My Midsummer Morning. Alastair Humphreys
and pitch blackness. Our journeys spanned the best part of a century. The gulf of Hiroshima, the moon landings, air travel and the internet separated our times. But the velvet contentment of well-earned rest beneath the stars bridged the gap and brought us together. Laurie was new to this outdoor life I loved. He took to it fondly. I read, ‘Out in the open country it grew dark quickly, and then there was nothing to do but sleep. As the sun went down, I’d turn into a field and curl up like a roosting bird, then wake in the morning soaked with dew, before the first farmer or the sun was up, and take to the road to get warm, through a smell of damp herbs, with the bent dawn moon still shining.’
I have a tradition before falling asleep on long journeys: I choose my favourite bit of the day, and what I am looking forward to tomorrow. This habit stems from gruelling times when the magnitude of an expedition felt crippling, and the loneliness magnified it. It helps me to fall asleep feeling optimistic, for the day’s last conscious thought to be positive before I surrender my brain to its unsupervised night of processing, filing and dreaming. There is always something good about each day, even if it is only the prospect of sleep. And tomorrow, too, will hold promise if I choose to see it, whether in a cup of tea, anticipating rest at day’s end, or the glory of reaching the furthest shores of a continent.
I ached, yawned and smiled: a sweet cocktail for sleep. I had earned this rest. As I do every night, I whispered goodnight to my family, using my wife and children’s nicknames. It brought a brief knot of sadness to my belly. The moon cast shadows over the field. It was peaceful on the fringes of the wood. Nobody knew I was there. Today, I had stood up in public, played the violin and passed my test. And I had walked. I had done everything the day asked of me. My journey had begun.
BY THE TIME I finished cycling the world I was skinny, skint and spent from four years of singular focus, ascetic living and tens of thousands of lonely miles. Soft beds hurt my back, social gatherings made me anxious, supermarket aisles looked impossibly decadent. Reflecting on this, it is not surprising that such an experience eroded and hardened me in ways that would take years to resolve, some of them only with writing this book. Your first adventure moulds you; everything after fits into the impression it made. But I was unaware of all this. I only knew that I was proud to have achieved something exceptional for the first time, relieved that it was over and happy to be back with Sarah.
I had loved Sarah for years before pedalling off in tears. I was sad to go but too restless to remain, convinced that there must be more in the world than I could find at home. Sarah didn’t want to come with me: a decent job and a hectic social life sounded better than banana sandwiches, a tiny tent and endless bloody cycling. After four years apart, I threw my frayed cycling clothes in the bin, put my penknife into the cutlery drawer and moved in with Sarah.
We were very different, but our worlds sat together comfortably. Sarah wore a suit, went out to work for a big firm of accountants and then came home to relax in her pyjamas with DIY and soppy TV shows that made her cry. Uncertain what my future held, I wrote my first book, sitting at home all day in my underpants. I gave talks at schools (fully dressed) and trained for a marathon. I needed Sarah’s cheerful confidence and competence, her poised assurance that life was mapped out and under control. I’m not sure what was in it for her. Sarah is not interested in the things I love: expeditions or books or exercise. Corporate tax is not my strong point. So we helped each other keep things in perspective. Opposites fit snugly in a jigsaw.
I was halfway through a 20-mile run on a cold autumn morning when I decided to ask Sarah to marry me, slipping and sliding along a muddy footpath by the Thames. Rain lashed my face. I love running in weather like this. As I ran, I imagined two routes in life. I was sorry I could not travel both. One was the open road, with all the world to explore, and the joys and struggles and lessons that would unfold. It was selfish, feral and solitary, but tempting as ever. The alternative was unknown: marriage, children, a different search for fulfilment. A family, and all our joys and struggles and lessons together. Without these connections, I feared I would become a rootless drifter.
A cracking story is not a life. Knowing how way leads on to way, I made my choice. I was still eager to explore the world, to keep pushing myself hard and to make the most of life. But I looked forward now to sharing that with Sarah.
I jumped into the river to confirm that I was thinking straight and hadn’t gone mad, then ran back home to ask Sarah if she would like us to spend the rest of our lives together.
‘I take thee, Sarah, to be my wedded wife … from this day forward, for better or for worse.’
‘With this ring, I thee wed.’
We left our wedding reception riding a red tandem – tricky for a bride in a long white dress – with fireworks bursting overhead. As our honeymoon plane curved its great circular route over the Arctic, Sarah slept, her head against my shoulder. Her blonde curls covered her face, and I gazed out of the window at the endless expanse of ice below.
My wife and I clinked bottles and sipped cold Big Wave beer in the Hawaiian sunshine. The sound of the ocean carried to us on the warm breeze. But that beguiling Arctic ice lingered in my mind. To my surprise, I sensed that my tide of post-cycling exhaustion had finally receded. Were those years of yearning for stillness and community being pushed aside again by the clamour of restlessness and ambition? Polar literature had always entranced me, and I pondered the enormity of Antarctica. Endeavour, endurance, discovery: could I hack it there? The prospect was both terrifying and thrilling.
I despised being a one-trick pony, that guy who had once done something interesting and never stops talking about it. I have had a fortunate life and the only challenges I’ve faced are those that I have set myself. My ego, and my desire to be acknowledged as a serious adventurer, demanded a new trip. I had become beguiled by the macho lure that bigger is better, that expeditions were a way of sorting the strong from the weak. (Laurie wasn’t immune to this either. Long after walking across Spain, he admitted that part of his motivation had been to show off to girlfriends.) I was, to borrow from Robert Macfarlane writing about mountaineers, ‘half in love with myself, and half in love with oblivion’.
Feeling a little guilty, I put down my beer bottle and sloped away from the poolside to email a friend.
Hi Ben,
Having a wonderful time in Hawaii – been out whale-watching and running this morning.
But I can’t stop thinking about my future expeditions. So I decided to write and ask in all seriousness if I can join your South Pole expedition? I am writing because I will regret it if I do not, but also because you know me well enough to be able to say ‘No!’ without embarrassment or worry …!
Look forward to chatting in the New Year when I get home. Hope you have a warm, sunny Christmas, like me,
Al
There were already three of us competing in this marriage: Sarah, me and adventure.
I STIRRED IN THE silent hues of dawn, shivering. Too cold to sleep, too cold to get up. I lay uncomfortably for a while before conceding that I would not fall back to sleep and the morning might as well begin. The hills of Galicia were colder than I had expected for the summertime. I stood, stretched and dressed. My sleeping bag was dew-damp as I stuffed it into the rucksack. Yawn, blink, pack, leave. Into the distinctive moist-earth smell of the early hours, the air raw in my nostrils. It was