The Overland Event and Notes from India

Next Thursday I will fly to London (Easyjet permitting) to attend Paddy Tyson’s Overland Event, where I’ve been a fixture for many years. Of all the bikers’ meetings it has always seemed to me the friendliest and most relaxed, for many reasons – the wonderful site, the limited scale, Paddy’s obvious passion. There’s only one other I’m as fond of, and that’s the German one at Gieboldehousen – try saying that after a couple of pints – which is held, unfortunately, on the same dates.

But time, my time at any rate, marches on and I suspect that this year will probably be my last visit to Hill End, so if you were thinking of going, please come so that I can get a last look at you.

Like several million others I’ve been struggling through a heat wave for the last couple of weeks, and it sucked the life out of me. I find it difficult to keep up an optimistic view of life unless I’m able to do something even moderately physical, like fixing shelves or digging in a garden, and the heat just turned me into a flaccid and aimless heap.

As it happens I was also trying, at the same time, to make something of the notes I kept when I was riding through India. Of the four books of notes I kept, the notes on India were by far the most comprehensive, and I wrote in tiny script that is quite hard to read now.

It was very hot in India a lot of the time but I had no problem with the heat. The biggest difference, of course, was me then, weighing 130 pounds and me now at 180. But it’s not just the extra weight I’m lugging around – my entire system was adjusted to the conditions. How far humans can adjust to heat is obviously now the subject of countless studies, because the heat is coming. Probably, as with an epidemic, the heat will first pick off people with other problems, and overweight would be one of them, but I’ll probably get to my natural end before that becomes my achilles’ heel.

Those notes from India are a treasure house. I look forward to many hours this Autumn and winter disentangling them, and if you’re interested, you will benefit from my efforts right here. Let’s stay in touch.