Well, the trip is over. I am sitting in my inside cabin on the Stenna ship that will leave in a couple of hours for Harwich arriving at 6.30 in the morning. I made it. I made it to Slovakia. I did not have a accident. The bike did not break down (or even hint at it). My toothache went away. I was not abducted by Roma or aliens. I didn’t even get seriously wet though the low points were weather induced. Crouching in my little tent in a thunder storm moving all my pathetic belongings into a smaller and smaller space is not much fun, though made a couple of nice videos. My precious down sleeping bag which everyone warns you not to get wet – never got wet. I was afraid of being struck by lightening though under a tree. I now don’t mind riding in the rain.

Yesterday I set out on the twisty route from the campsite near Fulda up through interesting Marburg to Soest where my cousin lives. The ride was the hottest riding I have ever done, beautiful roads but rather too long and tiring. My welcome by Astrid and Ullie could not have been nicer or more genuine. They had even bought me toothbrushes and shaving soap and gave me a lovely apartment – I mean to sleep in for the night – not to keep. In the evening we drove (in a car which seemed so wide) into Soest to have a lovely Chinese ‘all you can eat’ (which everyone seems to be doing) buffet. Ullie pointed out on the way the blocks of flats once lived in by British troops when they had stations in West germany and now, as a result of some clever policy making they are home to hundreds of immigrants. Germany’s newest immigrant group is Russians and we were surrounded in our restaurant by russians speaking german but, Ullie told me, with a harsh accent. They sang ‘Happy birthday’ in English though. That whole area of town seemed peopled on this Friday evening by rather poor looking and predominantly young down at heel people. I was getting the impression that this impressive German medieval town, with its circular arrangement of narrow streets now housed a predominantly displaced population. However on a short walk around the Centre of town, we stumbled on a wine fair in a small park, packed with stalls and people. So this is where the middle aged and middle classes were compressed. This was a completely different set of people. Over some delicious – unusual to my palette – German wine (of which Ullie kindly bought me a bottle to take home) I stared wide eyed at this crowd of animated people, all looking so un-English, somehow with better bone structure, or more imposing, stylish, better dressed unlike the slightly grey feeling that the English have. (I am aware that the fact that you can’t understand what people are saying makes you assume they are saying something interesting – Mike Carter makes this poit in his funny Uneasy Rider. And in the background, up on a small stage, in the evening sunlight, a band performed a passable version of Eric Clapton’s Wonderful tonight.

Today I packed up (so much quicker without a tent to take down) and took my leave. The ride here to Hook of Holland was 208 miles and took about 3 and a half hours. I felt so complacent and totally relaxed with riding. I had made it. In fact I sang Wonderful tonight in the privacy of my helmet for many miles. Waiting for ferries is always a great place to chat idly to people, to a cyclist from Chester on this occasion and then to a tubby couple astride a 1150 BMW GS. They both looked so heavy on this big bike. ( i am sure the suspension doesn’t sink like that when I climb on my bike.) I was impressed at his control. They had just come back from the Dolomites. This meeting has reaffirmed a craving to own a nice large Beemer. Because I didn’t stash some wine and food, I will have to part with some cash in the restaurant here. I have floods of Euro in my wallet because Campsites were so cheap and I paid for petrol by credit card (it will be interesting to see how much that costs). I have clocked up 2350 miles – more than my whole last year’s riding in just two weeks: 4 countries, only two nights in hotels. Not many conversations, some nice meals mainly in Germany, some lovely places too. I’ve done it.