Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do!

I’m half crazy, all for the love of you!

It won’t be a stylish marriage,

I can’t afford a carriage,

But you’ll look sweet upon the seat

Of a bicycle built for two!

We will go tandem as man and wife

Daisy Daisy

Peddaling away down the road of life

I and my Daisy Bell

Harry Dacre

We were tied up snug to sit out strong winds blowing through overnight and tomorrow. The warps tugged and creaked all night right above our cabin but I couldn’t be bothered moving cabin and anyway I could hear the water sloshing against the pontoon at the stern so didn’t think it’d be much better. However, I must of slept as woke to the skipper bringing me a mug of tea.

We had a slow morning catching up with admin and wee jobs while it was pouring outside. The captain was sorting out business things and I footered about.

It dried up just as we finished our jobs, so we took the bikes out the aft cabin, assembled them and set off for an afternoon’s cycle to Clachtoll via the famous pie shop. We had just reached the pie café when the sky opened again so thought it better to grab a coffee and sit this heavy shower out. I was getting tired of being soaked and my hair was beyond hope, though I’d recently had it shortened, not just for the trip but to smarten it up from the straggly bleached mop it had become, it was full of seaspray and salt. Fine under my cycle helmet though. We got coffee and two pies to takeaway – one savoury to share on the beach for a picnic lunch and the other sweet one for a dessert another day. Just as we left the café I literally bumped into a colleague and pal who was guiding a cycle trip round the NC500. We had a wee chat, swapped tales of our guiding days for the same company then made our way out the village and were loving cycling along the single track road, past lochans and undulating knolls of heather and myrtle. We were 3 miles short of Clachtoll which I was keen to visit as it had been maybe 25 years since last there camping with our wee brood of tously haired tangle of gorgeous boys and I was looking forward to sitting on the beach munching our pies in the sun.

“You have a rear flat tyre” I announced to the skipper. It was pretty flat but we tried pumping it up in case it was a slow leak. Nope, it was flat again in minutes. He tried taking the tube off to see if there was anything to be done but the valve had been sheared off. We had a spare for my tyres but not the smaller wheels he was riding. Oh well. Wait a minute, do we happen to know any bike guides in the area who have a support vehicle full of spares! I gave him a call and we were in luck. He had a suitable spare tube and was still in Lochinver while his clients were having lunch. Talk about serendipity! The cycle/walk back was interesting as the skipper developed an interesting technique of leaning over his handle bars taking the weight off the back for slow downhills then pushing uphill. I did giggle as we were just as bad as my students who this guide coached in mountain bike leadership and would groan when they had a technical issue and then they would announce they had left their spares back at college. We were those useless students! However, he made no comment as we did the walk of shame towards him and he helped change the inner using an interesting technique to fit a larger tube to a smaller tyre. You learn something every day – just like the students!

Much gratitude and promise of coffee and scones from our college cafe once we were back at work and we came up with a Plan B as cycling all the way back towards Clachtoll was now too far. We decided on the lovely local woods again and to go to the secluded shore to picnic and enjoy the sun which was actually shining! That pie was so big, resembling Suilven itself so humped full of meat it was, we cut it in two and lay on the shingly shore soaking up the rare warmth and sun light.

A wee cycle round the rear of the woodlands then back to the village to stock up with  a few bits. These wee village stores invariably stock such interesting sweets that you don’t see anywhere else. I had to buy the bag of plain chocolate covered ginger creams and rhubarb and custard boilings. I was sure I would return from this trip resembling a Lochinver pie as was indulging in too much good grub and treats!

The skipper was in great shape, he has the most annoying ability, after a winter of over indulging and pretty sedentary lifestyle when he lays down his winter covering, within a couple of weeks of starting the season he is lean and fit again! It seems to take me months of strict control, hours of cycling, rowing and swimming to shift the pounds but only a few days of relaxation for it to appear back again! They don’t call the menopause the change for no reason!

This business of ageing was a challenge. Things were wobbling, wrinkling, falling off, out, aching and wearing out! It does seem to creep up on you, the 50s were fine but 60s seem to mark a turning point. It seemed a fairly constant effort to push back from entire degeneration but on the whole we were doing pretty well and it was a privilege to go through it together. We knew everything about each other and could empathise when yet another ailment or issue appeared. We just laughed it off when it seemed every time you went to get something checked out, the GP would diagnose “oh its just your age”!

Back to the boat then a shower and welcome hair wash for me at the leisure centre. I wasn’t feeling that good, a bit unsteady and nauseous and felt a bit disappointed the vertigo was not fully away. Maybe all the different motions and exertions had stirred it up again. Well at least I was able to come on the trip which I was loving in every way so took that as a win. The doc had said it could take weeks even months so I just had to be patient.

The skipper disassembled the bikes and packed them away – including another spare inner tube we had managed to buy at the hardware store – while I brought out the second dinner’s worth of crab. We ate our full again and still had a pile of meat leftover so decided that would do in a roll for lunch tomorrow.  We certainly felt we had got our money’s worth from our impromptu pier purchase. We sat back in the cockpit  and watched the huge refrigerated lorry slowly revv up and turn out the harbour laden with fresh seafood bound for Spain– minus two crab!