I should have been getting ready to head to Spain & Portugal

It’s certainly true that none of us ever really know quite what’s round the corner – both literally and figuratively. It’s been a few weeks since I last posted on here.

In fact my last post was back at the end of June when I wrote about what turned out to be the last ride on my wonderful BMW RnineT.

What I would normally have expected to have posted about after that would probably have been another trip to Scotland or more likely a week or so in Ireland.

And then moving on to getting ready to head down to Plymouth for the best part of three weeks away and another Iberian adventure. Check this link for last years wonderful trip.

I won’t dwell too much on that

I won’t dwell too much on what happened on that day, it’s still a bit too difficult. Suffice it to say it wasn’t great.

The outcome included my bike being written off, me being hospitalised and needing surgery. It turned out I had a pretty traumatic fracture of the patella of my left knee.

Recovery and rehabilitation is difficult and the timescale for a decent recovery is not at all certain.

The road to recovery

It’s just coming up to 14 weeks since the accident and 13 weeks since the surgery and the road to recovery is a long one.

In all honesty the indications are that I won’t be getting the full functionality back of what I had when I left home that morning.

The screws that were used to mend the patella are holding up and the bones are mending well – but there’s some related recovery issues that are difficult and concerning for what lies ahead.

Had things been different

Had things been different I would have been leaving home and heading down to the Half Moon Inn in Mudford. It’s a decent stop over where I have stayed the last couple of years.

Then it would have been down to Plymouth for the Brittany Ferries sailing to Santander on the Sunday morning.

I’ve done that crossing quite a few times over the years and it’s always been pretty decent. It’s a little extra irritating as I had this years return crossing at a decent price of about £550 return and that included the first nights accommodation as well as the four berth Club Cabin booked for myself for both legs of the journey.

My route wasn’t entirely settled but …

Although my plans were not entirely settled it did include travelling through the Pico’s and staying in Chaves before moving on to Seia and Coimbra in Portugal.

After that I planned to head back into Spain and spend a few nights in El Bosque, a few nights down in Ronda and then sort of working my way back via Cazorla and Teruel before spending a couple of nights based in Jaca in northern Spain – before getting home almost three weeks after leaving.

But it is what it is

The saying of ‘it is what it is’ has maybe become one that I have used a great deal in the last few months.

I have to accept the situation and get on with the things that I can and just at the moment getting back on a bike isn’t an option.

But I know as much as I am accepting of the situation – come next weekend I’ll be checking if the sailing is on time, and I know I’ll be looking at the weather in the places I had hoped to ride.

Nothing is ever certain and for the next few weeks at least I think  ‘it is what it is’ may be replaced with ‘if only that hadn’t happened’.