Circumcycle greater London

Last week, I visited my aunt Maria in Abingdon, close to Oxford, in England. It was the perfect moment to go and see Maria, as I'm enjoying two weeks off in between jobs, and Merijn is doing part of her Ph.D. in the USA at the moment. Maria has been living abroad as long as I can remember. Last sixteen years (with some short intermezzi) she had been living with the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland, before she moved to Abingdon early this year. So I packed some clothes and a tent and set out on my bike for Oxford. In five days of cycling I circled greater London, from Harwich via Cambridge to Abingdon. Then, after a day's rest, on to Littlehampton and via Brighton, Hastings and Folkestone along the south coast to Dover's white cliffs. I enjoyed one evening on the shore of Dunkirk before the train took me back home. In those five days I hardly encountered any cyclists. Only the first day in Cambridge, a young Canadian living in Belfast, who hadn't made up his mind where to go yet, was touring the country by bicycle. I'd never really been to England before, but the fact that prejudices have good reason to be prejudices was confirmed very quickly. Here are several: one of the first cars I saw was the little red van of Postman Pete, delivering mail to the countryside estates, which lie hidden behind endless natural fencing along narrow, winding roads, going up and down and up and down. Short views through the openings often revealed perfectly manicured lawns. The English love short, green grass fields, and I, as a camper with a tent, appreciate that very much. The countryside wasn't the most spectacular, although there were plenty of nice stretches, through wooded areas and along the coast. I enjoyed the cliffs and hills between Brighton and Hastings a lot, as well as the whites near Folkestone and Dover. In Dunkirk I concluded that sea ferries are not designed for cyclists. Prior to departure, it took several kilometers through heavy truck traffic over endless port terrain in exhaust gasses to reach the bicycle parking spot in the belly of the boat. Then, arriving in Dunkirk, the same thing happened again. Among the trucks I winded my way to the exit of the port, following exit-signs indicating the direction to the highway only. A roundabout with an alternative branch was my escape, though slightly discomforting, as the brach headed into an enormous petrochemical industrial area. Fortunately, the single passer-by I asked for directions confirmed that I was indeed heading for the city of Dunkirk, "tout droit". It appeared that I had landed in the west port, which is seperated from the town centre by at least 12 km of heavy industrie. The latter is not really attractive terrain for a holiday cyclist looking for a campsite. The stay with Maria and her partner Trish in Abingdon was very nice. They're both involved in alternative, spiritual healing. Maria has a lot of experience with that and is now trying to set up her own business in Abingdon. She does energy healing therapy, based on a particular spiritual theory. To me it seems quite practical. People come to her with physical complaints (back-aches) and she is trying to find out if there's a hidden mental stress source that might cause the pain. That physical complaints can be related to mental stresses is not really alternative, I think. The spiritual theory seems to provide the healer with a practical (black-box?) model or checklist to ask the right questions and find out what it is that disturbs the patient. The rituals around it, like aromae or touching, I see as means to create an atmosphere of openness, making it easier for the patient to speak out what really bothers him/her, which are likely to be things that are emberassing to say measured by the existing social framework. I think healers like Maria, who take the time to go to the core of your stress, can be very important catalysts for many people to change their uncomfortable situation. I hope she'll manage to help many people in and around Abingdon.