dan and I are have now set of on our adventure and are only referring to days by their numbers. Today is day 4 (a rest day) Here are a few things that have happened since day 1.

Here we are with our lovely 10 year old next door neighbour a minute before we set off. If you look carefully you might be able to see a banana attached precariously to my pannier. Unfortunately that banana fell off somewhere along Lawrence or Earl road.

We got the ferry across the Mersey something we have never done before in 8 years of living in Liverpool. We then cycled 35 miles south to Dans grandparents house in Malpas, Cheshire. On the way we passed the cutest poster ever!

Please everyone be vigilant for what I'm assuming is a a black cat. Here is Dan with his English Grandparents.

Impressive beard isn't it. 

So that was day 1, very pleasant....unlike day 2, when after 15 miles of cycling in the rain Dan said "and now we join the canal tow path so no more hills and a nice direct route all the way to Birmingham." He wasn't so jolly after a few miles of walking our bikes through this:

After hoping it would get better for a long time we eventually abandoned the canal route and cycled in the A41 towards Wolverhampton for ages and ages, and then joined a much better tow path that connected Wolverhampton with Birmingham. In total we cycled 69.2 miles that day at the absolutely rubbish average speed of 6 miles an hour. (we normally do about 10 mph) I can't say we were the best company when we arrived at my sister Jo's house. I won't scare you with a picture of my face but here are my feet.

Day 3 was a much more pleasant 22 miles to my parents house near Coventry although unfortunately my bum had not fully recovered from the day before, so instead of the first 10 miles being pain free like they normally are, my bum hurt immediately. Today we have been resting and tomorrow we're off to the isle of wight, by car and boat (car's are cheating I know)  By about midnight on Sunday night/Monday morning we'll be in France and Dan will have got through day 7 the day he's most worried about. 

10 Trip FAQs

Hello....lots of people are asking the us the same questions at the moment. We don't mind at all but I thought I'd write 10 FAQs as my last blog before we leave. (Sorry if you're bored of hearing about it)

1) When are you leaving?
Tomorrow!! by bike from our house. It will be 30th July 2013 exactly 60 years after my grandparents left for their trip. Here they are having a picnic in the desert:

2) Where are you going?
Kuwait (via England, France, Switzerland, Italy, Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Macedonia, Greece, Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan)

If you're not sure where Kuwait is it's here between Iraq and Saudi.

You may have noticed that 'Turkey-Lebanon-Jordan-Kuwait' isn't really a route. That's the annoying thing about the middle east too many countries that your mum (and the foreign office) won't let you go to. When my grandparents did the same trip in 1953 they happily drove through Iraq and Syria which is sort of the sensible way geographically. We have just picked the countries we wanted to go to and are flying over the bad ones...that's partly why we couldn't go by car like we wanted to originally.

So we're flying over Syria to Lebanon (which is totally not fair because we had this idea before Syria was a mess) and then we're annoying flying to Jordan because Lebanon and Jordan don't quite join up and although I would love to go through Israel and palestine to get there, the Lebanon/ Israel boarder
has been closed since 2006 and you can only go to one of those places on any one passport. The last bit Jordan to Kuwait...I kind of don't mind avoiding Iraq and Saudi. They're not the most welcoming of countries. In fact when we were considering going through Saudi we read on a Saudi website 'Saudi Arabia will remain a great nation as long as it is difficult for foreigners to enter'

That was a long answer sorry.

3) How far will you cycle in a day?
We decided 60 miles should be the maximum per day a  while ago, then I did a test ride that was 60 miles and I thought I was capable of doing it if I had a hour break after 30 miles and a minuets break every 10 miles. Until a few days ago I was thinking we'd have a few 60 mile days but mostly cycling days would be 40 or 50 miles. Last night Dan showed me the GPS computer program with the routes mapped and almost all of them were between 60 and 70 miles.....I'm not quite sure how that happened!

4) How long are you away for?
2 months I think we arrive back in Britain on 29th Sept. We won't really be functioning members of society until October.

5) What are you doing with your house?
2 guys Joe and Adam are living in it.

6) How much luggage will you take?
one pannier bag and one small ruck sack each. I'm not even taking conditioner : (

7) Where are you staying, are you camping?
We can't really camp because then we'd have to take a tent and a mattress and sleeping bags ect so we're staying in a mixture of friends and family's houses, my dad's boat, Couch surfing (staying with strangers from the internet) cheap hostels, and 2 nice hotels (in Venice and Kuwait)

8) What are you doing about work?
I'm self employed so I can kind of take time off, also because I wonk in school there isn't any work in August anyway so I'm only missing a month. Dan has quit his job....he hated it anyway partly because he spent 3 hours a day commuting. On Friday he qualified as a life guard so he'll be looking for work in local swimming pools whilst trying to do more creatively interesting things like writing a book with our friend Ian.

9) What are you most looking forward to?
I'm looking forward to all of it really, but particularly Macedonia, Lebanon and Jordan. But I'm mostly looking forward to the fact that I will be away from everyday life having an adventure with my best friend Dan. awww.

10) What are you most scared of/ worried about?
Day 15 -Lons-le Saunier to Geneva! 70 miles of cycling through the alps with a 7000 foot incline. (in case you didn't know we don't have super amazing bikes we have folding bikes with little wheels and mine doesn't work in gear 1.) At the end of that we have to find a couch surfers house and try and be polite guests in a stranger's home. I also worry about missing planes or not being allowed onto trains with bikes and stuff.

Dan is least looking forward to Day 7- Isle of wight to Le Havre it's 20 hours of wobbling around on a 7 meter long boat...if the winds in the wrong direction it will be longer. Last time we crossed the channel in that boat he was sick about 10 times. He said he's rather cycle for 20 hours than sail for 20 hours. These is our sailing faces:

Thanks for reading. xx

P.s if you want to keep in contact we will be using twitter, email and facebook, maybe skype, I will write a few blogs but mainly we're keeping a paper diary. We will not be using our phones.

The Bet (part 2)

So since writing my last blog about my new bet, it seems that pretty much everyone wants to try and have as many ginger children as possible. Which is a big slap in the face to Katie Hopkins a "celebrity" that Helen Bradley told me to google after my last post. Katie Hopkins is a horrible snobbish woman who once tweeted

'Ginger babies. Like a baby. Just so much harder to love'

If that's the case why do so many people want to take part in the who can have the most ginger babies by 2028 bet?

Here are all the people who after reading my last blog want in:

 In the already parents category there's my mum (Sue) who has 2 of of 3 ginger children, and likes to boast that she is winning already. I guess technically she is but  if me or Jo (pictured below) go grey or die or dye by 2028 then she's not got much of a chance. She has set the bar high though if you're only planning on having two children I wouldn't bother entering into the ginger bet. p.s She's entering with my Dad obviously.

 Next in the parent category is Steph and Nick and Baby Benedict, although neither Steph or Nick are ginger, Ben (our godson) is looking more ginger every time I see him, and they're planning on having 4 children so in with a very good chance.

So in the couples category there's us and Katie and Mike as stated in the previous blog. 

And then in the singles category there is:

 Joe Fred....who has a ginger mum.

 Hazel Jurd who also has a ginger mum.

Helen Bradley...not a ginger but a massive fancier of ginger men.

Lydia Palmer and Danni McGuinness Both gingers in their own right.

The advantage of being single at this stage in the competition is that you can choose a partner who's going to give you most chance of winning. I was thinking after we've finished this bet in 2028 maybe we could go for most ginger grandchildren in 2058 say? Me and Helen already have vague plans to share a grandchild anyway. (we did try to become sisters in law but it would have meant at least one of us marring someone we didn't love) so if she has a couple of ginger kids this would be a double bonus for me. 

The small print:

• To answer Rachel's question only biological children count. 
• The ginger must be natural, however if you are a natural ginger and you dye your hair anther colour you are a traitor to the race and are permanently disqualified as an individual.
• winner is the couple with the most ginger children on 1st January 2028.
• Entrants are all those photographed above plus their future partners and children.
• The competition is now closed no one else can enter but other people can take bets on who will win.
• Losers which are defined as anyone photographed above and their families excluding the one winning family.
• If there are two winners with equal amounts of ginger children a gingerness scale will be drawn (sort of like litmus paper but with shades of ginger)
• All losing families must dye their whole families hair ginger.

A New Bet

I recently made a new bet which will expire in 15 years time. Me and Katie Hunt are having a competition. who can have the most ginger children (with our partners Mike and Dan.) The loser has to dye their hair and all of their families hair ginger.

I think our chances of winning are fairly even as I am the most ginger out of the 4 of us but Dan is the least ginger...as in he's not at all ginger. Katie has light brown/dark blond hair and Mike is a bit ginger especially in the beard. The bet isn't proportional depending on what percentage of our children are ginger, its just who has the most gingers.

Yesterday I was explaining the deal to Joe Fred and he expressed an intrest on getting in on the bet. He has dark hair but his mum is ginger so he's got a bit of recessive ginger going on. Joe has the slight disadvantage that he is currently single but he does have until 2028 to work on that.

So who's your money on? Here are the candidates:

P.s sorry to totally embarrass you all and also steel photos of you. Not the kind of sorry that means I'll never do it again. The 'a bit sorry but I'm still doing it' kind of sorry. If it makes you feel better I did purposefully put an embarrassing picture of me in it too.

Germans

In my life I have met at least 8 Germans, apart from that time I went to Germany and was surrounded by them. From these 8 Germans 3 of which I knew from my gap year to palestine, and 5 of which have been recent couch suffers I have put together these statistics:

100% of Germans speek brilliant english.

100% of germans are nice people.

87.5% of Germans are female.

100% of germans would not rob an English stranger when given the chance.

25% of Germans have a dislike of a food that I believe is essential to your diet ie cheese, pasta or meat

100% of germans like travelling.

at least 37.5% of Germans don't know how to set a burglar alarm.

37.5% of Germans have lived in Beit Jala (a suburb of bethlehem)

62.5% of Germans have ridden the 86 bus down Smithdown road.

25% of Germans do not think curtains are necessary.

at least 25% of Germans prefere Liverpool to Manchester.

62.5 % of Germans have been to Scotland.

25% of Germans have been to the outer Hebrides in April (and enjoyed nice weather there!)

37.5% of Germans have been to the wirral, although a third of those did it by accidentally getting on the wrong bus.

12.5 % of Germans have shared a t-shirt with me. As in we both wore it at the same time.

Sick Trip Party

Sick

Today was probably the most pleasant experience I've ever had of being sick. (except possibly milky baby sick times) Obviously it wasn't pleasant, being sick never is, but if I had to relive one of my being sick experiences again it would be today's. I was at work teaching willow sculpture to year 5 and it was the beginning of lunch but children were still working on their sculptures, I felt fine until about 5 minutes leading up to it. I dismissed the class, was sick in the staff toilet and then felt almost totally fine, ate some lunch and carried on with my day.

That's totally the way to do it when you're self employed. You've got to just man up and get on with it. I decided there's no point going home, if I was going to be sick again I might as well do it in school rather than in my car while driving home. Last time I told myself to man up was when I was getting into and extremely hot bath and I couldn't be bothered to put anymore cold water in. Dan said 'if anything I needed to woman up' when I asked what he meant by that he say 'you should dither more, and go out for cups of tea and natter more' I'm probably a bit too decisive and focused. I'll work on that...or maybe I won't ,who knows maybe I'll invite a friend out for cupper and we can have a good old natter about the whole thing and not really come to any conclusions.

Trip

In other news our trip plans are coming together we now have our whole trip planned out day by day, we have panniers for our bikes and geeky T-shirts that match the colours of our bikes. You should totally follow us in twitter we have invented our own hash tag: #2q8

Here is an embarrassing picture of us next to our foldy bikes wearing our T-shirts:

I ordered mine too big by accident because I got confused by american sizes, but vista print are going to send me a new smaller one for free because I complained. I'm pretty good at complaining.... I got a free second ice cream from sefton park at the weekend because I complained that my first one was horrible.


Party

If you read my previous blog I mentioned Joe Fred's no electriciy party was coming up. It was one of the best parties I've ever been to. I'd post a photo but no cameras were allowed. I sculpted this snail at the party though:

I made this while there was a fire on one side of me and Alex playing the cello on the other side of me. From a health and saftey point of view it was one of the most dangerous parties I'd ever been to, with  two slightly out of control fires, alcohol, hammers and chissels, lots of people in a very tight space, and no lights. Also if things did get out of hand no one would be able to phone the fire brigade, because phones were banned. Oh well - we all know that as risk increases fun increases up until that critcal injury/ death point of course then fun dramatically decreases. Unless you're in heaven jumping into chocolate waterfalls and stuff.

Giving Up

Today I have decided to give up on my new years resolution of only buying 3 items of clothing this year. I decided I would get more enjoyment out of breaking the goal than keeping it. My heart wasn't really in it.

I decided to do it in the first place because my mum said she was giving up buying clothes altogether this year because she didn't need any new ones, and I felt that I didn't need many I had a lot of winter jumpers and stuff, but I did need a few more t-shirts so that is why I decided 3 items was enough and I thought I would get all t - shirts. Then I bough a hoodie and a dress so I only had one item left to buy and that really should of been a t-shirt.

Then I bought some padded cycling shorts which I decided didn't count because they were horrible but necessary. Then the zip on my coat broke, and I also decided that instead of taking muslim appropriate clothes all the way though Europe to Istanbul on my trip that it would be better off to save on weight and wear strappy tops all through Europe and buy a couple of covering up things in turkey ready for the middle east part of our big adventure. Also right now I'm not poor enough to stick to my principles. I can do it when I have to, like once I lived on £5 a week food and bought no clothes but right now I don't have to so I'm giving up giving things up.

Other things I've given up in life are the clarinet, my MA, gymnastics and ballet and drama. Out of those things I only regret gymnastics.

This is me wearing my new coat last night:

I recently read a book called the moneyless man, about a man (Mark Boyle) who lived without money for a year, he lived in a caravan and cycled everywhere and ate stuff he grew or food that supermarkets were throwing out. He was all about swapping his skills for things, and community living and stuff. It was quite inspiring but he was a bit to into the environment for my liking. I could never do that challenge...that's quite obvious as I can even go a year without buying more than 3 items of clothes. The one thing I massively disagreed with was when he started chatting on about women and how they should get through their time of the month in a environmentally friendly way. I don't want to go a huge feminist rant .....but I'll bleed on whatever I want to bleed on thanks Mark.

Money isn't all bad, in my opinion it's actually quite a convenient way of swapping things. For example I did a mosaic workshop on in a school thursday which paid for the coat a bought on saturday. How annoying would it have been if I had to take all my mosaic stuff into the coat shop and force the woman who sold me the coat to make a mosaic with me instead of giving her the money? I don't think she'd be down with that.

Me an Joe Fred who has also read this book have been discussing what year long challenges would be interesting, I don't think we're going to try any of them any time soon but here are our ideas:

Buy clothes only from charity shops.

spend 6 hours a day outside.

make something everyday.

live with only 50 items e.g 10 items of clothes 5 items of entertainment, 7 cooking and eating implements, 1 transport device etc ect

Joe is having a no electricity party next week. There are no cameras allowed so I will be documenting the party in the style of a court room artist, and I'm going to bring along all my sculpture stuff so that anyone who wants can make a breeze block sculpture. This is Frank who I made about a year ago: