2013

The year started very cold with snow and ice – although it looked nice, it meant I did no cycling.

I travelled to London for meetings a few times on the coach. - Board meeting for Barrett's Oesophagus Campaign national charity, committee meeting of Action Against Heartburn consortium of charities, London Barrett's Symposium – it's all focussed on my charity involvement.

It was probably on one of the coach trips I picked up the Norovirus (I believe). I knew the resultant 5 hours of violent wretching between 2:00am and 7:00am wouldn't do my fundoplication (anti-reflux wrap) any good and gradually the symptoms of heartburn and the reflux cough returned.

I took my courtesy niece, Megan, to Winchester INTECH in February, Marwell Zoo in May and to the pictures in September. She'd moved to Bournemouth by then and her mother no longer has a car which will means I may not see her so frequently.

I hadn't planned a sponsored cycle this year. I thought I'd give my potential sponsors a break after they'd done so well sponsoring my Saigon – Angkor Wat cycle last year and I am hoping they'll be even more generous when I cycle from Machu Picchu to the Amazon next year. (Although a number of new members at the AGM asked when I would be cycling again to sponsor me.)

I had, however, arranged a short “French leave” cycle trip taking Robert (who had been my room share last year) with me.

Just a couple of weeks before we were due to go I posted him the picture of my bike (above) dressed and ready. But then, cycling slowly (fortunately) up a path, the frame suddenly snapped in two decanting me on the ground. The aluminium tube had just torn. Just as well I wasn't doing 40mph down the hill on route to Winchester.

So I bought myself a new bike – made of Cromoly lightweight steel.

Dawes as she arrived from the shop and dressed ready for her foreign trip.

Although my Giant was out of guarantee, they gave me a new replacement – which I sold on eBay to help offset the cost of my new Dawes.

I cycled to Portsmouth where I met Robert off his train and we took the overnight ferry to Le Havre.

We cycled over the new Ponte de Normandie and along the coast via Honfleur, Deauville, Villers and Cabourg to Caen where we spent the night.

The next day we cycled to Bayeux and back via Arromanches and the coast to Ouistreham for the overnight ferry back to Portsmouth and, for me, a cycle back home.

I have kept up with those I cycled with in Vietnam and Cambodia via facebook. In December, some of them cycled across India. I would have liked to have joined them but had said I would return to India with Karen (who doesn't like cycling), to see where her mum grew up. However, her adhesions following her 2004 surgery and haemorrhage, make travelling uncomfortable for her. I could have been easily persuaded to have joined the India trip but was unsure of how my health would be.

In August I was offered the chance to cycle from London to Paris over the bank holiday weekend for just £200 (as compared with the normal £800). Karen volunteered to get me and my bike to the start at Crystal Palace by the early start time – but, again, I declined, not knowing if I'd cope. (The reflux effects are similar to asthma and, apart from coughing where I nearly black out, I can get quite breathless.) As it happened, my health remained fine over bank holiday – though not so presently.

I had declined the Hayling cycle this year which was in Holland again as last year – though they had fine weather, unlike the torrents I had endured there. Next year they are returning to Paris with a round trip from Hayling and back. But, hopefully I'll be building strength following an operation and cannot commit to this.

At the beginning of June, I saw the nurse specialist to discuss how I could get my fundoplication repaired. A few weeks later I had another endoscopy, performed by one of our charity's gastroenterologists, who sent the report and surgery request to the surgical team. At the beginning of December I met with the surgeon who has put me on the waiting list and I shall, hopefully, have the repair surgery in a couple of months, providing me with ample time to return to fitness and get some training in for the Peru cycle which I have now booked for between 2^nd and 12^th October. Whereas the Angkor Wat cycle was described as “challenging”, this is described as “tough” because of the hills and altitude and we'll be spending nights under canvas.

We haven't seen much of the grandchildren this year. We went up to Ian's for a barbecue at the end of May, staying in a hotel at Cannock Chase where we enjoyed a walk in the woods with them.

We didn't get away for a holiday (apart from my cycle) this year and have dog and house sat for Colin less frequently. Although he has to spend more time in Germany for his job, it's been so frequent (2 or 3 days every week) that he puts them in the kennels instead. However, in November, we spent three weeks looking after them while he was on holiday in Vietnam with a girl from Sydney he'd met five years ago in Nepal. She came to UK to spend Christmas with him. We met her at the family gathering.

A great deal of my time has been taken up with my charity. (I am the chairman of Barrett's Wessex, a trustee of Barrett's Oesophagus Campaign and a committee member of Action Against Heartburn.) Earlier this year, the secretary, Lynne, and I travelled to Bath (again) to discuss the setting up of the Bath hub with the gastroenterologist. We have an agreement to get this started in March with other hubs in Bournemouth, Salisbury and Dorchester to follow. (And I have been helping set up London and Glasgow groups remotely.)

In October, we had a Steam Rally weekend at our treasurer's pub in the New Forest. Unfortunately not as many engines turned up as had been expected and the weather on Sunday was a washout, but there was also live music and we made over £1000 on the raffle.

At the AGM, we committed ourselves to raising £36,000 in three years for a special fine bore endoscope that can be used where strictures (possible first sign of cancer) would make using a standard endoscope dangerous.

We have had monthly drop ins at Ferndown and Southampton. We had a Christmas lunch and a street collection in a busy shopping precinct outside a big Sainsbury's during the week before Christmas.

Our big event next year will be a concert by an internationally known couple of classical crossover singers who are amongst my favourite groups. (I'm not allowed to say who they are until details have been finalised.) We shall probably be hiring the Ferneham Hall for a Saturday evening towards the end of next year.

Apart from local involvement, I have had the task of typesetting new leaflets for the national charity and finding and liaising with a good printer to produce them. Within Action Against Heartburn, I have provided feedback (including reviewing TV scripts) for a regional campaign to be launched in the North East by the Department of Health in February highlighting the risks of oesophageal cancer.

Whoever said you can take things easy and put your feet up when you retire?

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