Stupid and Mrs Van Der Cluster Crazy

It’s really important being able to make friends when your away from home. So far this trip the stupidity of it has been of great assistance in this regard. I just have to mention what I am doing to make most people laugh. Admittedly, most of it is laughing at me but whether out of sorrow or amusement it seems to break the ice quite nicely.

Until last night.

Having had the most wonderful b&b in De Panne, where Marc and Anna were very good hosts, maybe I got a little over confident and didn’t pay too much attention when the tourist shop girl booked last nights accomodation.

Despite asking for a b&b to the north of the town (so I didn’t have to cycle back down the route I had just come) and one that was bike friendly, I got totally the opposite. Given a map and a general direction I set off, precisely the way I had just slaved up, not just a bit but all the way out of Middelburg Town.

Slightly peeved I arrived (after getting lost, something I am getting quius use to on this trip) at the tiniest b&b you could imagine. Greeted by a sweet elderly lady, her expression instantly changed to a scowl when I presented my bike.

Slightly concerned that I may not be in the right place, but knackered and desperate for a shower and bed, in we went. Tiny room, tiny bed didn’t matter. It was just lovely to get in somewhere warm and the promise of rest…

Showered and stretched I emerged ravenous to a very empty and quiet house. Not knowing anything about the area i wandered into the night in search of sustenance. Yet no shops were open and all the take aways were shut.

Knowing town was a good forty five minute walk away and that the bike being locked in the landlady’s back garden was out of the question, I wandered as dejected as a nimbus back to my room.

Fretting with hunger and desperate to replace all those spent carbs a stupid thought crossed my mind. The landlady won’t mind if I have my breakfast early will she?

I called out and knocked on the living room door but nothing stirred. I creakingly opened the kitchen door and stepped inside. Knowing I was wrong the hunger took over, and ghe stupid won. The fridge opened, the milk came out, the bananna got peeled and the bowl filled with cereal.

But not just any cereal: Clusters. And what’s more I finished the jar!

Ummm, yum. As I gorged myself on this feast I was dimmly aware of sounds stirring above. Of footsteps on the stairs. But I was too far gone to care.

Head down, chomping away, the door opened and in walked one very scorned little mother bear. Now my Dutch is non existent but i kind of got the gist that all the flapping and schreeching meant I was in trouble.

Still confident that the stupid charm would win through, I tried explaining myself with mime in between cramming more clusters down my throat.

I think I almost won the day. All that charade action at Christmas was finally paying off but then she spotted the empty jar.

Ballistic. Almost taking off with her flapping and schreeching louder than a banshee, she picked up the phone and called the police.

I know I was wrong to be eating ‘dinner’ at a bed and breakfast and had invaded her private space but the police…

Luckily they wouldn’t come, but I got the message that she wanted me to leave when she started throwing my things towards the door.

So tired and still hungry (despite my best efforts I didn’t finish the bowl before it was snatched as evidence) I was turfed onto the cold streets at half nine. Rather concerned I rode back to town.

Luckily, quite soon I found a hotel with a bigger bed and a bike shed. And what did i have for breakfast? The biggest bowl of clusters I could.

Pedalling At Thirty Metres Below

Almost until I reached Den Haag tonight, my entire trip through Holland has been below sea level. Sometimes as much as thirty six metres below which to my stupid mind seems crazy.

I mean how on earth do they do it? I can’t get my head around it.

I am taking the North Sea Cycle Route which as you might guess tracks the coast through most countries (England excepted). Through the province of Zeeland in Holland you cycle on, beside and below these huge dykes. Sometimes way below.

It is an amazing feat of engineering and quite mind bending as you see the sea on one side almost level with you and on the other side the sea way below you.

These dykes are built to to a one in one thousand year event standard. And so they are huge. The Dutch call this system the Delta Project and have spent billions on it as the storm surge of 1953 devestated large parts of Zeeland and killed over 2,000 people.

In the UK the standard for flood defences is 1/100 yr event.
Climate Change is projected to increase the frequency and severity of flooding from rainfall and storm surges. Making 1/100 yr events more like 1/50 or less.

The recent flooding in the lake district was a 1/1000 event if Hilary Benn is to be believed.

Two things spring to my mind:

1. The UK needs to up it’s flood defence game. Think London, the city, Westminster, Chelsea all protected

1/100 year defences.

2. Holland may want to start making these huge dykes and dams even bigger.

Train hops across route

As I limped into Harlingen on Friday evening I kind of knew that that was really it in terms of cycling to Copenhagen. Tendinitis takes a while to settle down but each morning I have a little pedal and take a call as to how it feels.

Suffice to say, I have moved miles in the last two days,…. By train. The old iron horse eating up the miles as I crossed from holland to Germany and now lie poised below Denmark ready to strike north in the morning.

I am desperate to try and keep cycling. I know that I will not have achieved what I set out to do with regard to the cycle but still want to do what I can. Besides it may snow tomorrow and I’d have to be stuipid to cycle in that. So hoping the last days rest will allow those knees a good few miles….

Really, this trip has achieved more tahn I ever hoped it would. The amount of support and good will I have recieved from friends, family and complete strangers has been amazing. I really hope that some of the attention will have made the Copenhagen summit a bit more meaningful for some of you.

It’s funny being so focused on the cycle ride I haven’t really followed the summit. And judging by most of the people I have met (and been able to communicate with) that is the same for nearly everyone. Everywhere I have been there has also been the ‘best’ christmas market.

Sometimes we are just too busy.

Is Copenhagen our Dunkirk

I’ve always wanted to see the beaches of Dunkirk. They hold such a reverence and mystery for me. Indeed, the events that happened here 69 years ago are so amazing and incredible that they have become indelibly linked to our national identity.

I felt truely humbled sitting above the vast empty now sands. The stillness and quietness a galaxy away from the Stuka divebombers and exploding shells of yesteryear.

The characteristics that we celebrate from Dunkirk; the resourcefulness, the courage, the bravery and that bull dog spirit, helped to sustain a nation through some dark years of world war 2.

Most of all though I couldn’t help wondering about the armada of ships, of all sizes and shapes, from all walks of life, that responded to the desperate situation. The mass mobilisation and the incredible cooperation. How they helped turn defeat to victory.

Is Copenhagen our Dunkirk? It may seem churlish, to some of you, to compare the Copenhagen Summit with Dunkirk. Yet to me I think there are real similarities.

In some ways Copenhagen is even more important than Dunkirk. While that was a clash of nations and ideologies, Climate Change threatens the very foundations of society and not just your creed and beliefs.

While war is often measured in years, decades sometimes, Climate Change, unaddressed, will be measured in millenia. War ends in peace. Climate Change could be irreversible.

When you think about the way in which the climate effects and influences our everyday lives, from luxury things like skiing in the alps, to the very basics of food production and water availability, it becomes apparent what a massive influence it bears upon us.

Just recently there was a climate conference which was deliberately held w/o press coverage for fear of looking alarmist. This conference looked at the world with an average of 4 degree’s warming by 2060 (you should be able to find it by typing 4 degrees into google. I think it was co ordinated by the Tyndall Centre).

Anyway, it’s very thorough and looks at lots of different ways it will impact from agriculture, to floods, to sea levels, migration etc. There is one bit on the audio transcript that is truely telling and truely terrifying.

The adjudicator asks the audience to put their hands up to indicate if they think 4 degrees is alarmist. Total silence, you could hear a pin drop. He then asks who thinks that we wil see a four degree warming?

Lets just say the answer was pretty convincing.

So that is where we are then, metaphorically. Standing on the beaches of Dunkirk and staring defeat in the face. And yet on the horizon are there the first sightings of an armada?

It will need your willingness, your bravery and most of all your co operation, but we can wrestle victory from disaster. If we act decisively. If at Copenhagen we act now.

Three countries in one day…. Gotta be pleased with that.

As luck would have it I also got one of the newest and most efficient ferries in the world today, Maersk Delft. Or so Norfolk Lines general manager told me. Unfortunately, no actual carbon footprint given and the number of the press officer was sadly not working.

Loving my b and b, Onder De Pannen in De Panne. Very comfy and run by a lovely couple, Anna and Marc.

Stiff legs and aching neck but wind will be at my back tomorrow. now just need to not be sidetrackered by the fields of Flanders and the sanctuary of Zwin.

The Hills of Kent are alive with the Sound of My Cursing

I knew today would be tough. I knew Kent would be hilly.

But i had no idea quite how hilly and that my Garmin Bike Nav had a hill fetish.  Climbed over a mile in altitude during the day.  That is probably a stroll for the Tour De france and pros but for me it was hell. My own version of the col de tourmalet. And just like that left champions cursing murderers that is just what i was shouting at my Garmin on more than one occassion as I had to concede defeat and walk my bike up the hill head bowed. All in all though a beautiful ride and the flats ( i hope) of northern europe to come.

Strange though despite over eight hours on (or walking beside ) the bike I didn’t see or even hear one buzzard. Does Kent have no buzzards? Maybe they heard me coming.

More from France and Belgium tomorrow.

All the best,

Jez

P.S. If Climate Change is not for you but you feel like supporting my ride, but can spare some cash please donate to Enham Alamein at http://www.justgiving.com/JezHunter-Cycle-of-Stupid .

P.P.S. Follow my progress on Twitter – ‘cycleofstupid’ orhttp://twitter.com/cycleofstupid or my blog at http://cycleofstupid.wordpress.com/

Hello world!

Twelve hours to go! Arrgh!