Hertstrain

I felt much better when morning hit. My parents made a speedy exit, possibly to escape the company of an invalid. I loaded up with dry toast and spare pants and headed towards Stevenage where a friend who lives overseas has ended up in hospital after experiencing psychosis on a visit to the UK. I took my bike to help get from A to B at the Stevenage end, which was a critical mistake.

We met up over tapas as she's allowed out of hospital for three hours per day, although I only drank cola which people say is good for the stomach. Incredibly interesting to hear her experiences in the NHS mental health system, having previously had no such issues and being well equipped to cope with it compared to some people who must find themselves in this situation. Without being tapped into things like meditation to process difficult events and without supportive or understanding friends and families, people must find themselves cycling repeatedly through the mental health system with little chance of recovery.

Less heavy-handed approaches are needed in mental health hospitals. Why would it be necessary to switch the lights on in all patients' rooms each hour through the night? Exhaustion and sleep prevention aren't going to aid recovery and stability. Why would a nurse shake someone meditating peacefully to screech, 'are you meditating?' The system is so frightened of being accused of wrongdoing that it treats all patients equally harshly, lest anyone be left alone in the night and then be found to have self-harmed or worse. The majority are not a self-harming risk, so to introduce mini traumas to their fragile states, such as by bathing them in light at 3am, disadvantages them massively over time.

After parting my guts felt stable, because all I'd ingested was cola. I took a pootle to the next town, Welwyn Garden City. In retrospect Hertfordshire is hilly and not suitable cycling terrain for someone who the day before had been scrunched over a toilet. I was having constant flashbacks to the three London-Cambridge charity cycles I've done in the past, dressed as a gorilla. The routes passed through back lane Herts, and it was surprising to remember the jiggliness of the terrain, after flat Cambridgeshire.

By early evening I found myself on Welwyn station platform, loathed by passengers on a packed train, as travellers with bikes usually are. I couldn't fit then found out the remaining trains to Cambridge were cancelled. I pedalled back to Stevenage and it was a similar story of cancellations for the following three hours. I should have been prepared for this given the carnage in the rail system and the sheer incompetence of its leadership.

By this time it was around 9pm and I was faced with one option, as a northerner never contemplates paying for a taxi for a short distance, let alone Stevenage to Cambridge. I started the cycle home, which seemed logical at the time. Avoiding dual carriageways and other dangerous roads, it was a solitary but beautiful and haunting cycle through dark deserted roads, with more wildlife for company than cars. Deer silhouettes watched from behind hedges, rabbits skittered across the road and owls hooted from the shadows.

Sunday evenings the population of Hertfordshire is not bombing around the lanes, which is useful as my bike lights didn't last long. By the time I reached Royston, 12 miles from Cambridge, I was desperate for food, which is available nowhere in rural England on a Sunday night. All that could occupy my mind was whether Royston station would have a vending machine. Trains resumed from 11.45pm, so I abandoned my bike and waited lest I would be on the platform incurring wrath by trying to squeeze onto a packed train. No food or drink was available except I almost stole and glugged one of the milk bottles that had already been delivered for the station coffee shop's morning rush. I resisted and had a semi-conscious stumble from Cambridge station to home once I finally arrived back.

Epic, ridiculous day. Glad to have seen my friend in Stevenage, but not wise to exert so much energy when ill with food poisoning. Bike abandoned in Royston and needing to be retrieved.