If you’re expecting the usual sex blogging here, you’ll be sorely disappointed. I wrote this because some people (like, literally about five) asked me if I was planning to blog about my recent bike trip across Europe, and although I’m not going to write a tonne of posts, I do love having the excuse to tell you the things that made it rock and the things I’d have done differently. Apart from anything else, it’s a fun opportunity to reflect on something I’m proud of and capture bits that I’d like to remember in years to come – I always tell other people to do this so maybe I should do it myself. But as I say it will only be of interest to about five of you, so consider yourself warned. I’m writing the advice part as if you want to do the exact same thing I did, but naturally your mileage may vary. Take what you want from this, ignore the bits you don’t, and please refrain from giving me advice because I haven’t asked for it. For me, part of the joy of doing this kind of thing is figuring it out on my own. I do this by seeking out other people’s blogs/videos/maps, taking what I need from those and discarding what I don’t. If you want to give advice to other cyclists, by all means do so, but please share it on a broadcast channel that anyone can read (like a quote post), rather than directing it at me in my comments. Anyway. If you want to do what I did (or something similar), here’s how to cycle from London to Budapest.

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I don’t know who needs to hear this, but some of you will so I’ll say it. That thing you’ve been itching to do for ages? You should do it on your own.

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I told this story briefly, while at the festival last year: ‘I sucked a dick at Glastonbury’, I tweeted, with undertones of ‘achievement unlocked.’ The response was a combination of welcome high fives and entirely unwelcome shame: eww, blow jobs? At a festival?! I hope you used wet wipes first! Some people are so weird. But to each their own. I don’t tell sex stories without knowing that sometimes I’ll press people’s shame buttons. Some people’s instinct to say ‘eww’ when they hear that some random slag got facefucked in a field in Somerset is as natural as my instinct to brag about it in the first place. I sucked a dick at Glastonbury last year. And as I pack my bag for this year, I’ve decided now’s the time to tell that story.

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I get these bursts of it, every now and then. Like a high. It swells upwards and outwards from the centre of my chest – rushing with a power that’s so much stronger than the first tingles of love. In the beginning, these rushes were so intense that sometimes they’d stop me in my tracks. Make it so I had to pause whatever I was doing and just breathe for a few seconds. In and out. Spine straight, shoulders back, slightly light-headed like you get when you stand up too quickly.

Freedom.

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When I was young – maybe ten or eleven – one of my Mum’s friends gave her an entire display box of Mars bars to say thanks for a favour she’d done. Incredible, right? In case you aren’t familiar with them, Mars bars are tasty sticks of nougat with a layer of chewy caramel on top, enrobed in delicious milk chocolate. And thanks to my Mum’s friend, our family now owned an entire box of them! What?!

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