The Ridings

My effort to continue exercising daily did not last. Although Manchester provided excuses for breaking the thread, once those days were gone my motivation withered. As I knew I the target had already been missed I could not keep going a few days later when I felt very very tired; and once I had missed a day without good reason the game was up.

I have since had a week off and so it is now time to start again with a new regime and a new challenge.

Usually at this time I think about an autumn marathon but this year will be different: cycling to all the places I have lived - an act of kinetic memoir.

My birthday in April prompted massive introspection as I looked back at all the things I had done, and more prominently all the things I had not done. I started to think about who I was at the various addresses from infant to adult and realised I have not revisited many of the places and I have no idea how much they have changed. That is reason enough to find out. I have had 13 homes in England (always in England, I seem to have missed out on the gypsy gene). The furthest north (and west) was Cheshire (Farndon is a village on the Welsh border), the furthest south: Horsham, the furthest east: Colchester, with a number of places in and around London. London is always the centre and I still think of myself as coming from London.

The plan is for three trips and as there are three they will be called the Ridings.

The first one is planned for next week and will be the South Riding and will cover the places in London, Surrey and Sussex. It will start at Colliers Wood (where I lived my first 8 years) but apart from that nothing willbe chronological. The North and East Riding will be done after I come back from holiday, probably in September/ October.

You can see they would punch a hole in any marathon training programme but that does not matter as there is always another time. in fact I rather like Tom’s idea of celebrating the 2,500 anniversary of the original Marathon next year.

So this year the plan is for some gentle, credit card touring, staying in hotels or bed and breakfasts. The aim is not primarily fitness and endurance. Instead they will be journeys of personal psychogeography and take as long as they take.