Day 28 - Beehives & Deluge

Saturday was day 28, where I wheeled from Cuddington to Welshamton. I'm having to write this after the fact, because there is no time at all after wheeling to write anything!

We've still got Sharon with us, which is absolutely awesome and she's doing an amazing job. I wish she could stay to the end. All of the driver's have been great. Its been very strange getting to know your friends on a whole new level!

There have been a few weather warnings about for this week. But other than some light rain, everything seemed fine and I was hoping to do quite a good time today.

I did, until the weather hit, so let's start at the beginning, Istarted off early ish. We stayed at place called the beehive last night, which was really, really lovely. Actually, the nicest room so far really beautifully decorated. Obviously bees being the theme there is lots of bee orientated items, such as cushions and orniments. Its so cute. There a really lovely tea tray with proper coffee and lovely tea bags. It was just really well-thought-out, really nice, really warm, a lovely shower too. A shame there was no bath, but you can't have everything, and it was the nicest place so far.

So I would definitely go back there again. Idid, unfortunately, get woken up at about 1 AM by a fire alarm going off, which was epically loud! Good that it worked though, so that was reassuring, but obviously not knowing what was going on. I did go out into the hall and the lady owner was there. She said she was going to go and check it out and make sure there was no problem, but when it got to 3 o'clock, and I hadn't heard anything, but I guessed that all was well and I could go back to sleep, which meant that I didn't get much sleep at all. Not ideal when you're doing a challenge like this, but it can't be helped and certainly wasn't their fault. Apparently, it turned out to be some critters in the loft that were doing something with wiring or walking over the alarm or whatever little critters do in the night! 🤣

Our early start ended up starting a bit later than thaught and we had a delay basically men having a bit of a chat! I swear they are worse than women, once you get them going on a shared love, like fishing for example, you cant get them to shut up 🤣 So Neil and the chap from the beehive, we're having a bit of a chat for a while! 🤣

So we didn't actually get started until after 9, which actually turns out to be a good thing and a good time to start, so they did us a favour in their gas-bagging 🤣.

So we went through a really busy town centre and then suddenly the heaven's just opened and the rain came down ridiculously fast. I ended up being in no other words to describe it than a deluge. I was literally soaked through. Fortunately, there was a little car park that could pull into, so pulled in. By the time I'd actually got from a chair and into the back of the car I was just completely soaked through, which was a bit of a nightmare. Pam decided to stand outside in the rain, for a while. The front seat was empty and awaiting her arrival, but she must have liked the rain, because there was no reason for her to be out there 🥰
I did tell it's come into the car, but she's an adult and she didn't what to, and i respected what she wanted to do. Nothing I can do about that. Fortunately she was standing up so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. I suggested that for the future we should have an umbrella in the car for those sort of situations 👍

Long long road!!

So I managed to get changed a little bit into some dry clothing. I didn't have another top, so I just had to go with it really, and when the rain stopped, got back out of the car and carried on. I managed to do the 45 km that I wanted to do in 4 hours and 29 minutes, so I was pretty pleased with that. My first world record was 42 km, a marathon, and I did that in a longer time than that, so I'm really pleased with that.

When my day of wheeling was done, we moved on to staying in The Crown B&B, which was a bit really interesting. Just me and Pam staying there. Neil and Sharon had special accommodation, because it's coming up to Neil's Birthday, so they booked a spa, which was so great. Im so glad they had that. So we went into our rooms, and the landlady asked, what room you want? and I said, oh, whichever one's got a bath. So I've been hoping for a bath. With CRPS, the shower hurts alot. The pressure with the water going on to my leg feels as if I'm being stabbed a million times. No exaggeration, it really really hurts, so it's very tricky for me to have a shower. So I'm sticking my leg out of the shower and trying not to get it wet, which is hilarious. My body kind of contorting, in a wierd way, to have a shower without getting my stump wet. Inevitably, it does get wet and then, yep, in gets very sore! So it's not the most pleasant experience for me and it's a typical thing when you're in a wheelchair. The persumption is that you must only be able to get in a shower, and for some it is true, but not always the case, because some people can get into a bath, me being one of them. So I would definitely ask for a bath in future. So the landlady asked, which room do you want and I said one with a bath, she answered, 'well, actually both have showers!' So at that point, I said which ever room is fine in that case, as I ended up with a room called the pig room, which is really cool name and Pam was in the cow room.

Went into my room as normal and Pam insisted on helping me with my bags. Its quite funny, even though everyone always offers to help, she wont let them. Well betide anyone who just grabs a bag! You may get something bitten off 🤣. The room was very small, it was basically a bed with a very tiny, tiny gap at the end, but i don't really need much else. I'm so tired after wheeling that I just want to eat and rehab and get into bed as quickly as possible.

The room was so small that I'd have to shuffle sideways to fit down past the bed. The other side of the bed had a little bit more room and then a bathroom, so I would kind of launch myslef over the bed to get to the other side. Fortunately it was very low bed, one of the sort of old-fashioned almost 4 poster beds. But with a very, very tiny short posts at the end. I got myself sorted and Pam came into the room just before we were going to go down and have something to eat and all of a sudden she sort of turned round, and then ended up flopping over the back of the bed on to the bed with her legs in the air. It was absolutely hilarious. Fortunately she was absolutely fine, the bed was a nice soft landing!

So i carried my chair and manoeuvred it around the stairs to the bar and restaurant to have some food. Its a really tricky place to get down with the wheelchair. So getting up was interesting, so there was a complete right angle on the stairs and then up a normal flight stairs from there where getting a wheelchair around that corner was really tricky, I basically how to lift it up quite high and then turn it and then put it back on onto the steps and then go up the stairs, not easy at all. So I had to do that on my way back down and by back up again. But the pub was lovely, really, really sweet, really friendly, really quiet. Some locals and a few other people were there, but it was lovely.

They had quite a few gluten free options on the menu as well, and i had a treat of a burger for tea, which is something that been craving for a while. I don't often eat things like that, but I really wanted one and they had a gluten-free, so I thought, why not? Unfortunately, it didn't really taste of anything. Which is a common thing that I'm finding, so it filled a hole, but that was it. To be honest, food has basically been a way of fuelling for the next day doing this event, so im not particularly loving much of it.

It wasn't horrible, it just didn't taste of anything, so I ate as much as I could knowing what I've got coming tomorrow and just did the best that I could.

After food, a really interesting so a chap came over to speak to me, and handed me 10 pounds which I was completely blown away by. He said that he'd been following me earlier in the day and seen one of the hills that had gone up and was gob smacked and wanted to donate some money, which was really lovely and really overwhelming. Then another chap came up to chat to us. Pam had been talking to him at the bar and telling him what I was doing, and he asked to come over and meet me, which again always baffles me. I always think that people are expecting one thing, and get another?

He came over and said that he did Lands end to John O’Groats a few years ago after losing his is baby son? When he found out that I was doing it the opposite way round to him he said 'why would you do it that way? It's much harder that way round, it's like, double the difficulty of doing land's end!' Yeah, I know! I'm finding that out! It was lovely chatting to him about his experience and what he what he went through. Its nice when someone has an understanding of the physical side, and how tiring it is. The crew are watching, but can't have an understanding of how difficult every day os, or just how tiring. You put on top of that fibromyalgia as well, which causes fatigue, and tiredness goes to a whole new level. On top of that is mental tiredness from concentrating on the road all of the time, so that i don't go into pot holes or hit stones. It was nice to have that verification that it's okay for me to be feeling tired. I can't speak to any of the support crew about that part, because they don't understand. If I say I'm tired, I would get told 'yer we all are!'. But things are different when your actually doing the event, to being in the car. Its different level of tiredness. So only I know what that feels like, and it can be quite lonely at times.

But this was not the first time I've had someone say that the way im doing it is harder. Its happened many times now. People saying I should have done it the other way, it's much easier! From my point of view, even if I'd found that out beforehand, which a couple of people had mentioned, I just dismissed it and ignored it. I think if I'd had definite confirmation of it being more difficult the way I chose to do it, I still would have done it the way that I am doing it, because to me, what's the point of doing in the easier route? I know that's really stupid, but it's just the way my brain works, (yep, bonkers!) So yeah, we ended up having a chat with him for a while, and then I went up to bed. Pam went back down to to get something and saw the same chap and he pledge to donate a 100 pounds, which was just wonderful, really, really amazing. I actually have no words.

Lots of people today were clapping and cheering as well which always blows my mind. I keep looking around to see what the noise is for? One another chap that drove past me, then turned around and drove back into a lay-by, got out of this car and stood at the side of the road clapping, which again, almost drew me to tears, I'd was completely overwhelmed. I was feeling quite rubbish at that point, quite low in energy, and It really really spurred me on. It was a really, really tough day. I did 1250 feet of climbing and had another 16% climb as well, which was really, really tough. The rain stayed away for the rest of the day, which was brilliant.

I had a near miss with my wheel as well, which could have been a bit nasty! Luckily Sharon saw something...

I went over a bump and I felt my chair do something funny. It felt strange, almost loose, but I couldn't figure out what was going on, so I sort of checked when I was moving, but everything seem fine and then I eventually stopped, Pam came out and she said, oh, you know, Sharon's just looked at your wheels and it lookes like your left one has moved and looked like the wheel was coming off. So I checked it and the wheel was indeed coming off, it was out out of the clip.

Oh my God, I'd just gone down some of the worst hills that I've been down, at a very, very fast speed as well!

My speeds are increasing going downhill, and quite often, if it's a good surface, I'll go a up to 20 mph or more, mainly to keep to keep my speed up and to to help with the finishing time. So ive got more time to recover. Obviously, I keep things as safe as possible and dont take any undue risks. But I know what I can and can't do, so I'll do what I can? So the wheel was completely out and could have come off at any point. I think it was just lucky that when I was going down hill, I was holding on to my wheels, using my hands to break, and so they stayed in place, phew!! When I stopped I put it back in and now I'm hypervigilant, about checking my wheels and making sure that it doesn't happen again ,because that could have been Catastrophic. If the wheel had come off, I would have tipped sideways, the first thing that probably would have hit the floor would have been my elbow, my arm, my shoulder, my head, and at those sorts of speeds, I would have definitely broken things and that would have been the event over! Which I would have been mortified about. But it's made me look from now on. So crisis averted! But all in all, not a bad day. Some ups and downs on the road, but no road is ever flat (or so im learning!)

Wet bits!

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