25 May - Almondsbury

It is 3 weeks since my return.  Lovely to be home with Jessica and Daniel and to be on the receiving end of warm welcomes from numerous well-wishers  and, in the past few days, even enjoying warm weather. 

The homecoming event organised by The Leprosy Mission on 15 May was extremely enjoyable:  family (including my father who had come all the way from Cyprus), friends, work colleagues, MP, TLM supporters and staff (a couple coming 150 miles from Peterborough!), all gathered  at the top of the steps leading to the church under the lych gate upon which hung a welcome home banner.   Photos by the  Bristol Evening Post , which paper did a nicely-written article (thanks, Lynne) the following week:   front page headline and 2-page spread inside (just one thing:  the mountain range pic was in Iran, not Nepal).   My elder brother, Rick, filmed the proceedings, which should end up on my website at some point.

After the photo call,  a slow wend to the Old School Hall for the serious business of cake cutting and eating, pre-fixed by speeches from Bill, the local TLM guy, me, then Steve, who was my MP when I left, but who said now needed a passport to come into Almondsbury as a result of the boundaries having been moved. 

The cake was great fun:  decorated as a wheel, complete with valve - accurately depicting the thin ones as on my bike, not the more common fat, car-sized ones.  Surrounding the cake were loads of little cup cakes, each decorated with a different flag of the countries I had passed through on my travels!!

As well as all of the above, I was presented with a beautiful bouquet of flowers and was delighted to have a slide show projected onto a wall of the hall  with a selection of my trip pics.

I'd like to say a big thank you to The Leprosy Mission for the whole event;  as well as the generous coverage on their website;  also for the press releases they organised, from which I have spent my time these last couple of weeks being interviewed by various arms of the media who took up the cudgels of the story to give me my 15 minutes of fame.  As a result of the homecoming event and the media publicity I know that donations have been received by, and subscriptions set up for, TLM, which is heart-warming for me and makes everything worthwhile.

As for media coverage, I have put all the links I have (mostly found by googling in my name) on the Media page of this website.  I even made a national newspaper (3 inches in The Sun! page 23, 19 May) and a Dutch online article.  I shall also be in Woman's Own in the 14 June issue. Other media have included an interview on the Will Harvey Show on GLOSSFM (12 May), which I shall in due course be able to put on the website (no idea what it sounded like, but it was good fun doing it) and various Christian publications and radio (UCB - waiting to hear when this will be aired).  During the busiest time for media phone calls I came down with a bout of laryngitis for three days!  Pretty difficult to whisper loudly enough down the phone for the reporter to understand he didn't have the wrong number and was being subjected to a heavy-breather caller!

Whilst I was away the Community Shop down in the village opened its doors.  There has not been a shop in the village for about 8 years and so last year's opening of this wonderful addition to the life of the village is fantastic.  I worked it in last Saturday and have been walking to it most days since being back home.  It is vital to have such an amenity in any community, not only for the convenience of shopping locally, but for the social benefits that accompany such  spontaneous meeting places.

There is so much still that I could say, but shall give you a break for the time being.  Thanks for the numerous welcome home messages.  And additional apologies to all who sent emails to amdgloriam@cyclingfullcircle.com and have only now received a reply;  I had no idea people were emailing to this address, as I had created it solely to gain additional space on picasa for more photos and suddenly, when I just happened to go into the mailbox, there were a load of messages!  I was wondering why I had not heard from some of you!!

BTW, if anyone has any photos of my arrival home on the 2nd and/or of the homecoming  event on the 15th, please could I have e-copies to put on  my webite, cos , funnily enough, I didn't  get a chance to take many myself on those days!  :-)  Thanks.