Sunday 21 August - Bergues, France

Where's Bertie? He's in the municipal Aire at Bergues, where he's been quite a few times before.
Weather: Few spots of rain during the 45-minute drive here from the Chunnel, but warm.

I'm not sure whether to despair of our procrastination and last-minute behaviour, or just accept it. You'd think, on recent performance, that I was the sort of person who would do homework on the bus on the way to school, whereas the reality was that I'd be the one handing it in the day after it was given. I seem to have lost that trait somewhere over the years.

Despite knowing since last summer that Bertie needed a new leisure battery and it having become an increasingly pressing issue since then, it was the first week in August before I ordered it*. I had it wired in by lunchtime the following day, but found that despite the footprint being on paper within millimetres of the old battery, the tie-down points weren't compatible. It was thus last Wednesday (T-3) by the time I had it ready to travel.

Then there was the renewal of my photo driving licence. I finally applied for my new one on Wednesday, not learning until the end of the process that my old one legally ceased to be valid immediately and that I was obligated to return it. That's not compatible with a European trip, where I may be required to produce it on the spot, as I was on the Spanish/French border in March this year, and law-breaking was looking like the best option, until on Saturday&* my new licence arrived with with 16 hours to spare (T-0.75).

This was not the end of cutting things fine (and I'll gloss over the multi-tasking of gluing the water diverter back onto Bertie's bathroom door whilst cooking tea on Saturday evening (T-0.4) - a job that's needed doing for at least six months). The mobile phone issue took the biscuit. I'd ordered a new SIM mid-week, to give us more data to use than is available on our capped-roaming mobile phones, but it wasn't until Friday that it occurred to me that the old phone I'd intending using as a router is a 3G model, and the world has moved on quite a bit since then. Options were considered, stock levels nearly thwarted us, and a quick change of plan on the hoof saw us loitering for half an hour outside of a Tesco, on our way to Folkestone, waiting for it to open, so that we could buy their cheapest 4G smartphone (T+1hr. I swear I have never been so disorganised before in my life).

With the phone sorted (kinda; I didn't have it fully up and running until around 9.30pm), we pootled merrily down to the M25, where we crawled slowly along pondering where ALL the people were going, visited friends in Crawley, then went onwards to the Eurotunnel terminal.

Traffic a-go-go 

When I booked our Chunnel last month, I went for the 2230 crossing (because it was the least expensive of the options; this is not a cheap time of year to be travelling), knowing we would use our usual tactic of arriving early and likely being offered an earlier crossing. Last time we Chunnelled (what do you mean, that's not a verb?!), in June, the check-in window was 1-4 hours in advance, so we timed ourselves to arrive on the dot of 1830. It was only when we were a good way through the journey that I saw that the check-in window had reduced back to the old 1-2 hours. We decided to chance the earlier arrival; worst case - we would be sent away.

We weren't sent away, but only crossings within 2 hours of our booked one were being offered at no cost (to bring it forward to 1930 they wanted £93). It worked out well: we parked up, cooked and scoffed tea and had barely got the last mouthful down when our shuttle was called. So efficient was it getting through the two borders and customs, that we got into the queue for the crossing before ours, and were on a moving train at 2015.

It was, of course, dark by the time we arrived in France and our fingers were crossed that there would be space in the Aire at Bergues, a 45-minute drive away. Initial indications weren't good, when we passed a motorhome parked just outside the entrance, but those indications were misleading - there were at least two spaces remaining, plus a bit of room in the middle, had we been desperate.

After a busy few days (Saturday had involved volunteering at parkrun followed by a quick day-trip up to see Ma-in-Law in Halifax), we took a bit of winding down time before we crawled into bed after the clock had struck midnight, but still earlier than we would have even arrived in France, had we been on our booked crossing.

^{(*In my defence, I did a lot of research on batteries in January and I would have sorted it before we went to Spain if it hadn't been for the chosen model being out of stock. I redid the research in July and decided that rather than spending £1200 on a new lithium system, we would go down the route of least resistance, not need to replace all of Bertie's chargers, and only spend #200 on a replacement AGM, but with 50% more capacity.
**The photo driving licence renewal system is fully automated for those holding a valid passport. This can be ridiculous in some circumstances. When Mick had to renew his licence in 2020 his photo was duly taken from his passport. His passport was 2 weeks younger than his old driving licence, and used a photo taken at the same time as his driving licence one. The reason one has to have a new photo card every ten years is because appearances change, yet DVLA was happy to issue a new licence carrying the same photo as the old one.)}

Monday 22 August - Bergues

Where's Bertie? He's still at the Aire in Bergues.
Weather: Mainly sunny (cloud building this afternoon) and hot.

I formed our plan (using the term loosely) for this trip a few months ago. The main objective was to visit a few places in Germany where Mick lived and visited as a child. The sub-theme was another parkrun tour, taking in 8 different events.

The route of the trip was to be based on being in the numerically marked locations each Saturday. As with previous tours, mid-weeks would be spent anywhere that looks interesting/has somewhere good to park on a sensible route between those locations.

The spanner that was thrown into this plan is that Bertie is still leaking and needs to go and visit his dealer again (turns out he had more than one leak; the one in the wardrobe has gone but we still have water in the garage). The appointment they've given us is in week 5 of our trip, and will require us to drive back to Belgium. It probably doesn't make sense then to go back to Germany, but it's not a decision we'll make until we've attended that appointment and have a plan to get Bertie fixed.

That gives us only four weekends in Germany, so a revised 'plan' has been hatched.

The intention as we drove up to Bergues in the dark last night was that we would drive through France, Belgium and the Netherlands today, into Germany. Then, at bedtime, Mick put forward the idea of just staying put today and recovering from a busy week before hitting the road tomorrow. Hence, we're still here.

A looooong lie-in, a lazy breakfast, a visit to Lidl on foot for a small shop (1 - a height barrier prevents us taking Bertie; 2 - groceries are cheaper in Germany, so may as well wait until we get there to stock up properly), lunch, and a walk around the town and some of its walls has filled most of the day, plus a chat with one of our neighbours who came over to say hello.

The only other news is that we discovered on the way here last night that Bertie's fridge is currently only 2-way as the option to run it from his engine has died again. I poked around in its electronics this morning, and concluded a new circuit board is going to be required (it already had one replacement, under warranty in 2018). We'll probably take the easy route of turning the fridge off when driving and sorting it when we get home. I doubt we'll be doing any journeys long enough for food to spoil.

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Later: I usually write these blog posts just before teatime. It's seldom that anything of interest happens after that. Today was an exception. There we were just starting on the mountain of dish washing when the French chap in the motorhome opposite (who has been sitting outside all day barbecuing, eating, drinking or a mixture of all three), popped over to tell us that we have a very nice motorhome and to give Mick a half-bottle of wine. This surely is the motorhoming equivalent of Conrad getting unsolicited cups of tea when out walking?!

A completely random gift from a chap who didn't stop to chat, but it gets Mick's seal of approval.

We've been to Bergues a few times, but sometimes only as a quick night-stop. Today we walked into the main square of the town and I remembered none of it (my blog archive proves that I have been there before), until we came across this chap. The snap on the left was taken on 5 June 2017; on the right was taken today.

Notable buildings of which I have no recollection.

24-Hour Race Photos

I don't think it would be a misrepresentation to say that it's a common occurrence for people to smile and/or wave at the official photographer's camera during a race. What I like about my Thunder Run photos is that, whilst I couldn't help but notice the photographer well in advance of reaching him, at no point did I acknowledge his presence. What I thus have is a set of photos that show me exactly as I was at that point in the race (which, in most cases, turned out to be walking; my splits confirm that there was running involved, even though it's not captured here!). Here are the snaps, supplemented by a few taken by Mick:

1156 - Posing with Michelle (a stranger until 2 hours prior) in the start pen, positioned at the back of the field

1156 - Not posing, and burning off the nerves by gesticulating wildly

1200 - And they're off...

1220 - Lap 1 - Mick's attempt to catch me as I approached but instead got a good action snap of Solo Female 164 who, by coincidence, I met and ran with  many hours later (see the 1916 photo below) 

1435 - Lap 2 - On my least favourite part of the course, a little 'loop' between Campsite A and the finish area. Around 100m (maybe less) of track, but steep and the surface loose enough to slip backwards.
 

1540 - Lap 3 - Love this set! Most photos came in bursts of 4, but this set, taken during my second 'picnic' chat with Spencer, was made up of 7 (even though I've only included 4 of them). If you didn't know they were taken over the course of a couple of seconds, it looks like I'm chewing the ear off Spencer and he'd like me to shut up. 

1743 - Lap 4 at 9km marker - The least natural of all the official photographer shots, as I studiously avoid looking at the camera  

 

1916 - Lap 5 - With Claire at 8.5km. Pity it's once again me who's in mid-flow. I swear, these conversations were two way. I could tell you quite a bit about all of the people I chatted with!

 

0803 (a big jump forward in time as no photos were taken at night) - Nearing the end of Lap 11 - looking focused and feeling happier than I looked

 0931 - Two-thirds of the way through Lap 12 - Feeling good. Incidentally, I used the poles overnight to save me a fall if I tripped over a route or stump. I intended to ditch them again come daylight, but Mick convinced me to keep hold of them. Probably the right decision as they didn't hamper the running bits and were useful on the uphills.

1040 - twenty minutes through Lap 13 - my second favourite set - I wonder what it was I was looking at over there? Looking surprisingly good considering how horrific I felt at this point.  

 

1213 - In spite of the lack of a smile, very happy to have finished with 13 laps under my belt.  

Tuesday 2 August - Halifax

Where was Bertie? He spent a night on Ma-in-Law's drive, with us inside. 

Weather: Largely overcast, but warm.

Due to a desire to use t'internet, and not fritter away my data allowance, I proposed morning coffee in Wetherspoons before we left Skipton and, once there, Mick decided a full cooked breakfast would be a good idea too. So, there we sat, Mick eating and me looking incredibly rude by constantly scrolling through my phone (in my defence, I was searching through thousands of official Lakeland photos for Mick's).

Photos found, coffees and breakfast consumed, and back to Bertie we went for Covid tests before leaving on the dot of our ticket expiring to make the short hop down to Halifax. 

It was Mick's big brother's annual pilgrimage to see his mum, and we always try to pop by whilst he's there as it's the only time we see him. 

There's thus nowt to report bar much chatting and catching up. It was late indeed by the time bedtime was declared and, with Mick's brother and sister-in-law using the bedroom that is usually ours, we retreated to Bertie out on the driveway. It's a much easier way of visiting - no need to pack stuff to take into the house, and a nice comfy bed with en-suite bathroom.   

Monday 1 August - Skipton

Where was Bertie? He spent the night in the motorhome parking area of Coach Street Car Park in Skipton. It costs £5.50 for a 24-hour ticket, but as far as we could make out (poor signage) when parked in a motorhome bay*, there's also a £5 for the 'no charges apply' period of 8pm to 9am. So, we paid £10.50.

Weather: Some sunshine. Some rain. Warm.

Unsurprisingly, we didn't rush to get up and away on Monday morning, so it was gone noon by the time we arrived in Skipton - a town we remember having walked through on a backpacking trip in 2010, but not with any great recollection of the place.

Bertie made like Goldilocks on arrival. With all of the motorhome spaces taken and with limited overhang behind any of the below-average-length car spaces, he first tried a space on one side of the car park, which required him to nestle into a tree. He then tried a car space in between two motorhome spaces, and there he would have stayed, if it hadn't been for the adjacent motorhome leaving a few minutes later, with Bertie in pole position to shuffle over, beating a van that made a similar dash from across the car park. 

With the motorhome spaces being so big, we pulled Bertie right to the front and I went and apologised to the competing van for having won the race, and offered to share the spot. They declined, but just as we were going out another van was struggling to choose where to park, so we also offered them the other half of our space. We later came to regret this...

Bertie was in the car park on the right

A slow walk around the town was had, including lunch*, an ice cream for Mick and a cake purchase for later:

My verdict: I like the town. It's got a good array of old-fashioned shops that you don't see so often these days (a proper ironmonger; a sweetshop lined with big containers of sweets, just like in my late father's newsagents shop; a fabric shop; even the cake shop looked like it was straight out of the 1980s). 

Even if the entrance fee had been lower, Mick wasn't in the market for extensive sightseeing. 

Our regret on our offer to share our parking space started at around 10pm. We have no idea what our neighbours were doing to make it sound like they were constantly moving heavy furniture, but at 11.30pm I was sorely tempted to knock on their door to tell them that in 11 years of motorhoming, spending up to 8 months a year on the road, we have never had such a disturbance from an adjacent motorhome. (I did have a similar experience in Linn of Dee some years ago when, in the huge car park, at around 11pm a motorhome pulled in behind me and made a similar type of noise, but on that occasion just for half an hour, not for two hours solid.)

(*What if a motorhome is parked in a non-motorhome bay? The signage says this is permissible, provided that if using more than one bay, then one ticket must be purchased per bay. Nothing said one can't overnight in a non-motorhome bay, but I can only assume this was either the intention or what is stated in the Traffic Regulation Order even if not on the signage.

**The toilets in the pub involved two flights of stairs. Mick's quads didn't appreciate the descent.)

Sunday 31 July - Milnthorpe

Where was Bertie? He spent another night at Halforth Farm, by Milnthorpe. We'd already paid our £8 for Sunday night when we arrived on Thursday night. 

Weather: Sunshine, giving way to sunny intervals. Warm.

The parking field at Coniston, with some of the overflow camping field also within view. 

View out of Bertie's windscreen on Saturday afternoon

As the rain came down, and down, and down, on Saturday, and the camping field that had been perfectly firm when we arrived became a churned up morass, I couldn't help but worry as to whether we'd be able to get Bertie off his pitch and back to the road. He's got much better tyres for muddy conditions than he had a year ago, but even so I didn't want to put all trust into them.

Surely the rain will stop soon, I thought, but it just fell and fell and fell.

Despite having only gone to bed at 0430, I sprang up at 0815 on Sunday and went out in the rain to inspect the ground conditions. My assessment was that there was still a firm line we could take as far as the exit, where we would just have a few feet of sloppy mud to cross in between the boards that had been laid down by way of a temporary road. Returning to Bertie, I roused Mick and asked him if he was up to leaving in ten minutes (before other motorhomes started moving), or whether he wanted to stay until 6pm (the latest permitted departure time, by which time the field should have had six hours of sunshine in which to dry out (but could we trust that forecast given Saturday's performance?)). Not long after 0830, Bertie made it out of the field without drama, and without a single dot of mud along his flanks (unlike another motorhome I'd seen with mud liberally spattered having apparently spun its wheels).

Our departure past the school was delayed firstly by an oncoming finisher running down the road, then by another finisher who had been on the pavement until she took a spectacular face-plant just in front of us, spilling into the road. 

Only when we were half way to Milnthorpe did I think that 0930 might be considered somewhat early to arrive at a campsite, but given that we must qualify as a regular customer now, and knowing that they had no other guests, we proceeded anyway. It was sunny by the time we arrived and stayed that way for much of the rest of the day. 

Unsurprisingly, we had a lazy day, including afternoon naps and watching the football, although I did stir myself to take a walk up the lane and back late in the afternoon. 

 

Friday & Saturday 29/30 July - Lakeland 50

Where was Bertie? He spent two nights in a field on Lake Road in Coniston. Camping was included in Mick’s race fee and included Portaloos, Portashowers and a non-mains water supply.

Weather: Friday: Far drier and sunnier than forecast. Saturday: far wetter than forecast, in that it rained much of Friday night, all day Saturday and most of Saturday night. Fortunately warm (18 degrees daytime and 15 degrees overnight). Sunday started wet then finally dried up just as we were leaving at 0845.

It was Lakeland 50 weekend, the same race as we both did last year, when it didn’t go well for me and, because he stuck with me, for Mick either. Mick was back this year to do a better job of it.

A brief recap: there are three races on the same weekend. The Lakeland 100 is 105 miles with 6300m of ascent, with a route that forms a circuit of the Lake District. It starts at 6pm on the Friday and has a 40-hour time limit. The Lakeland 50 is 50 miles with 3000m of ascent, with a generous 24-hour time limit. It’s linear, sharing the Lakeland 100 route for its last 50 miles. The weekend is far more than the races, having a real festival/family feel to it, with the most important event of the weekend being the kids’ Lakeland 1 race on the Friday evening.

Lakeland 100 route

Lakeland 50 route (Dalemain to Coniston)

We’d arrived in Coniston just after 9 on Friday, Mick was soon through kit check and registration, then we set about relaxing for the rest of the day, which turned out to be far drier and sunnier than forecast. The only spanner in the works in terms of relaxation was the issue of the missing zinc oxide tape (a brand new roll only bought two days earlier).  A trip into Coniston finally turned up some alternative rolls of tape, but they weren’t ideal. (Fast forward: at 2am on Sunday morning, far too late to be of any use, I went to get the headtorch out of Bertie’s box of charging plugs and wires and there was Mick’s missing tape. No idea how he managed to put it there. Bit of an aberration.)

If we ignore the weather, which apparently hadn’t read the forecast and didn’t know it wasn’t supposed to be raining*, race day started better for Mick than it did last year. He was on one of the first coaches to leave after the race briefing, so he arrived at the start with over an hour to spare (at which point, fortunately, it wasn’t raining, not starting until 3 minutes before the gun). Having not been delayed by a broken down coach, as we were last year, he didn’t have to start right at the back of the field of 1500 runners, but placed himself appropriately in the pen, which equated to him starting in the second wave of runners, being set off at 2 minute intervals.  

Every competitor in both the 100 and 50 is fitted with a gps tracker, so once Mick was on the move my day involved hundreds of checks of the tracking map to see how he was doing.

I caught him on the video live feed at the first check point, so got to watch him faffing, willing him to get in and out as soon as possible.

He reached the second checkpoint at 1642 and knowing we had arrived there at 1800 last year led me to look in detail at last year’s times. Dot-watching then became even more stressful as I willed him on from afar to keep and widen the gap, but with no knowledge as to how he was doing or what was going on out on the course.

This table shows how his splits compared to last year. It highlights how much we were affected by starting late and at the back of the field, then being delayed 35 minutes by a monster queue at the first checkpoint, as both factors caused us to hit night time on Garburn Pass, rather than at Ambleside.

I went to bed at 2230, setting my alarm for 0130, and managed to sleep for all of half an hour before people chatting outside woke me up again**. That was it; I was then awake for the duration, obsessively checking the tracker.

Then Mick’s tracker stopped moving at the end of the Langdale Valley. This wasn’t unexpected, as it had done so at a number of places on the course, where mobile signal is lost. The problem this time is that it didn’t recover when he re-entered a signal area, nor when he passed the next checkpoint. Only half a percent of me worried that he was dead in a ditch, but it did leave me with a guessing game as to the earliest possible time he would arrive, as there was no way I wanted to miss being at the finish to greet him. I was just about to head out to the finish marquee when his tracker finally sprang back into life.

I looked at the time. I pulled out my laptop and interrogated my gpx file from last year’s event. To come in under 16 hours, he needed to cover the final stretch in 1hr20. Last year that section had taken us 1hr16, including one heck of a sprint finish, but that had been in daylight, on dry terrain and in good visibility, none of which Mick had on this occasion.

Mick reports that his energy deserted him on that last climb and he came over all wobbly, but from where I was sitting all I could see was that he was still moving forward and seemed to be on target.

Over to the marquee I went, constantly checking Mick’s progress. He tells that he got caught behind eight barely-moving people on the final descent, who seemed determined not to let him pass and who clearly didn’t have the same sub-16 objective as him. He did finally get by, and ran like the wind down to the mine road, thence to Coniston and the school.

Receiving his medal

My photo of him having his finish photo taken. Yes, he does have a bloody knee and hand. Bit of a tumble between Ambleside and Skelwith Bridge.

It looked, on arrival, like he’d met his 16-hour objective by the skin of his teeth, although I didn’t know exactly when he had crossed the line (competitors cross the line, get met by a greeter, who walks them to the marquee, tells them to turn off their headtorch, and presents them to the crowd for a big cheer and whoop. If several people finish together, a bit of a queue can form for presentation, hence I didn’t know his exact finish time). Once he’d finished, the start time on his tracker changed from 1130 (as it had read all day) to his actual start time of 1132 and confirmed his finish time as 0326. Take the seconds into account and his official time was 15hrs53.

What’s the significance of a sub-16 finish? It qualifies him to enter next year’s Lakeland 100. He was adamant at the finish that he was *never* doing so much as the 50 again, and certainly not entertaining any thought of the 100. I reckon he’ll be coming around to the idea by the end of the week…

As it goes, considering that after injury and poorliness earlier in the year he did this on the back of a ‘Couch to 80k in 8 weeks’ programme, I thought he was in pretty good condition at the finish. After a day of sodden feet and walking along paths masquerading as streams, it was incredible that he only had a couple of small blisters, and whilst he is understandably muscularly sore, the bits of him that hurt the most are those he bashed when he fell.   (#ridiculouslyproudwife)

He looked in a better state that some, like this chap having a rest under a table…

He managed half a bowl of chilli at the finish, then it was back to Bertie for a shower, having me apply a dressing to his knee so he didn’t bleed over the sheets, and bed at 4.30am.

 

(*All the way through to Saturday morning, the forecast had been giving a high chance of dry conditions for the entirety of the race, with perhaps just a few light showers. In reality, it rained in Coniston without cease all through Saturday and overnight into Sunday, with a cloud base almost skimming the top of the trees in the valley. Every time I checked the forecasts, they told me that it would dry up in an hour’s time, but that hour kept rolling forward, until it finally did stop at around 0830 on Sunday morning. The weather in the northern Lakes was a little better, but Mick still endured rain for almost the entirety of the race. Fortunately, mainly light or mizzly, and without any notable breeze.  

**The camping and parking fields had become so waterlogged and churned up that they’d had no choice but to stop cars entering, which meant anyone arriving to pick up finishers had to park on the road. Bertie was the other side of the wall from the road, so I could clearly hear people both returning to the camping field, and returning to cars on the road. Understandably, finishers had a lot to tell their friends and family, and had little concept of the time of day, so I couldn’t blame them for the late night chatter.)

A few snaps from Mick's phone:

How to fill time waiting for the start? Take a selfie! (The sunglasses may have been optimistic, and were certainly wonky.)

In the Starting Pen

The weather by Ullswater was certainly better than in Coniston!

Heading up Fusedale (not long before the mizzly rain became rainy rain)

Coming down Gatescarth Pass - cloud base is getting lower, a trend that would continue for the rest of the way.