Grenen 2023

 What to say?  

For me, this has been the trip that might never happen. It’s been planned since 2019 as the second half of that tour but hasn’t been possible since then. Between 2019 and 2023 some pretty momentous things have happened. You’ll have noticed the pandemic but there’s also been my injuries, my partner’s health and a big house move which has bought with it joyous changes in my day-to-day life. We even got a cat. 

Throughout it all I’ve had cycling to Grenen in the back of my mind. I knew I’d have to be gentler with myself than before. I’m not as fit, I didn’t train as much and frankly, I’m more in the mood for a holiday than a boot camp. I also recover a bit slower than in the old days. 

To be honest, at 45 I’m sliding happily into the second half of my life and see this trip as part of that. I’m hitting middle age hard - prone to injury, loving crafts, becoming increasingly interested in gardening and with less tolerance of nonsense. I haven’t been this happy for years. And some of those years have been hard. I’ve lost myself a little but this trip has helped me remember me. 

So with all that in mind I was maybe a bit reluctant yesterday to get on my bike to do that last 3km. I did jobs. Had a nap. But at 3pm I felt ready. I set off the short distance to the very tip of Denmark where the seas meet. 

As I wandered along the beach I worried it would be too crowded, a let down.  I worried I’d invested some sort of magical thinking into this moment and it would never live up to that hope. 

Luckily it was ok. What looked like a queue for the end of the sand bar was just two little groups. Those willing to paddle and those wearing inappropriate clothes.  I made my way to the tip of the beach and stepped into the waves. Feet in both seas. 

I walked from one sea to the other. Dodged a jellyfish. Marvelled at how the Baltic shore was covered in stones and shells, the North Sea sands bare. Around me people chattered but it didn’t feel overcrowded. I had my moment. I had a good think and made a few promises to myself and then I made my way back. 

Wandering along the sands I picked up stones - looking for the right one to remind me of this. Then I found a tiny almost perfectly circular piece of rock. Something little to remember reaching a long held goal, making things happen and never quite giving up.