Reflections on the UK: a two month break

I was surprised by the number of people who thought I might not be carrying on with the Bristol2Beijing expedition following my last blog post. Although I wrote I would only restart the ride if I felt excited to do so, I more or less expected that I would be excited to continue with the expedition after a break. I just wanted to give myself the permission to finish the ride if it didn’t feel like the right thing to do. 

After almost seven weeks (!!! How has it been that long?) in the UK, I am excited to fly back out to the route to Pakistan, and I will be landing in Islamabad in exactly one week. Thoughts on the next leg coming in my next blog post. 

How have the past two months in the UK been?

Keeping fit doing parkrun in the classic Bristol2Beijing pink and blue

It felt slightly surreal landing in Heathrow, with its purple and yellow signs, hearing English spoken all around, being reintroduced to British efficiency (1.5 hours at the baggage carousel) and then arriving at London Paddington, with its wide open concourse and sturdy vaulted ceiling, and the hot, baked, smell of the Tube, almost as familiar as my own house. Everything – the green GWR trains, the roads and houses we passed driving through Bristol, the Downs where I ran felt utterly familiar, and yet… it did not feel mine. I had been immersed in a completely different world, where I was accustomed to seeing new places, building and people every day. That had become my normal. 

And so, rather than being welcoming, it was alienating to hear English spoken around me all the time. It felt weird to chat with people effortlessly. It was bizarre to watch people eating fish and chips – our national dish – even though I had spent the last year trying the national dishes of twenty countries. I felt lost confronted with my old wardrobe stuffed with clothes – I had only needed two T-shirts over the previous year. 

Revisiting old haunts in Worcester College, Oxford

The feeling of strangeness took about a week to wear off, and I now feel very much part of the swing of life here – dodging traffic on my bike through London, working out of coffee shops (and being used to paying almost £3 for a coffee), and meeting friends that I haven’t seen for over a year.  It’s been wonderful to see so many friends, and nearly every day I’m seeing someone, though an hour or two hardly feels sufficient to catch up on a year of happenings. 

A particular highlight was inviting my university friends for dinner and designing several challenges to help with the “enjoyment” of each course. Soup was a race through a straw (note to self: best not done with scalding soup), and we fed Jess’s delicious lemon and raspberry cake to each other, blindfolded. The floor might have got more than we did. 

I have certainly enjoyed the anonymity of being in the UK and taking a break from frequently retelling my story – which is something that I love, but I now recognise that I need the time away from it to get the balance right for me. And though most questions I’m asked relate to the ride – if you’re interested, I reckon I might be on the road for one more year, and heading through Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar and China – it has been wonderful to hear what my friends have been doing: getting married, finishing PhDs, becoming reservists following and doing mini adventures. 

Perfecting the latte art

Being based in London has been tough in an unexpected way. Whilst I’ve been pottering around – running, practising my latte art, reading books and sending a few emails – I’ve been quite aware that all of my peers have “proper” jobs, with “proper” hours and a “proper” salary. And whilst I know I am incredibly lucky to be able to pursue my own project in my own way and in my own time, there is a little bit of guilt that, perhaps, I should be working a bit harder, and being a bit more professional in my own life. 

That said, all those cups of coffee have given plenty of time for reflection and recuperation, and I am excited to restart the ride with more focus and purpose. If you want to know more about my hopes and plans for the next leg, read my next blog post.