Untitled (Motorcycle: after sunrise). Nr Vilobi d’Onyar, Spain, 2023.
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The third day. A Tuesday, AM:
Waking up in Spain on the third day;- to a post-sunrise view over a long deserted abandoned pig farm may not have been quite what I had in mind when, back in the 80s, I’d wondered what would’ve happened if we had stayed on—maybe over-wintering in the Pyrenees above Luchon, eventually to buccaneer south into Spain and a different life—but as daybreaks and awakenings go, it wasn’t bad. A cut above awakenings in my truck driving life in the recent past; a pause—rest—was here; yesterday’s adventures seeping into my semi-dream state.
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My arrival-musings continued: Meeting Sam—teaching herself to ride the mountains, escaping the UK—I found inspiring. Such that I’d headed south and way too far around to get from Luchon to Vilobi d’Onyar. And it was hot. And windy, especially when passing my erstwhile colleagues in their trucks bowling along on the fantastic N 230—a best biking road in Europe contender, I reckon—towards Lleida—I’d stopped at a minor services, Fondarella, more to refuel me with cold water and gums than the bike. At 32c, past 5pm, this hot-day was rolling out longer than expected. And in 2 hours it would be dark. Time to Mas Estrellas? 1:58.1
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Slaking a wrong-side-of-incipient-dehydration thirst takes more than a few minutes. I glugged half a litre of cold water, binned the bottle, packed the other one, guzzled some gums for good measure; the quiche which Sam had bought me was a long way back down the road from my place here: the foothills of spaghetti western country. Leaving the petrol station after too brief a rest, I got confused, and went around a small indistinct roundabout the wrong way—its always the rests and setting offs that get you… Also my phone was running low on power—I was running with the constant thought that Mrs Google’s utterings in my ears might be the last; not helped by the distance updates to the next junction(ish), not the next planned turnoff—(way too helpful).
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The gloom gathered, I bunked off the motorway to sort out a recharge from my pack—memorising the route and turn-off—updating my host on my eta; guzzling more water, a few gums; still, revelling in this freedom. The turn off turned up just as darkness become full; I stopped, retrieved my now charged phone; still in the game: I texted my host: ‘9 minutes away (maybe a tad more, I’m at the “don’t fuck it up now stage of the day”)’.
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Fifteen minutes later I arrived at a compound en-circled by security fencing, in the dark, a dog was barking. A pause, the gate slid open, I trundled in, determined not to fall off as I parked. Katherine, my host, came and gave me a hug, we’d not met for four years: a pandemic; a protracted doctoral assessment; two bouts of Covid, one of long Covid; deaths of both my parents; and a broken leg, ago. I apologised for my sweaty, smelly state; for being late—but there were several whole countries and meeting Sam and the new-found re-found freedom of being on my bike for 3 days heading in a more or less continuous direction to get out of, and into, my system. Katherine got it, and took me inside to meet my compadres to be.
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‘Tu Est Libre’, it had said on the tarmac, in spray paint at the top of the Tourmalet, only this morning: Was I, really? Was I? Free? Me? After the past 3 days—and the preceding years—you bet.
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Untitled (Interior, rose: after sunrise). Nr Vilobi d’Onyar, Spain, 2023.
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Notes:
ORIGIN: Old English steorra, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch ster, German Stern, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin stella and Greek astēr.