Looking back in wonder…

I was prompted the other day to choose a photo and use it to revisit the event shown. In cycling terms the choice was a pretty easy one to make.

This shows myself and my wife, Jacqui, arriving at my sister’s home in Algoz, on Portugal’s Algarve. Were we just back from a day’s run to the coast? Albufeira perhaps? No, were arriving hot-foot from Paris.

The photo was taken in October 2012. We had been cycling for 29 days with 3 rest days since arriving in Paris by Eurostar on September 24. In our early sixties, it was the first time we had cycled for more than a two-week tour and we had covered a total of 2246 kilometres.

Did we feel elated? Perhaps a little, but mostly we felt different: we knew the journey had changed something in us. Physically, we were fitter and lighter than we had been for many years. Emotionally, we were closer, having matched each other, pedal stroke for pedal stroke over many days as we marvelled quietly together about what we were doing. But it was spiritually that we were most changed: somehow we knew we had shared an adventure that would stay with us and be revisited for years into our future together – and so it has proved to be.

Thanks to writing101 for the prompt to revisit this happy memory.