Mortifications are suspended for today. Even Bishop Sigeric the Serious must have taken a few days off his ass. We’ll pay for this unseemly immoderation later in the week, no doubt.
Frankenstein was born in these parts. The Tambora volcano went bang in 1816, the global climate was disturbed, Byron, Shelley and company took to drink and laudanum to escape the inclement weather and Mary Wollstonecraft’s hallucinations became a great story. I hoped to have time to visit Cologny but my energy is lacking and suitable stimulants are illegal.
Talking of which, in this city, the HQ of Olympic Sport, I must admit to my cycle doping strategies. Every morning and night, calcium-magnesium supplements which together yield 100% RDA and 200% Vitamin D. Then there’s the rehydration tablets or powders that provide 10% more of the above plus 50% of the RDA for B6, C and other stuff too. And each morning, three double espressos. Sorry, I wanted to do this clean but I’m driven by a need to beat expectations.
I realise that we will spend some thirty nights in different hotels. Imagine you are a political refugee and provided with asylum in a hotel every night for many days and that becomes sixteen months. Incarceration or protection? What if it was a tent in winter? All I know is that I’m Irish and I was allowed to work for over forty years in other people’s counties. Sure I spent some of that time in porta-cabins, trailers or tents in deserts, salars and jungles but that was my professional choice. Spare a thought for those displaced by tyrants, despots and warmongers and be fair.
And so back to cycling. The steeds are stabled for the day, clothes well washed and dried. Recuperation is underway but planning is never far away. I bought another tool to reattach my side stand – typical that the one bolt that worked loose was the one for which neither of us had a proper hex tool (a blind 8 btw).
Soon we must cross the watershed that separates the Rhône from the Po. Somehow we each must get 125 kg of bike and human up to an elevation of 2,469 m. This is what we will do. The weather forecast is clear, dry and warm. And it looks like it’ll be Wednesday when we reach the Great St. Bernard Pass and return to the EU.
Re your final sentence, I wish wholeheartedly that Britain was with you.