Having got back to work and back into ‘real’ life again, I found that most people have asked me the same question: “What were the best bits and what were the worst bits?”. Having been away for just over three weeks, there were so many ‘bits’ to consider that I actually found it quite hard to answer!

The Worst Bits

The worst bits were running out of energy (which cyclists called The Bonk!) and feeling terrible! For those of you who don’t know, I had found before we went away that I was having a real problem with wheat and gluten. I found that it was causing my belly to swell up (making me look like I was about 7 months pregnant!) and therefore making me incredibly tired! When this happened I found that instead of walking I ended up with a slow waddle. It was also difficult to bend over – which is needed to some extent when cycling. While watching what you eat at home is one thing, trying to do so whilst eating out is not always easy! The biggest challenge initially was eating enough carbs, which meant that I easily ran out of steam. Once that happens, it is hard to recover and makes the rest of that day harder. With our End-to-End trip there was no choice, you just had to keep going as best you could, to get to where we were sleeping that night. Unfortunately it also has a knock on effect on the following day.

Even though I tried to make sure that I eat things that didn’t include gluten, there were some days when I got it wrong. I can think of two days when I got it wrong in quite a spectacular fashion! The first was Day 6 (Cheddar to St Briavels, which was about 47 miles). It rained all morning, so by the time we stopped for lunch we were all a bit fed up, rather damp and a little chilly! I picked things which I thought would be OK from the pub menu. The food itself tasted fantastic but as the day wore on, I blew up like a balloon and felt so tired. We stopped in Chepstow that afternoon to buy groceries for the evening meal. I must have looked terrible because Andy P insisted that I go for a sit down and a coffee and leave the shopping to the others! Andy S volunteered to cook instead of me and I have to say that I was glad that they were all looking after me – it was great to be part of a team! Thankfully when this happens, I normally wake up the next day feeling much better than the night before. The second occasion was on Day 14 (Carlisle to Sanquhar, which was about 61 miles) and I have to say that I have no idea what I did wrong that day, except that by the time we arrived in Sanquhar I was in a mess. That evening we walked from Newark Farm into Sanquhar for a meal. I had such a slow waddle that I began to wonder if I would get there! Having got to the pub, I very nearly went back to the farm without eating as I felt awful. Thankfully I decided to stay and eat something, which did help me to feel a little more human again and gave me a little more energy later for the waddle back to the farm!

I have to say that I did finally get the diet working better. My main saviour was gluten free porridge, which you can’t get everywhere. But having that for breakfast with honey and banana in it did set me up for the day. It became know as rocket fuel on the trip by some of the others!

The Best Bits

With so much to choose from, this was very hard but I have to say that it was the scenery we saw along the way. There are just so many amazing places in the UK, all so very different, that it is hard to have a favourite. We were very blessed by some fabulous weather, especially from the Lake District up as far as Inverness, which of course makes places seem very much nicer than they might in wet and windy weather. If I had to choose, I think that the best bits were Windermere (where we had a day off and walked down into Bowness from the Youth Hostel near Troutbeck) and also Lochranza (where we also had a day off and walked around one of the local hills and along the sea, which was as still as a millpond). Both places were very beautiful and had breath-taking scenery. Being able to spend time wandering around and enjoying being still was rather like balm to my soul. It was a time to be still and to appreciate the wonders of nature which were at their best.