Trying to reach our destination

Slowly it crawls deeper through every pore, exposing weakness in your defensive shield. You move, you feel it more, cold and unpleasant. It hurts, stinging your exposed legs. It has to stop, you urge it to stop, it doesn’t listen. Relentless.

Around you it blackens, harder now, even more incessant. But you are alive, every sinew striving for control, every movement felt, scanning, alert for danger. Try to keep your vision clear. You process countless information streams, make the changes, - survive.

This is hard, you know it can’t get much worse. There is no respite, no relaxation just the occasional burst through a bore hole in a mountain to provide some fleeting relief. You must keep your focus, fatigue could be fatal.

Other users, more fortunate than you, take their place obliquely in front of you, oblivious to the damage they inflict. Back away from them, keep safe, wipe it quickly away from in front of your eyes.

Rain, hard rain, heavy rain, crashing thunder and bright white lightening……………..four long hours, crowded motorway, dangerous.

We have ridden in gale force wind and rain before, but nothing like an Alpine summer storm. Its intensity and longevity coupled with a crowded motorway made it genuinely frightening. We arrived at our destination that evening, no sense of celebration, just relief, sheer bloody relief.