Fw: We're on the train!

We caught the 07.39 from Penzance, thanks for the lift Oliver! Only 14 hours to Edinburgh... Hopefully this photo I snatched through the train window will come through - St Michael's Mount in an amazingly calm sea!

First major obstacle overcome too - we found we only had our tickets as far as Edinburgh... Huge thanks to George for finding the rest of the tickets & getting them to us two minutes before the train left!

Stay tuned for the next exciting instalment!
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Nearly there!

Nearly there... meaning, finishing work tomorrow, paperwork, housework, washing and all the other menial jobs which are manically fitted in before we head off. I think we will be sleeping most of the way on the train!

Everybody has been primed, including telling the boys NO parties while we are away!!!

The Bike arrives in Wick tomorrow, as it's been busy hopping from one lorry to another. Thank you Mike and Barbara, you've been fantastic.

Harry designed the tandem logo for the t-shirt and hopefully the von trapp family will be wearing them on our arrival at Lands End.



Little boy's sticky fingers get everywhere! Each of the boys added their fingerprint to this lovely pendant so I will have all the family with me along the route plus my locket of Mum and Dad... call me soppy, but we are a unique family.

Bags Packed!

Bike - Check, Clothes - Check, Everything else - check (we hope). At the moment it looks as though Father Christmas has mislaid a couple of his sacks!

The final touches are being added over the next two days - we need to locate a screen printer for our Rowes Honda cycle shirts and collect the repaired wheel from Cycle Logic.

Apart from that we're ready to go & VERY excited. Roll on Thursday!

A Host of Golden Daffodils

Joules met (clandestinely) with the Graffiti Grannys this evening...

Shading their identities they handed over 88 knitted golden daffodils!



As you can tell the GG's are keen to protect their identity! This is serious MI7 stuff ...

Apologies for the blurred photo, hidden cameras are never that good.

A fabulous evening was had and we are bowled over by the number of daffodils we now have to decorate the route with! Hopefully we can be as discreet! Perhaps we'll wear our helmets backwards!

A huge Thank you to all concerned.

En Route...

Last night the tandem completed the first leg of it's journey to Wick. Richard built a box out of orange boxes from work and carefully dismantled the tandem, zip tying all the parts into the box so they don't rattle around and damage each other.

After work, Richard & Joules loaded the box into the back of the car and drove up to Weighbridge to drop it off at a farm at 10pm. This may sound rather bizarre, but Advanced Turf Machinery Ltd who have very kindly offered to deliver the bike for us need it in Milton Keynes. They are delivering a tractor to this farm in the next couple of days, so the lorry will take the tandem on it's return journey to MK before the courier completes the final leg to arrive in Wick on the 12th May.

It feels rather strange knowing that it is no longer here with us. Any training we want to do now HAS to be on our solo bikes so that will feel odd.

Bon Voyage tandem! See you on the 14th!

OK Girlies, This One's From Joules!

As you can see, by my NEW Lycra shorts, I have achieved the ultimate goal of SIZE 8!!!!!

Now the reality... They have to be tight (thanks to the spandex) to suck everything in as I am still a size 12. The moment lasted all of a few glorious minutes and I'm seriously thinking of wearing them inside out to display this wonderful image!

We're on the final countdown now. Eight days till we catch the train. Somebody asked me recently "what is going to be my luxury item?" After much thought, I need two! Maybe three, four? However, it's got to be my crochet hook! (and some wool) I can hear my girlies cheering! As my feet will be up most of the way down, so a king size bedspread will be completed on my return!

We've Got a Ticket to Ride!

Well, 21 including all the seat reservations and gubbins...

We stopped at Penzance railway station on our ride on Friday to pick up the tickets to take us to Wick. This will be our starting point on Friday 14th May 2010 about 18 miles from John O'Groats.



Back to Friday, we tackled the Pendeen, Morvah, Zennor road again, this time with about a stone and a half of weight in the trailer. Very pleased to announce that we are definitely getting fitter as it did not seem nearly so demanding. We were overtaken by a solo cyclist (a girl even!) on one hill, but she did stop and get in her car at the top of the hill, we carried on.

There will eventually be some Julie photos on this blog, Richard needs to wrestle the camera off her first though!