My guest post for Strictly Writing: The pleasures and pains of blogging...

I was recently asked to write a guest post for the wonderful Strictly Writing blog, which does exactly what it says on the tin: 

"We are a varied group of writers - published and aspiring; poets, short-story creators and novelists - with one thing in common: an enduring love for the craft of writing."

Needless to say, I was chuffed to be asked, and found it very interesting to have a mid-challenge pick over the role that blogging is playing in my writerly life. The desire to write is probably the greatest fuel to my Thirty@30 fire.  Here's my guest post. And if you're a writer, or interested in writing, I strongly advocate popping over to Strictly Writing to enjoy the thoughts and tips on offer...

Joanna Thomas: the pleasures and pains of blogging

I started blogging just after my 30^th birthday, as part of a bucket-list style challenge to try out 30 brand new experiences before turning 31. Number one on the list was to start a blog, and the blog was to be about my journey through the challenges. You see what I did there? Wiped one challenge off the list with little more than half an hour’s worth of fiddling about with Blogger. Easy-peasy.

Except, blogging about my experiences has turned-out to be as important, challenging and rewarding as each of the other Thirty@30 experiences themselves. Writing the perfect piece takes me hours. I agonise over every word just as I agonise over the words in my novel. I pour my heart and soul into each blog, and worry as I send it, defenceless, into the world. I Facebook and Tweet my posts with the same anxious pride that others reserve for pictures of their babies. I hope that people are going to read, like and share them, and am hurt when some of my dearest, closest friends seem to ignore them. Conversely, I am elated when people share their own stories, and give me inspiration for new challenges. I am overwhelmed by the support of people I don’t even know, and, of course, many that I do. Putting your writing out into the world makes you vulnerable, but I’ve found that even swinging on a trapeze doesn’t match the exhilaration of hearing that people are moved, touched, or interested by my words. A particular highlight was being re-tweeted by the wondrous and bonkers Amanda Palmer. That piece received 600 page views in 24 hours, a huge deal for me.

My writing process for the blogs is completely different to my efforts at fiction. I have discovered a liberating sense of urgency around penning my posts, because I can’t wait to get them online. I’ll stay up until 3am tapping away at my keyboard, knowing that there’s going to be some fairly instant gratification once I’m done. The same can definitely not be said for my novel, which I have been working on for five years and which I fear has become stale. I keep worrying at it, prodding old wounds, burying my head in my hands at the exhausting hopelessness of it. For all that I agonise over my blogs, I rarely start writing one without finishing it, which I think and hope keeps them fresh. If only I could do that with my novel! Sometimes, of course, the blogs are too raw, and I have to go back and make tiny tweaks when I think no one’s looking. It’s worth it for the breathless excitement of typing straight into Blogger and hitting the ‘Publish’ button.

Blogger and writer Joanna Thomas

For all the differences in the process, blogging has taught me that good non-fiction, just like good fiction, is all about storytelling. If you give readers a story arc and a healthy dose of dramatic tension, humour and emotion, they’ll go with you, and forgive the raw moments or rough patches. Fortunately that’s something I find relatively easy to do when writing about my challenges, since each one implies a mini-journey for our hapless but bloody-minded heroine, aka me.

As I write these words I’m seven months into a twelve month challenge, and still have lots more Thirty@30 experiences waiting to be discovered, enjoyed (or not!) and written about. And whatever happens once the challenge ends, I know that blogging will forevermore be a part of how I express myself through words. Now, back to that pesky plot hole in chapter four…

Visit my blog: Thirty@30

Follow me on Twitter: @JoannaJosefina

Joanna Thomas is a London-based writer with a day-job as managing editor of a legal publishing company. She blogs, writes poetry, and is editing (and re-editing) her first novel. She is also a freelance fiction editor.

A Little Flutter.

A few weeks ago I travelled to the beautiful Swiss city of Lucerne to give a talk on legal marketing to the members of a legal network. Wait! Where are you going? Seriously, this is more interesting than it sounds…

I should probably explain that when I’m not busy being a Thirty@30 superhero, I’m a (not so) mild-mannered managing editor at a well-known legal publishing company. This is a role I stumbled into some years ago after replying to a Guardian advert for “good writers”. Hey! says I. I’m one of those. Little did I know that this foolish conceit was going to plunge me headlong into the murky world of legal publishing. I started out as a writer/researcher and ended up as managing editor, which is one answer to the excellent question: “What do you do with a BA in English?”

Anyway, enough with the back-story. The fact is that I am now occasionally invited to visit law firms or gatherings of legal networks, to demystify the dark art of legal directories.

I didn't know what to expect from this particular gathering, but was pretty smug to find myself in Lucerne. A quick look at the view from my hotel balcony will probably tell you why.

Hello, Lake Lucerne!

Misty boats on the lake.

It may not surprise you to know that not all of my many encounters with lawyers and law firms have been a pleasure.<gasp> I have been shouted at, patronised and hung-up on. I have been verbally pinned to a table and upbraided for over an hour. I have been left purple with rage at the sight of yet another rude email from THAT ABOMINABLE WOMAN. (Colleagues, former and present, will probably know to whom I am referring.) In fact, the headline of an article in the Spanish legal press was (roughly translated) 'Law firms need to show more humility', an interview with Joanna Thomas. Oops! 

But I have also made a LOT of friends in this industry, and a few hours into my trip to Lucerne, I suspected that I was about to make a few more. I always know I’m on to a good thing when, within about two minutes of meeting, me and my neighbour at the dinner table are comfortably but mercilessly taking the mick out of each other.

So, I somehow found myself being adopted by a small pack of charismatic US lawyers wearing red trousers. Yes, there WAS a reason they were all wearing red trousers, but I've decided to up the blog’s mystery quotient by not telling you what it was. I’m not entirely sure why they adopted me. I like to think it’s because I’m just so quirky and fun, but have a strong suspicion that it was because they were entertained by my accent.  Anyway, here’s me with the Red Trouser Brigade, about to drink my first Manhattan cocktail.

The Red Trouser Brigade. From left to right: John Kanan, me, Glenn Cunningham and John Koenigsknecht.

I would like to point out here that the gentlemen personally supervised the mixing of the Manhattans, to be sure that my first one was up to scratch. These guys take their cocktails as seriously as they take their trousers. One of them even keeps jars of top quality Maraschino cherries in his underground bar... Who can say if it was the Manhattan, or the 30@Thirty spirit that led me to be swept along when the Red Trouser Brigade announced that we were going to the casino. Given the fact that I don’t generally drink alcohol, I suspect it was the heady mix of bourbon and vermouth. 

Previous to this, my one and only casino experience was in Las Vegas. Well, if you are going to do it, you may as well do it properly… I went to Las Vegas aged 20, the only member of my group under 21, which is the legal gambling and drinking age in Nevada. Being my usual goody-two-shoes self, I refused to get a fake ID. I had images of a cramped prison cell, a vicious interrogation, and eventual transfer to Death Row. This fear - and lack of false documentation - consigned me to the role of total wet blanket on that particular trip. I hadn't been to a casino since.

On with the story. Bear in mind, just for a second, that the Red Trouser Brigade are a crime-fighting team of wealthy individuals who like to live in style. They have visited, without a doubt, the finest casinos in the world, and lost between them several times my annual salary.  Their enthusiasm for a game of craps was spilling over, and they whipped me up into a pre-gambling frenzy. Off we went, ready to be swept up by the shining lights and dizzied by the spin and click of the roulette wheel. We could already feel the dice burning in our hands. We were ready to check, ready to fold, ready to go all-in. All of us were spoiling for some serious casino action.

Luck be a lady tonight!
Photo credit: Published by The Jenson Society, NY, 1910 / Foter / Public domain

Unfortunately, casinos don’t take kindly to you taking pictures inside, so I’m going to have to do my best to paint this picture with words. Let me start by saying that in our enthusiasm we had forgotten that we were not in Las Vegas. We were, instead, in a small Swiss lake-side city. On a Wednesday evening. The charge to enter the Casino was ten Swiss Francs. “What?” said the guys. “What casino charges you to get inside?” We soon worked out the answer, and I here share our hard-earned wisdom with you: If a casino charges you to get in, it’s because they know you’re probably not going to lose a great deal of money inside.

Photo credit: MichaelEClarke / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA

Even I, in my enormous naivety, could tell that this place was a dump. It felt like the games lounge at an airport, with fruit machines from wall to wall, most of them empty. Every so often a chair was taken up by a suspicious-looking local with long greasy hair and eyes shining with reflected, multi-coloured despair. I put my hand into a glass bowl of what I assumed were business cards, only to discover that they were, in fact, Grand Casino Lucerne branded condoms. Classy. There were about ten actual games tables, only three or four of which were manned. We asked a croupier after the craps table, but were told that Europeans aren't really into craps, and that the table had been decommissioned a few years ago. The Red Trouser Brigade were dismayed, though Glenn sat gamely down to Texas Hold’em, cigar clenched between his teeth, ready to lose his chips.

I had one chip, the five Franc disc we were all given when we paid to come in, and I was thinking seriously about keeping it as a souvenir. But as we decided to leave, the Thirty@30 spirit grasped me firmly by the neck and told me not to be so silly. I was passing up an opportunity for a new experience. So John, John and I stopped at a roulette table, and down went all the five Franc chips. Whizz went the wheel. Clickety clack went the ball. Swish went the croupier’s stick as it collected in our chips. Except, it didn't collect mine. It left mine right where it was, and put whole bunch more on top of it. I couldn't tell you if the ball landed on red or black, or what number it was. I only know that wherever I’d laid my chip, I was a winner! I’d won an earth shattering 40 Francs, and I can tell you that I was jolly pleased with myself. I collected my winnings, let my five Franc chip ride, and promptly lost it.

Photo credit: Conor Ogle / Foter / CC BY

Now, I suppose that a true adventuress would then have snapped her fingers for a martini and proceeded to lose all her winnings in style. But that’s not really me, not deep down. I love games, but I’m too profoundly, ploddingly sensible to gamble with any meaningful amount of money. This may be one of the several reasons that I will never be a millionaire. I’d had my flutter, and my little thrill of pleasure, so I left in profit. The house always wins, but the house didn't beat me. Smug mode: On.

Oh so pleased with my winnings. I took a complimentary Grand Casino Lucerne fan, but left the condoms for the locals. Not that any of the locals were getting lucky..

The Red Trouser Brigade were all suitably congratulatory, whilst simultaneously being completely baffled and highly amused by my delight over 40 Francs. I imagined them chatting over the next few days of the conference: "What was the deal with that crazy British girl who won 40 Francs? She sure was strange."

What they didn't factor in was how much Swiss chocolate I could buy for 40 Francs. Did you know that chocolate is always calorie-free if you pay for it with ill-gotten-gains? Or so I've heard, anyway.

And so what if gambling isn't really my thing? What I will remember about my little flutter is that it would never have happened if I hadn't been living my life with a 'say yes more' attitude these days. And if it had never happened, I wouldn't have made three new friends in red trousers.

Twelve down, eighteen to go…

Hearts on a String: An evening with Amanda Palmer and The Grand Theft Orchestra.

© Joanna Thomas

Picture the scene. It is a damp Tuesday evening in late October. I cycle home from a cruddy day at the office, already running late. As I pedal against the wind I think seriously about getting back to the flat and pretending that Justin and I DON’T have tickets to a gig tonight. But we’re meeting another friend at the venue and it doesn't seem right to bail. I get in and try on four different black tops before deciding on the one that I feel most comfortable with. Question: Do I maybe wear too much black?

 


Student-style, we inhale salami sandwiches standing up in the kitchen before venturing back into the night. In the queue at KOKO in Camden, I am forced to laugh at my black-top indecision. As if it makes any difference among all the fabulous costumes on display. Sparkly sequined dresses, tutus, top hats, studs in ears, noses, cheeks and tongues. Chokers and corsets and slick black lipstick. It is a strange and beautiful display.

Inside is scarlet and faded gold. Small boxes jammed with photographers climb the walls. The room is noisy but poised for each twitch on the stage, each lull in the music. Everyone is waiting for the magic. We are all waiting for Amanda Fucking Palmer.

©Hannah Daisy

We drink expensive cokes in plastic pint glasses and settle near a pillar, just below the balcony. Tuesday still hovers. Work in the morning. Dark autumn skies. My feet are tired, my back aches. The people in front are too tall and I cannot see the stage. Someone else’s ponytail flicks in my face.  I am jostled and tired.

She comes on stage in her hat and dressing gown. Everyone screams. She proffers her supporting acts like gifts; a four minute bass solo, a young woman with wild hair and an extraordinary, haunting, wailing voice. Things are being laid before us, strange sounds and breaking hearts.

Supporting act Mali Sastri. © Alex Moore

When Amanda Palmer at last takes the stage it is to a deafening roar. Like or love her lyrics, the girl can sing. She can fill shouts or whispers with pure emotion. She is lively and funny and bonkers and talented. She strips to her bra a song or two in and no one bats an eyelid. Mid-song, she and the band dash about swapping instruments. The stage is in beautiful, glorious chaos. She sings perhaps my favourite of her songs, which I love for this simple, perfectly expressed sentiment:

It doesn't matter if you want it back. You've given it away. You've given it away.

We all sing along to the chorus, belting it out, jumping up and down, celebrating our past mistakes.

Falling © Alex Moore

A few songs later, Amanda Palmer spreads her arms wide, closes her eyes and falls into the crowd. As she rides a sea of hands an enormous, diaphanous wave spreads out behind her in the form of an expanse of sheer blue fabric. Fingers strain and stretch beneath it. She never misses a beat.

Flying © Alex Moore

Then she sings a sad one I do not know. I cannot see her at the piano, so I bow my head and let the room swim in and out of view.

Don’t know how long we've been lying here in fear
Too afraid to even feel
I find my glasses and you turn the light out
Roll off on your side like you've rolled away for years
Holding back those king-sized tears

Amanda Palmer – The Bed Song

© Alex Moore

At some point during the song I look up to a box on the right of the stage. Neil Gaiman is leaning against the wall and watching his wife perform. He is unobtrusive, enraptured along with the rest of us.  I nudge Justin and we smile. There are one or two people in this room who have come only in the hopes of getting a glimpse of this man, of being near him. But this is a private moment, and lasts less than a minute.

© Alex Moore

We are in the middle of a whirlwind. Amanda introduces Scroobius Pip, who performs his Letter from God to Man with the improvised backing of The Grand Theft Orchestra. He wins hundreds of new fans. His lyrics are clever and cutting and funny and thoughtful. The dystopian tune rises behind him as the song reaches its climax. With his enormous beard and immense charisma, Scroobius Pip becomes the evening’s prophet.

© Hannah Daisy

You see, I wasn't really the creator, I was just the curator of nature

I want to get something straight with homosexuals right now: I don't hate ya

Scroobius Pip - Letter from God to Man

I should not love Neil Gaiman. Every idea I have ever wanted to write has already been written by him, better than I could hope to write it. But I do love him, because no envy can conquer the pleasure of sinking into the dark, delicious worlds he creates. And what joy, what pleasure, could surpass that of seeing Neil Gaiman take the stage with a clown-attired sawchestra?

© Hannah Daisy

“Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 6: Fables and Reflections
© Alex Moore

Gaiman and the clown saw musicians perform ‘Psycho’ by Leon Payne. Obviously, it’s brilliant. Surely there's nothing that could top it? Amanda Palmer herself tell us there's probably only one thing in the world that could be better...

There are some things that should not happen. We are years too late, surely, to see the legendary Richard O'Brien perform the Time Warp live on stage? Such a thing cannot happen to us. Such a thing is the stuff of strange and unattainable dreams. And yet…

I didn't know how much I needed to see this until I saw it. ©Alex Moore

© Hannah Daisy

I do not think there are words to describe the joy and delirium of those three minutes. We jump to our left, we step to our right. But, without a shadow of a doubt, it is the pelvic thrusts that will really drive you insane. Our delight is enhanced by our utter surprise. A thousand people dance the Time Warp again. We are in the midst of true magic. The spell cast on us could not be more complete or more perfect.

And, finally, after endless thundering applause, Amanda Palmer and The Grand Theft Orchestra re-appear in one of the tiny boxes. They have two guitars and a megaphone. They reprise Want it Back, all of us stamping and clapping and singing at the top of our lungs. This finale makes us once again part of the performance.  We are all part of the magic, and it couldn't have been created without us.

© Hannah Daisy

I've been to gigs before. I've even been out on a school night before. I’m struggling to justify making this an official part of my 30@Thirty. But when I look back over this memorable year I know that my night in the crowd with Amanda Palmer and The Grand Theft Orchestra will be as special to me as all the other extraordinary experiences.  So, in the spirit of creative anarchy…

© Alex Moore

Eleven down, nineteen to go…

*Any actually good pictures are courtesy of Alex Moore and Hannah Daisy, who kindly responded to my Twitter appeal for snaps. Check out Alex’s awesome drawings here, and Hannah's fabulous photographs here.

On Yer Bike, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Lycra.

This blog, this whole experiment, was never supposed to be all about physical endurance. But I suppose it's natural that a lot of the challenges presenting themselves to me are physical. It's also relatively natural that I should feel the need to apply myself to these physical feats, and to conquer them at all costs. This stems in large part from my sheer bloody-mindedness, but also from an experience I had in 2011, when I was well and truly trounced by a physical challenge. Despite every effort of will and body I did not, could not, make it to the very top of Mount Kilimanjaro. I wanted to. I wanted to so badly that I was basically depressed for a good few months after my failure. I made it to Gilman's Point, 5681m above mean sea level, but just could not go a step further, despite being only 300m short of the peak at Uhuru. I felt 100 years old, weaker than I had ever felt in my whole life, and completely defeated. At one point during the agonising climb upwards, I looked down into the deep, soft volcanic ash and thought seriously about lying down, closing my eyes, and letting it all fade away forever. It took me a long time to even come close to accepting that I had been badly affected by altitude sickness, and that there was nothing I could have done to change things that day. Altitude sickness can hit you no matter how young, strong and fit you are – well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Sad but smiling at Gilman's Point.

But the bare, painful fact remains that I did not make it to the top. I doubt I will ever go back to Kilimanjaro, which means that on the eternal tally of woman vs. mountain, it is Kili: one, Jojo: nil. This does not sit very well with me. There are few things I have undertaken in my life that I have not been able to get through via sheer force of will. I may not do them with style, I may not do them with elegance, but I'll usually do them. So I think that I have, ever since, been trying to even the score in my head. A sprint triathlon is not Kilimanjaro. Throwing myself off a trapeze is not Kilimanjaro. A half marathon is not Kilimanjaro. BUT, if I keep totting things up, perhaps I can start to feel a renewed sense of that old Jojo, the one who always finished what she started.

This is a rather long-winded way of saying that today's blog post is, once again, about a physical challenge.

Ostensibly, the Palace to Palace challenge was this: Cycle 45 miles, from Bucking Palace to Windsor Castle, in aid of The Prince's Trust. Boom. Not that difficult. I have a sexy bike. (It is purple, which naturally means that it is both speedy and elegant.) I also have some lovely cycly-type friends, including my challenge-buddy Julia and her wonderful husband Tom, the manager of a Cycle Surgery. This basically means that I have constant access to energy gels and revolting electrolyte drinks, and my own personal bike mechanic should anything go wrong. BUT, I had cycled nearly 45 miles before. I was only just short of it during my last ride. So I was clearly cheating. This wasn't going to be nearly difficult enough. Right?

Wrong. You see, the thing about signing up to charity cycle rides with people like Julia and Tom is, that if the cycle ride finishes in Windsor, i.e a long long way from the sofa upon which you wish to end, they will invariably insist on cycling back again. Suddenly 45 miles becomes 87. EIGHTY SEVEN MILES. I'm sorry, but that is a long darn way, even for ole' thunder thighs here. Of course, I was magnanimously given the option of getting the coach back from Windsor to Hammersmith, but that bloody-minded bit of me that is still niggling away at the Kilimanjaro wound made me accidentally-on-purpose forget to book a place until it was too late. If Julia was cycling back, so was I.

So, the physical challenge element had just become considerably more, erm, considerable. But wait! There is more.

In addition to cycling this great distance, there was also the issue of the correct outfit. A few years ago I went cycling with Julia and our friend Nuria around London's Regent's Park. I met them outside London Zoo and, I confess, a little shiver of embarrassment passed over my skin when I clocked their outfits. All of us were, at the time, riding fairly bog-standard hybrid commuter bikes, nothing fancy. But they were both wearing cycling shorts. CYCLING SHORTS. Who in their right mind wears cycling shorts? They look ridiculous. They show off every bump and lump. They are inappropriately tight. They are, basically, obscene. I was wearing some loose pedal pushers. The clue is in the name, girls. I was clearly more aptly dressed. I would never, never, never allow myself to be seen in public in a pair of cycling shorts. Those days ended when I stopped going to infant gymnastics classes at the YMCA. OVER.

So there I was, at 8am on Sunday October 14^th, 2012, rocking the padded cycling shorts. And what is more, I was going commando.  Here, word for word, is Julia's text to me from the evening before the ride:

NO underwear – seriously – it can cause rashes, and lumps forming on your bottom. I am serious. And it will get wet from sweat. All bad.

Well, far be it from me to court the emergence of lumps on my bottom...

So there I was, commando, in a pair of shorts that made me look, and feel, like I was wearing a shiny black nappy. I was even wearing those lethal clippy shoes that attach you bodily to your pedals. Oh how the mighty are fallen. And what is more, I was freezing, FREEZING. Because I hadn't really accounted for the fact that whilst your upper body generally warms up when cycling enormous distances, your legs don't. It was a cold (though mercifully dry) day, and within half a mile of Buckingham Palace my legs could accurately be compared to frozen pork chops.

A picture of my legs, doing an excellent impression of some frozen pork chops.

The first small stretch of the ride took us through roads full of traffic lights and traffic. We wound our way to Richmond Park, and then through it. Instead of sweeping views and picturesque stags, we saw mist, fog, and then some more mist. I don't want to know what the temperature actually was, but I would say somewhere in the region of ruddy freaking cold. We paused at a rest station within the park and wedged our hands up our tops or down our pants. I won't say who did what, because it would be inelegant of me to tell you that the usually ladylike Julia publicly shoved her hands down her shorts in order to defrost them. After all, she reminded me, the crotch is one of the warmest areas of the body... Tom spent the first half of the journey, and all of Richmond Park, cycling with both hands in his pockets. Show off.

For a little while after we left Richmond Park, my memory is somewhat blank. We settled into a fairly steady pace, didn't have to stop too often for traffic, and mostly managed to keep more or less together. We were all cold, but the atmosphere was jolly. We powered up hills, glad of our light steeds as we passed intrepid cyclists on Boris Bikes. Tip of the helmet to anyone who made it all the way to Windsor on one of those. 

The ubiquitous London 'Boris Bike', ridden by the man himself. 

I was concentrating mostly on avoiding large bumps in the road, and getting my shoes out of the pedal clips well in advance of any potential stops. I was having a bit of trouble on that front and really didn't want to fail and fall over. Apparently it happens to all novices to the clippy shoe, but I was trying very hard for it not to happen to me.

Then, at some stage, I became aware of where I was. It was a gradual realisation, and one that tied a little elastic band around my heart. I kept hoping we were going to turn off and go a different way, but we spent over an hour haunting lanes and highways crawling with old, bitter-sweet memories. I'd never looked at the route, you see? I wasn't prepared to be passing within seconds of the childhood home of the person who bought me my first grown-up bicycle, and whose heart I broke a few years ago. I wasn't prepared to ride down pathways we had ridden, to pass by shops we had shopped at, pubs we had pubbed at and parks we had pic-nicked at. I wasn't primed for the rush of memories, so happy at the time, so tinged with sadness and sorrow now. I never meant to hurt you, I wanted to say. It just wasn't right. I'm sorry. I hope you're happy. I cycled on with my thoughts, trying to tell myself that this was cathartic, whilst knowing that it wasn't, not really. 

Eventually, I started reciting poems in my head, a sure-fire way of emptying my mind of woes and worries. I cycled e.e.cummings, Thom Gunn and William Blake round in my mind, until their beautiful and masterful words took the place of everything else. I looked up at last and found I had left those haunted lanes behind. We were cycling down a beautiful leafy avenue somewhere near Chobham, and I was back on unfamiliar territory. Then a stunning vintage Rolls Royce sailed past and distracted me so thoroughly that I went the wrong way. 

Four wheels good, two wheels baaaaaaaad.

By the time Tom caught up with me I had descended a rather long hill and was just starting to wonder why I was the only bike on the road. Back up the hill we went. I apologised profusely to Tom, but suspect that the little burn suited him well, given that his usual average speed and distance far exceeded the pace of the ride. The little elastic band around my heart was gone, and I was back to the job at hand, and pedaling hard for the finish line.

Windsor Castle loomed in to view, and then loomed quickly out of view again, much to my dismay. It turned out that the ride actually ended at Windsor racecourse, which is not nearly so spectacular. Perhaps Her Majesty wasn't up to the sight of all the Lycra, and who can blame her?

Queen Elizabeth, wearing my kind of cycling attire.

Down at the racecourse we accepted our medals and goody bags, took a few snaps, and devoured an indeterminate number of complimentary sandwiches. 

Julia, Jojo, Dalia. Notice how I endeavour to make sure my helmet is off in every photo...

Eventually, Julia and I narrowed our eyes at each other. Tom hadn't broken a sweat. The sun was shining. Neither of our bicycles had broken. We'd made good time to Windsor. All of this was pointing in one direction. The stiff shoulders and pork chop legs weren't going to be accepted as viable excuses. We were definitely cycling back.

No helmet here...

Ninja helmet removal strikes again.

So, well, we did. We cycled to the castle, so that I could get my much coveted snap and demonstrate that I hadn't just ridden aimlessly around London all day. We had a hot coffee and a brownie from a small independent café, and then we pointed our bicycles in the direction of home.

Hello Windsor! Hello Lycra! (Note helmet hanging discreetly from left handlebar.)

Going back through Shepperton, we passed a house I'd lived in, back in the day. I waved gaily at the ivy creeping over its walls and windows, and wondered if this experience might, perhaps, prove cathartic after all. Somewhere in that vicinity Tom stopped to check the map and I had a heart-in-mouth moment. Pulling gently into a sloping driveway I tried again and again to release my left shoe from the pedal. I jerked and twisted as I got closer and closer to Julia and Tom's bikes. I clocked the raggedy gravel and, with a sudden dreadful realisation, hollered “SH*T, I'M STUCK!!” I caught a glimpse of the alarmed whites of Julia's eyes in the semi-second before I started falling sideways. Then, both feet came free at once, and I touched the ground not a moment too soon. Disaster averted. They'll get me one day, those pesky pedals, but not today. Not today.

We rode on, past trees and rivers. Under bridges and down bus lanes. Two or so hours after we set off from Windsor, we arrived in Hammersmith, where the Palace to Palace coach service would have dropped us had we taken that option. I was knackered, but glad at heart that I was still on my bike, pushing myself, climbing that mountain in my head.

Going back through Richmond Park. Dammit  Snapped with the helmet on. Goofy Photo Fail.

The final few miles were difficult. We were hungry and cold, and the traffic was heavy and unforgiving. Every turn felt so close to home, and yet so far. Somewhere near St Mary's Hospital on the Edgware Road (where I was birthing partner to my wonderful friend Lisha) we stopped to consume the last of our energy bars and sugary gels. We soldiered on, despite sore seat bones and stiff shoulders. The heels of my hands were bruised and tender, and my face was thick with polluted grime. But I was happy. I was gonna make it home with a smile on my face.

The final tally was 140 kilometres, or 87 miles, door-to-door. Here's the proof:

But the tally was also:

Lycra: 1, Lumps on the Bottom: nil. BOOM.

Ten down, twenty to go...