my writing

Tag: Cycling

  • Return to La Balme: ‘Cycling the Green Meridian’, Day 20

    Day 20: Albi to Coupiac, 56 miles. Return to the hills. Our village revealed. The carved stone buried. Encounter in the café. The wild boy reconsidered. Our house. The one-armed man. The Virgin’s veil. The threshing-machine. Camping by the lake. Pot au feu with the young couple. I wake early. Today I will be at…

  • Return to Albi: Cycling the Green Meridian, Day 19.

    Day 19: Belcastel to Albi, 51miles. The first smile of the South. Dante and tripe. ‘Benveguda en Tarn’. Pink city. Crusade against Christians. A congregation facing hell. The great explorer lost. Diagonals of the Hexagon. The garden restaurant. Burger à point. It is another cold night and I hardly sleep. I’m up, packed and ready…

  • Cycling the Green Meridian: 7

    Day 7: St-Ouen to Fleury-Mérogis, 53 miles. The flea market. Reuniting two lovers. Suzanne’s grave. A hectic ride across Paris. Satie’s flat. The undertaker. Erik’s grave. Cultural tourism. Gabrielle. The bell not pressed. Depression in a metal cell. I eat breakfast in the bar. Bright sun outside, washed streets, deep shadows, few people. A bar…

  • Cycling the Green Meridian: 6

    Day 6: Villers-St-Sépulchre to St-Ouen, 46 miles. On the Move. The Jacquerie. The Republic and laïcité. Nerval. Chantilly. Questing Quixotes. Heat exhaustion. Madame le Maire. My guardian angel of St-Denis. Abbot Suger and the birth of Gothic. Class and race. Ricqlès in St-Ouen. I set off early, glad to be on the road. I slept…

  • Vincent and I: A lifelong passion.

    A 1) It begins here. I take a photograph of the small gravestone: ‘Vincent van Gogh, 1852’. It is by the door of the Dutch Reform church in Groot-Zundert, a few hundred yards from the house where he was born. When the film is developed, this frame alone is blank, consumed in an explosion of…