Shrek on the Road Again Lyrics

Donkey: on the road again..I can't await to become on the road over again.
Shrek: what did I say nearly singing?
Donkey: well can I whisle?
Shrek: no!
Donkey: well can I humm?
Shrek: Alright.
Ass: hmmm hmmm hmmmm hmmmm hmmm.

Or for those who like the visual: http://world wide web.youtube.com/watch?v=Myb-eAt_RxY.

Yes, I'm back on the road. Yep, I will be Zac's annoying footling donkey all the way dorsum up to London. Aye, I am as unprepared for this 7 24-hour interval / 1,020km bicycle as I was leaving Buckingham Palace back on 14th April 2012. Why should I change a winning formula? More on my lack of preparation and Zac's utter dismay (what were you expecting buddy) at my ineptitude afterward. You lot may also be wondering why I'm writing another blog, which would be a very reasonable question! Part of me misses writing to y'all lovely people, part of me enjoys putting my erratic thoughts down on 'paper' and the biggest part of me can hear Zac furiously typing away next to me about his adventures from Faro to here and I wanted to exist part of it again! If you're already bored, click here to read his, most likely more interesting, stories – he is currently laughing at my futile attempts to try and brand a railroad train journey sound riveting. I will give information technology my all-time!

Before that, let me briefly bring you up to speed… Since my render to London four months ago I accept thoroughly enjoyed regaling my tales from the road to whoever cares to listen, or at to the lowest degree feign interest. This has included my talk to friends & family at St George's Church building back in Nov, my old prep schoolhouse Yardley Court to a very inquisitive bunch of 7-13 yr olds, Chest Cancer Care headquarters in London, the Savile Club in Mayfair, London and in many pubs & confined across the land, with a few more schools lined up. My adept pal Paul Nugent even got me into Off Rail Planet, an online travel magazine, in a feature called 'This Guy'. I think I become the biggest kick out of these events as I get to re-live my journeying through the photos & videos I share with people, remembering all kinds of highs & lows from those moments captured on camera. Despite constantly returning to my fourth dimension on the road last year, I am also looking forrard to hereafter adventures in life and on the route. I would like to be able to tell y'all what these are, only even I'yard non 100% yet… The idea of Polar take a chance is being sown in my mind and Zac brought up Race Across America last dark after lots of red vino (an 8 day cycling dash from eastward to west coast). Any it is, yous will know in i mode or another.

Dorsum to the present now, as who likes to dwell on the past… I am sitting in rural French republic in the most idyllic country house in Saint-Matré, just westward of Cahors in the S of France, where I am existence hosted exceptionally kindly past Richard & Fiona (Zac's family unit). I have travelled here in order to keep Zac safe & sound for the remainder of his around-the-globe-wheel, or every bit he puts it: ' you lot are hither then that if my bike collapses on the last leg I can utilise yours as a back up'. Charming! My journey to Saint-Matré may not have been as adventurous equally his wheel across Australia, New Zealand, the United States of America, Portugal, Spain and a supposedly nippy ride across the Pyrenees, merely it did have its hiccups. Yous would have thought I learnt a thing or two from cycling from London to Hong Kong last year. It would seem I hadn't. I haphazardly threw some clothes & kit into my panniers without looking at the weather forecast or terrain in French republic and set about the gruelling 12km cycle from Balham to St. Pancras at 06:00 to catch my Eurostar to Paris. One would think that I would know a thing or 2 about travelling, since it is my day job, simply I approximate I withal haven't learnt that taking a iii inch blade through x-ray machines and community is not a practiced idea. My favourite camping knife is no more than. My clumsiness continued upon disembarking from the Eurostar; I left my coin wallet, with my passport, money & credit cards, on board the railroad train but to realise its absence twenty minutes later on. My dumb luck has remained with me, as a very kind family returned it to me whilst I frantically searched for it. I plodded out into Paris with two hours of free time before my railroad train left for Cahors, then I did what any other sane British tourist would do: I cycled to Notre-Matriarch, had an espresso and a cigarette, had an argument with the waiter most tipping, listened & sang along to Edith Piaf whilst cycling along the Seine, had steak tartare with a Kronenburg, argued with another waiter, ate a chocolate eclair, looked suitably arrogant, stepped in canis familiaris shit and made my railroad train with 5 minutes to spare. And what did you exercise Zac…cycled 190km through the freezing common cold?!? Pffff. The train journey to Cahors was uneventful, apart from getting off at the wrong stop. I can be such a plonker.

The 'tough' journey was worth it to be reunited with Mr Clayton. His youthful expert looks and ear-to-ear smiling made me call up how jealous Sophie must be that I'm here and she's not 😉 The auto journey dorsum, even so, filled me somewhat with dread with Zac telling me how insanely cold information technology has been in the mornings with tent poles and gear systems freezing up and asking me what the route looks like to Calais. He looked at me and said "you've come up prepared right?", "you know the road right?". Alas! My silence said it all. I was greeted with mocking laughs and the expected insults as my panniers consisted of cycling shorts, light summertime gloves, a mediocre jumper, a game of Bananarama and no maps or GPS any. What I idea might be a leisurely jaunt is already making me shudder in my 2mm sparse summer socks. Despite the taunting, the frost lingering until mid-forenoon and the fright of being grossly unfit compared to Zac, I couldn't exist more excited most hit the road tomorrow for the daily 150km grind for the next 6 days. The camaraderie, the camping, the quality time spent with my forgotten friend/teddy Rocco, the painful thawing out of fingers & toes, the punctures, the French food, the slipstreaming and coming upwards with the next botched hazard to get me through 2013. I am so not ready, I am ready. Bring it on…all once more!