The first day that my help cycled alongside me, he was struggling a lot after the first hill; in fact on the first hill ( half a mile after we had started ) he was in trouble.

A week on and today we have a 20 mile round cycling trip to the nearest proper Portuguese town, and he evidently can’t wait to start. He’s gone from being nervous about the bike to loving it – all in a week. He hasn’t really had an awful lot of choice really, as to whether he cycles, and I guess there’s always been the option of just refusing to, but that one hasn’t cropped up. In a week his aerobic fitness has improved dramatically and his bike confidence has changed altogether. He started on a teenager’s bike and is now using my mountain bike, with proper gears, a lightweight frame, new cables and an efficient chainset. He is visibly slimmer and more healthy looking, and he says he sleeps much better. He’s also adopted my dietary habits, stopped eating bread and had as little alcohol as I have ie hardly anything.

Overall, I wonder who should be paying who for his trip to The Dawkins Healthfarm…..