Eastwards and Far

On this blog I want to convey the parts of cycle touring that you can’t find on Google. Hence why I rarely write about the constant beautiful landscapes, and why today’s post is about “rest” days: the misleadingly named days when tasks and chores and errands that accumulate on the road must be done in a frenzied burst of productive activity!

Today (four coffees were peppered throughout these activities):

Wake up around 9.30. Shower, croissant, conversation.

Work 2 hours on the balcony: freelance contracts.

Think about hare-brained schemes for future employment and try to figure out their relative levels of viability and practicality. Feel excited and daunted. Hash out prospective initial plans.

Eat tomato and coleslaw sandwiches for lunch.

Bring accounts up to date. Kristian and I are aiming to spend less than $40 a day, and we track purchases and running totals. We’re both currently below budget, he by more than I.

Work 2 hours on the sofa: freelance contracts.

Look at the phone. Consider phoning one of the three people I’ve lined up interviews with for the Other People’s Adventures series.

Jot down questions for these interviews instead. Negotiate with myself that now’s not the best time to call, for no particularly convincing reason.

Work an hour according to prospective scheme plans that were hashed out earlier.

Clip toenails, trim facial hair. The ablutions requiring specialist tools we no longer carry (after they were sent to landfill).

Look in the mirror and laugh at the new facial hair arrangement: two month’s worth of moustache, offset with one millimetre of beard.

Unpack and repack all bags to check they’re ready to go on Monday, and to remind myself of any tasks that need doing. It’s amazing how quickly you forget tasks that felt pressing on the road.

Tasks accrued and completed:

• Charge devices
• Write postcards
• Archive unnecessary maps
• Take pictures of gear for article I’m writing, take photos off of SD card
• Rejig contents of buried bag of stuff that never gets used: remove extra layers and put them in clothes bag for upcoming cooler provinces, put headphones and finished books in their place
• Hang all parts of sleeping set-up to air out. Realise why footprint comes in separate bag (because it gets wetter and stays damper than other parts); resolve to keep it in its separate bag from now on
• Throw out things which have become useless: old inner tubes with more punctures than is worth fixing, the one ear plug without a partner, pen lids whose pens were lost long ago
• Put various bits that have found their way into the wrong bags back into their rightful places
• Laundry
• Wash up pots and pans

Feel refreshed by restoration of “a place for everything and everything in its place”.

Feel empowered by a re-streamlined set-up.

Feel allowed to relax for the remaining two rest days.

Write and publish this blog post.

Go to watch the free Cirque du Soleil show in Quebec City.

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