Put me on my death bed right now and I would spend most of my time snivelling and trying to get sympathy. In between, if you were silly enough to ask, I would probably recount my life in journeys. Student debt to solvency, single to happily married, starting points, turning points, aspirations. You know, the big stuff. I might not mention which particular diet fads worked or didn't work. I may not remember that mistake I made at work which was not significant but for which I spent nearly an entire week mentally crippling myself. I would definitely not care whether on Tuesday 24 August 2003, someone had remembered to put the bins out.

And yet on a daily basis approximately 90% of my energy is ploughed into just those issues and the bigger picture is....well, a bit over pixelated.

This is fine, I reason. And perfectly rational. What is important however is not to let stuff I won't remember prevent me from finding the time to create the memories I will cherish.

And so....operation no regrets. Beginning with a travelling adventure. Eleven months, eleven counties, two backpacks, myself, my husband and the odd mosquito along for the ride.

Sunday, 19 April 2015

Taking Liberties: 19 April

"When life has gone into overtime it’s easy to take liberties."
Jonas Jonasson, The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared

Not overTIME, perhaps, but certainly our lives on this trip, could at the very least be said to have gone into overDRIVE. And therefore it seems perfectly natural that if you are going to be spending a day cycling from vineyard to vineyard sampling wines with friends you met in England, in a continent more than eleven thousand miles from home, having jacked in your jobs for a year in which you hop lightly from one country to another at least once a month, you really may as well do it on a vintage tandem.

Two tandems, to be precise. Helen and Michael are not people who see a chance for fun and turn away from it.

And so it is that we find ourselves, equipped with helmets and reflective jackets, because no sensible adventurer forgets his or her safety code, setting off, rather shakily, on route to the vineyards of  Marlborough, New Zealand.

M and I are old hands, having ridden a tandem before. This means that we remember quite clearly how hard it is, especially if the person on the back is a control freak, and can't help trying to steer. M and I are experts, and so I know that if we wobble and lose control this is definitely M's fault for not warning me he is planning to go fast or stop suddenly, and M knows that it is definitely my fault for panicking and fidgeting about on the back.

Michael tries to video our first attempt at riding it. I say 'tries' because he has to abort it eventually  because we can't get the foot stand up. After I have tried and failed, M has rolled his eyes, then tried and also failed, and Helen has rolled her eyes, then made a cameo entrance into this masterpiece of film making, and also failed, Michael shuts down 'take one' and intervenes. He flicks the stand up easily, returns to his post and we try again.

This attempt is more successful and the film, now immortalised on Michael's Facebook, makes it look rather smooth.

"And they're off!" cries Michael admiringly in the background as we sail over the road and onto the pavement on the other side, where we come to a vaguely dignified stop. At this stage the film ends. Which is lucky really because there is actually a protracted period of wobbling and shrieking before we manage to get back off the curb again and point ourselves in the correct direction for vineyard number one.

Helen and Michael, in our wake, mount their steed and progress, slowly but smoothly off in their first ever attempt. There is not even one shriek. Though I think there may have been a wobble.

"Drinks with an alcoholic content ought to go down your throat and into your belly as quickly as possible, not stick to your palate.”
Jonas Jonasson, The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared

Now I am a big fan of Jonas Jonasson, and of this book in particular but I must admit I don't agree. Alcohol should taste good. It should taste so good that you want it to stay in your mouth all day. It should be like chocolate, with potential drunkenness simply being a slight downside, rather like potential obesity in the case of chocolate, which is unfortunate purely because it might mean you have to limit how much of it you have. I have never been a fan of shots or of 'downing it'. I like my alcohol to taste and I like to have time to pontificate on about it.

We progress, steadily, through five vineyards, a champagne yard (?) a brewery and a fudge shop.

We pontificate. At the beginning, I suspect we are sounding rather more informed than we do by the end but in each case the vineyard owners or servers seem genuinely pleased to serve us our tasters and talk excitedly to us about their wares.

Somewhere in the day there seems to have been an inspired but unspoken agreement that everyone would buy a bottle of something that we all liked, especially for the sake of showing support for the smaller businesses. By the time we wend our wobbly way home, therefore, we are armed with a red, a desert wine, a champagne, a selection of beers and a block each of fudge.

We are mightily pleased with ourselves.
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