Tag Archives: cycling

Durbar Square

I’m staying in a room in Freak Street that’s little more than a plywood box. I’m not sure there’s much more than corrugated iron between me and the sub-zero December air. In the room next door, a couple of guys with some very pure-looking grass. I spend several hours stoned in the most pleasant way – none of the nausea and toxicity of British hash.

Breakfast standing in the freezing fog in Durbar Square. Not many folk about, and the guy cooking some kind of Asian-style eggy bread on a low charcoal burner is friendly. I breathe in the mist, the cold, and the gorgeous unfamiliarity. I’m just happy.

In a second-hand bookshop, I pick up a copy of Scott Peck’s “The Road Less Travelled.” Happy hours are spent over coffee and in odd corners, just reading, unhurried, un-harassed. Nepal is such a blessed relief after the fractious, pestered journeying through India.

Mike, the guy who’s motorcycled from England, reappears. I last saw him in Jaipur, when three of us rented bikes and saw the Bollywood filming in the fountain gardens.

We celebrate Christmas with water buffalo steak, and begin planning an end-of-season Annapurna trek.

Clock

The Peebles church bells sound every quarter hour:

ding dong ding dong (x4)

Then, on Sunday mornings, pealing and hymns and cascading notes to exhort the faithful out of bed and to church.

Depending on weather and wind, could sometimes hear it from home. Otherwise, faintly coming into awareness as we cycled the leaf-slippery, unbalanced lanes into town to join grandparents in worship followed by Sunday lunch and Sherlock Holmes.

The “golden” carriage clock on their mantlepiece, looking oddly constrained and refined compared to the rustic hand/home-crafted artefacts of home. But then, I’m not sure they were entirely comfortable in that small, modern space, either.

The taste of oven-roasted red and yellow peppers, crunchy roast chicken, and blackberry fool, intense in colour and flavour, swirled with not-quite-curdling double cream.

The smells from the kitchen where Elizabeth worked while William read to us from aged volume of Conan Doyle.

Sometimes, the dessert was burning hot “treacle” tart, and William would tell his “Stone cold again, sir – you really must do something about that cook!” story – or just the catch-phrase, with an endearing air of amusement.

The song “I hear the ticking of the clock” by Heart – that affected me so much in my teens – what was it… “How do I get you alone?” – Nick said he couldn’t quite see why I didn’t just talk to her…

Bicycle

Throwing it down on the verge, the grass and scented meadowsweet protruding between the spokes. Whinstone walls lead down to a talkative stream among the ash trees, and the sun gently warms the land. I’m tired but happy.

Peanut butter and jam sandwiches taste squashed and feel sticky in my mouth, and the sports bottle water, tugged from its place on the bike frame, is tepid and plasticky.

It’s the second day. Today began with a glorious, cold free-wheel through early mist from the height of Wanlockhead. The slatey scree, drowsy sheep and waist-high bracken flicked in and out of view as I buzzed through cloud. Almost like strobe lights in a disco.

My calves do ache, though. I’m not that fit, and it was a long haul yesterday. I brush sweat and flies from the skin and give them a squeeze. Don’t they say you shouldn’t stop for too long, or some kind of crystals form in the muscle fibres, that give you pain later?