Tag: Stories
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Front Cover Of My New Book
My publishers just sent me a copy of the front cover design for the book I’m writing: How To Get To The North Pole. My deadline for writing is Christmas, after which the book is due for release in Spring next year. It should be about £10 to buy with individual chapters available as ebooks.
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Cold Water Therapy (This Is The Serpentine)
Stupid. I should have known that late October was not a good time to go cycling in sandals but I’d come back from holiday the night before and hadn’t adjusted my thermostat. It is cold. To make matters worse, the first three miles are all downhill, littered with traffic lights and choked with commuters so…
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You Are Not Home Yet
You may have had a shower, washed your clothes and even had a shave of your expedition beard or leg hair but until you feel the familiar flow of the shower in your bathroom, see your weathered face in its mirror and slip on clothes that have not been worn every day for a month,…
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A Sunny Summer Sunday
It was a sunny summer Sunday when we loaded our car with a picnic and headed off to the Cotswolds. We paid a princely pound to the parking attendant and took our space in a field with an ice cream van. Friends and families feasted and frolicked on the banks of the Thames and we…
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London Loves
By the time we’ve wrestled our bikes from the carriage and re-mounted our baggage, the platform has deserted and begun to refill with passengers boarding the next departure. Wheeling our vessels against the flow of the crowd feels like the perfect metaphor for a return to the city. Clothes still a little grubby, eyes still…
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Dude, Where’s My Tent?
Masirah island sits in the Indian Ocean just off the east coast of Oman. It is around 50 miles long and 10 miles wide. It has a single town called Hilf on its north western coast and little else besides 90 miles of ring road; somewhere off which lies our tent. “Well, the speedo said…
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Cycling Around Masirah Island on Christmas Day
Excitement quickly penetrates lethargy as the alarm sounds early on Christmas morning. Waking swiftly not to open presents but to ensure we have enough time for a 90 mile bike ride. And it wasn’t actually an alarm that woke us first but the sound of fishermen and the cacophony of seabirds outside the tent we’ve…
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2010 Review – Best of the Blog
I’ve written somewhere between 150 and 200 posts on this website over the course of the year. I started off with a high output (four posts a week) but have tried latterly to focus on quality rather than quantity; producing articles that will still be interesting or useful this time next year and beyond. I…
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Heaven Opens the Sluice Gates (and other lines from my blog)
This is a little egotistical and very indulgent but I’ve enjoyed flicking back through some old pieces on my website to select a few lines that have made me smile on re-reading. “Heaven opens the sluice gates and eight pairs of knuckles turn white as they cling to poles in an attempt to keep…
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Why Run the Tube? / If Not With Words
When I tell people that my girlfriend and I have been spending many of the last eight months’ precious weekends running tens of miles along transport lines through Greater London, they invariably ask “Why?”. If not with words then with silence. Well, I don’t have an answer that is both meaningful and succinct but I…
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Day One in the Desert
Question: How good is a spatula at digging a car out of sand? Answer: Better than a coolbox lid but not not as good as Tupperware It was fine last night. The black-top had turned to dirt-track and the dirt-track had turned to sand-track but we weren’t too bothered because we knew there was a…
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An Introduction to Arctic Exploration – Part III
Unclip harnesses. Unstrap boots from skis. Unzip pulk bags and unpack tent. A good camping routine can be the highlight of any adventurer’s day (OK, it can be the highlight of my day) but there is nothing quite like the ritual of preparing a campsite in Svalbard. First you dig a platform of snow. This…