Welcome back to the UK!!

Yes, this is the sight that greeted me as the ferry docked into Dover this morning! Rain, rain and more torrential rain. What a welcome home! The rain along with the usual friendly email reminder from HMRC to file my next VAT return all shouted "welcome back to the UK, Andi!"

The bike bus was over an hour late picking me up last night. I was fortunate, it wasn't raining where I was but those who had been picked up from further South had been stood waiting in deluges. That can't have been nice. There is rarely any shelter at the pick-up points and who knows when a bus is going to turn up.

I slept reasonably well considering and was fortunate to have 2 seats to myself again. I think I slept in 10 minute bursts until I needed to change from one uncomfortable position to another. No sleep-chatting that I'm aware of and fortunately no-one sat next to me to experience all the dribbling!

The courier left a lot of hungry cyclists without our pre-ordered breakfasts this morning, not even a cup of tea. Perhaps he was asleep? The ferry was at 8.40am, I'm usually eating brekkie at 7am. I was famished and rugby tackled my way to the cafe on the boat to buy some food and drink. I then returned to normal Andi after that!

In Calais, it seems effortless and efficient to disembark the ferry and then get straight onto the roads and away. In Dover, everything gridlocks. So now we were in rain that was hammering loudly on the coach and we were barely moving. Stuck in never-ending traffic jams seemed to be the theme of the journey in the UK. Roadworks everywhere and ridiculous volumes of traffic. Where was everyone going on Monday morning? And Monday afternoon? And Monday evening?

I was looking forward to lunch on the bus, the menu is great. But the courier had once again sold out of everything, including water. And including milk so we couldn't even have a cup of tea. Intriguingly, there were hundreds of cans of beer stashed on the bus. This courier clearly understood the needs of cyclists......not!

And because of the traffic jams, it was then over 5 hours before our first stop at a service station for some food and drink. I bought most of Waitrose and half of Starbucks and felt much better after munching my way through that.

I asked the courier again for a cup of tea please a short while later. He muttered something, disappeared, the coach pulled into the next service station, I watched the courier run into the petrol station and run back out with a pint of milk. He'd obviously forgotten to buy any at our stop!! Honestly!

I slept, read, caught up with some diary writing and repeated for hour after hour until YIPPEE - there was the sign for Wetherby Services, my stop!

And lovely Ade was waiting for me as my bike, panniers and me got off the bus. Well, his car was waiting for me, he was nowhere to be seen! And I was glad I'd been pre-warned about his new Captain Birds Eye beardy look otherwise I might have got a shock! I can't say if I like it or don't like it. It's different and it's always good to try something new :-))

I probably nattered him to death in the car on the way home. After all that travelling and being quite sleep-deprived, I wasn't entirely sure what planet I was on. But he did leave me by saying "you go and get your shower" - yeah, thanks!! Drop a hint why don't you!

Thank you Ade for picking me up and delivering me safely home :-))

So that's it. Back to some kind of normality tomorrow I guess. Boo!

Thank you everyone for your wonderful support and encouragement and for being with me along the way. It's been a fabulous experience and lovely to share it with you all :-))

I'd better get planning my next trip ASAP!

Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone on O2