SUSPENSION

Suspension!!!!

Struck down by illness.

Edith had got a severe cold whilst in Pescara waiting for the weather to clear. She went to a local doctor to get some relief for it and reacted violently to the prescription. She ended up in accident and emergency with severe difficulties breathing. She was like a hedgehog with a variety of needles being stuck into her. More frightening for her was a slowdown in cardiac activity. It was apparently touch and go. Gerard has been shaken by the experience.

Luckily she has now recovered from the crisis and is being flown back to England to recover properly.

I spoke to them both yesterday evening and they are determined to return to Pescara and complete the journey in the spring.

Let us wish them well and many congratulations on their effort, so far it has been magnificent!

Rest Days 2

Rest Days 2

Gerard and Edith are still stuck in Pescara. Still raining and cold. The locals say this has been an unprecedented spell of weather. Edith is suffering from a cold as well but improving.

They took a couple of day out to travel by coach across the Apennines (the central mountain range that goes down the leg of Italy to Rome. It’s only two and a half hours which shows you how narrow Italy is at that point. Rome in contrast to the east coast of the Italian Peninsula was warm and sunny....heyho!

They are now aiming to re-start Monday. Now a week behind. It’s a miracle really that they had not been delayed more considering the poor weather generally. The worst of it in the last week has been hearing how pleasant the weather has been in England!

REST DAYS

Rest Break

Due to the appalling weather and their injuries, Gerard an Edith have decided to take 3-4 days off and return to Pescara to continue the odyssey at the end of the week. The forecast is still dire for the next few days so it is prudent and sensible just to mark time. Both Peter and I fully encouraged this decision. This is not a sprint but a marathon and they must pace themselves.

Days 35 & 36 September 19th and 20th

Ancona-Ascoli-Pescara 100 miles

Two days of misery and cold and rain.....After their slog up the mountain to their hotel outside Ancona, Gerard and Edith got a lift down the steep mountains back onto their route along the coast. But it started raining again and has stayed like this for the two days via Ascoli to Pescara. It was around 12 Celsius all the way and heavy rain – look at the weather forecast for Bari in Italy on the BBC website and you will see how bad it is!!! Mean days of rainfall for September in this area is just over three days. They have had much more than that! The whole coast has emptied of tourists. This normally bustling coastline is funereal. At least the hotels seem pleased to see them.

Ascoli is like Miami on a bad day full of large hotels along the seafront, which are now empty. However, they did find a nice restaurant and a steak served by a charming Argentine – the steak probably came from there as well.

Saturday was Gerard’s birthday. It poured with rain again. The road was often flooded as the drainage system could not cope with the downpour. The sea was furious with white caps on all the waves. When they got to Pescara they went shopping for warm clothes as they had only bought ‘Mediterranean’ kit. So two pullovers and warm flannel pyjamas were purchased (there is no central heating in the hotels). All the locals were well wrapped up in furs and fleeces.

Always a silver lining, as Gerard and Edith celebrated his birthday with a Chinese dinner – oh the consolation of a good meal!!

Gerard thanks all those who called him to wish him a happy birthday.

Day 34 September 18th

Fano to Ancona 45 miles in 5 hours

They had pleasant weather and set off from Fano in good spirits. 48 miles went past in three hours along the Adriatic coast road. The only negative was a large number of lorries as this is the main route down to Bari and the crossing to Greece. The town of Ancona itself is not particularly inspiring.

On arrival they asked the way to the village on the outskirts of Ancona where they had booked a hotel which had been recommended to them by some friends in England who had been there. However, these friends had failed to grasp the fact that the intrepid duo were on a tandem and not in a car!! They set off in eager anticipation on rest and food. It was only 7 miles.........................It took them two hours of hard slog and tears up a vertical lane which twisted up a precipitous mountain. Their will nearly broke........But they made it. They sounded completed knackered when they called your blogging reporter. Hey ho!