The Slow Way Home: 133. This is England

A howling wind, rain and crashing waves greeted us on arrival at New Haven port after the four hour stint across the Channel from Dieppe. Ellie's brother Ben (hero of the Turkey trip) was also there, drenched and cold and we followed him west to Brighton, initially along the busy coast road and then on the promenade that was being battered by the sea. After a rest day with Ben and Vicky in Brighton and an early Christmas dinner with Vicky's family it was time for the last stage to Ellie's home in Norwich - a three day journey that took us first to Brixton in south London, then north to Cambridge and finally the last leg to Norwich. Ben had made sleeping arrangements with friends along the route and after saying goodbye to our wonderful host, Tom and his family in Cambridge, we were blown with a very strong tailwind much of the way to Norfolk.

It has been interesting experience, in being able to communicate properly with people once again. Ellie and I stood rather bewildered at the chaos and mayhem of a Thursday evening in downtown Brixton, ambulances and police sirens filling the night sky as touts tried to sell tickets to the nearby Pogues concert and young folk stumbled loudly down the street. As we passed through central London the next morning a group of police were studiously examining the junctions for traffic violations in the wake of the spate of cyclist fatalities a couple of weeks ago. One questioned his supervisor as to whether I had made an illegal move down the side of a bus whilst the traffic stopped at the lights. In villages people asked if were we off on holidays, assuming that the middle of winter is a normal time for people to go pedal-about. One man whom I asked for directions told us about his cycling son who had been detained in Russia after entering. Cars occasionally honked when they felt we were delaying them in their rush somewhere.

Ellie has clocked over 41,000 km since we began cycling in Colombia three years and two months ago and visited thirty countries since then. We weren't sure if tears would be shed or just relief at having finished a large, pedally chapter in Ellie's life but in the end tiredness was the dominant reaction and I passed out by the fireside after dinner as everyone else did the paper's crossword.

After a Christmas break with Ellie's family I'll do the last stretch across England and Wales to Ireland.