On Sunday I sail on Brittany Ferries from Portsmouth to Bilbao for a couple of weeks riding in northern Spain. I’m leaving the tent at home for a change and have booked four rural hotels, all interesting, I hope, in different ways. Not camping means I can leave all this lot in the cupboard:

In fact this is a picture from Google earth of my first hotel:

I was feeling a little sad at missing out on the camping experience but this photograph looks like an intriguing place. Does its name mean that it is a real monastery, not one of those fake monasteries with fake monks who turn out to be actors?

When you are immersed in working and living – as is too easy, these trips can come up out of the blue almost in a strangely unwelcome way – paradoxically – as an interruption to the numb mindlessness of routine. But getting out maps and packing the panniers does start to dissolve that.

Unusually, the sailing down to Bilbao is two nights, a chance hopefully to disengage and get into a new headspace.